Read the two federal indictments that involve Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, and you’ll find that the biggest name in them—his—is mentioned the fewest number of times, or nearly so.

Only one of the indictments names Billups, 49, as a defendant: the one describing rigged poker games put on by 31 alleged co-conspirators, many of them connected to New York mafiosi. The NBA star’s name is mentioned just twice in the indictment’s narrative and places him only at an unspecified number of games in Las Vegas. He is named in just two of the seven counts.

The other indictment, describing a point-shaving conspiracy, doesn’t name Billups as a defendant. But the description of one of the co-conspirators—an Oregon resident who played in the NBA from 1997 to 2014 and has coached si

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