SEATTLE — Jontay Porter, who is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to faking injuries so a group of moronic associates could cash massive prop bets, had a triple-double in a win over the Lilac City (Spokane) Legends, a team laden with overweight players and receding hairlines, in his return to professional basketball on Saturday night.
At least that’s what the Associated Press wrote (more or less). And I might have, too, had I been allowed to watch the game live. I tried to cover the game but wasn’t afforded the chance. I was asked to leave prior to tipoff, simply due to the nature of the outlet for which I was covering the game.
Porter plays for the Seattle SuperHawks of the USBL. Or maybe it’s the Super Hawks. Or maybe it’s the Superhawks. If you look at the team’s website, it’s spelled all three ways. The team’s schedule did not appear online until last week. Its roster is still not available, though it was on paper at the game. I didn’t get a chance to grab a sheet in my 10 minutes in the Division II gym of Seattle Pacific University, where the SuperHawks and their San Diego Chicken-like mascot perform.
The UBSL is an eight-team pro spring basketball league not affiliated with the NBA. Teams are exclusively located on the West Coast, and this version of the league (motto: “The Land of Opportunity”) will play from now until May 31. It does not appear that there will be a postseason.
The SuperHawks are coached by the oddball tandem of NBA legend Gary Payton (associate coach) and Robert Pack (actual head coach), a journeyman guard who bears the distinction of being the leading scorer for the Denver Nuggets when they pulled off what was, at that time, the biggest first-round upset in NBA playoff history. The team they beat was Payton’s Seattle SuperSonics. Pack absolutely owned Payton in that game. Pack, therefore, is a curious choice to coach a pro team in Seattle, and why Payton is cool with his subservient role is anyone’s guess.
I wanted to ask Pack and Payton about this dynamic. I never got the chance.
At first, I was welcome, kind of
After a delicious pregame meal of secret-recipe chili and a grilled-cheese sandwich at Mike’s Chili Parlor, my photographer and I drove to Royal Brougham Pavilion, where we were greeted very kindly with press passes from SuperHawks co-owner and President Jacqueline Yang. Pack was near the concession stand off to the right. The whole scene was so small-time and folksy, he could have been scooping the popcorn himself.
We walked inside the gym, one side of which was completely devoid of spectators. There were a few tall guys milling about, one of whom turned out to be another SuperHawks co-owner, Pierre Crockrell.
Crockrell swiftly noticed my photog and me and came up to introduce himself. He asked who we were and we said we were media. He asked what outlet we were with and I said InGame, something I’d clearly communicated in my successful attempt to secure a press credential.
Crockrell asked me what sort of outlet InGame was. I told him it covered the industry of sports betting. Crockrell’s tone turned low-key apoplectic.
“You know what we’re going through, right? With Jontay? If I knew about this, you wouldn’t be here,” he said.
Let the record show that nobody forced the Seattle SuperHawks/Super Hawks/Superhawks to sign Jontay Porter. (Or give me a credential, for that matter.) I’m not going to say they signed Porter as a publicity stunt because, by the USBL’s standards, Porter is Wilt Chamberlain. I’d sign him, too, especially considering that he’s home grown — I’ve admired his versatile on-court game since I first watched him play alongside his brother, Michael, at Nathan Hale High School, which was walking distance from my childhood home. Michael is a 2023 NBA champion with the Denver Nuggets, and now plays for the Brooklyn Nets.
We took our seats on the side of the gym where fans were allowed. Judging from a USBL replay of the game, there were maybe a couple hundred fans there by tipoff, and the atmosphere could be generously described as comatose. Thirty miles to the south, the Rainier Beach Vikings were in the process of winning the state boys’ high school basketball championship. Jamal Crawford’s son plays for Rainier Beach, and former Washington Huskies star Nate Robinson played there, too. Suffice to say, that atmosphere was far from comatose.
A few minutes after taking our seats, we were approached by SuperHawks/Super Hawks/Superhawks General Manager J.R. Harris, a former agent who represented NBA players like Doug Christie, Uncle Cliff Robinson, and Yinka Dare. Harris asked us why we were covering the game. I replied, “Jontay.”
“He needs to play, you know,” said Harris.
“Sure. I get it,” I replied.
And then I definitely was not
Things seemed cool as Harris walked away. Then I got a phone call. It was the SuperHawks’ public relations representative calling from Southern California. When I was talking to Crockrell, he seemed to use the fact that his PR person was in Southern California as an excuse for why I was let into the gym.
The PR person told me the photographer and I had to leave the gym. It was obvious we weren’t going to be able to ask any questions at the postgame press conference, so I asked if we could just stay and watch the game, as I was genuinely interested to see what kind of shape Porter was in after a nearly two-year legal odyssey that kept him off the court. I also wanted to ask him how his recovery from gambling addiction was going. Porter didn’t just leave games early and share that information with bettors in early 2024. Court documents also revealed that he needed “to get out of gambling debt.”
The PR person called me back and told me that the decision remained the same — I had to leave. I felt bad for her. It occurred to me that it’s a very Seattle thing to be confronted by two large men who could have asked me to leave, only to have that instruction come via phone from a dainty blonde woman a couple of states south.
I’m not sure what the SuperHawks’ passive-aggressive brass expected when they signed Porter. I wanted to ask them that. I wanted to ask if they were concerned that Porter would get heckled during road games. I wanted to ask several things, but was not permitted to by an operation that’s exactly as bush league as you’d presume it to be. Especially considering this was the framing of the team’s own website following Porter’s debut:
I also wanted to ask Porter what his basketball goals are at this point in his life. He will never again play in the NBA, as the league banned him outright in April 2024. He wanted to play in Greece, but a judge in July 2024 said no. Once he’s sentenced, he’s expected to serve some four years. Maybe. The sentencing keeps getting pushed back, and there is currently no sentencing date.
I’ll say this from my 10 minutes in the gym and from watching the replay: Porter did not look like a man on the brink of incarceration. Rather, in warmups and after the game, he looked as calm and carefree as a chirping bird.
