Heat guard Terry Rozier remains under federal investigation for suspicious gambling behavior during his time with the Hornets, his attorney confirmed to Front Office Sports. 

The news was first reported by longtime NBA insider Chris Haynes after ESPN’s Shams Charania caused confusion during a June appearance on The Pat McAfee Show by saying Rozier “as of right now has been cleared,” and “there’s nothing really active with him right now.” Charania also said during the appearance that an NBA spokesperson had issued a statement the day before saying the league was cooperating with federal prosecutors: “This is a federal matter now,” Charania said.

Following Charania’s comments, it was widely reported that Rozier was off the hook for betting-related allegations. But that’s not the case. Rozier was embroiled in two separate but related investigations, one from the NBA and another from the U.S. District Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. A person familiar with the matter tells FOS that Charania was referring to the NBA’s investigation. 

In January, NBA spokesperson Mike Bass said the league “did not find a violation of NBA rules” through its investigation into Rozier, although he added “we are now aware of an investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York related to this matter and have been cooperating with that investigation.”

Rozier’s attorney, Jim Trusty, told FOS in an email that if and when Rozier is cleared in the federal probe, it’s unlikely even Rozier himself will be informed: “Federal investigations can take years to complete, and the government rarely lets the subject of an investigation know whether or not they have been cleared of allegations of wrongdoing.”

Trusty also said “to date, Mr. Rozier has not been charged with any crimes, nor has he been characterized by prosecutors as a target.” He added that the NBA cleared Rozier in 2023, “and we hope and expect that the prosecutors in EDNY will reach the same conclusion this year.”

Rozier’s current status comes weeks after Pistons guard Malik Beasley became the third-known player to be tied to a gambling investigation. Beasley is under investigation by the Eastern District of New York—the same office involved in the Rozier probe—for gambling allegations related to NBA games and prop bets during the 2023–24 season when he played for the Bucks. Former Raptor Jontay Porter was banned for life by the NBA in April 2024 after he “disclosed confidential information about his own health status” to a bettor who then used the information to gamble on Porter’s play. 

Status With the Heat

After The Wall Street Journal first reported Rozier was under federal investigation on Jan. 30 for alleged point shaving related to games when he was with the Hornets, he played the next game for the Heat against the Spurs. 

“His status is still the same,” head coach Erik Spoelstra said the day after news of the investigation broke.

The NBA has not taken any action against Rozier, and the league declined to comment further than what Bass had said in January.

Rozier is set to earn $26.6 million next season with the Heat in the final year of a four-year, $96 million contract he signed with the Hornets in 2021. Rozier has yet to be waived, released, or traded since it was reported he was under investigation. He is eligible to play for the Heat for the time being.

Link to Other Investigations? 

NBA commissioner Adam Silver was asked about the investigations into Rozier and Beasley on Tuesday after meeting with the league’s Board of Governors and said the NBA is cooperating with federal authorities. 

“I think we’re combining a few different investigations,” Silver said. “I would say any ongoing law enforcement efforts we are, of course, cooperating with and those investigators have resources at their disposal that a league office doesn’t when we do investigations, so we’re cooperating in every way.”

The investigations of Porter, Beasley, and Rozier have all been undertaken by the Eastern District of New York. Porter was charged, while Beasley and Rozier have not been. Rozier’s and Porter’s cases appear to be linked, according to the WSJ, but it’s yet to be confirmed if Beasley’s is too, or if it’s separate. 

Silver was one of the biggest early advocates to legalize sports gambling and on Tuesday he reiterated that it was the right decision, but expressed frustration that sports betting hasn’t been made legal on the national level (sports betting is legal in 38 states). 

“What we’re seeing now in some of the investigations you’re referencing is operational data, which causes in many cases, betting companies or independent agencies who are overseeing this betting activity to raise flags and say, ‘What’s happening here?’” Silver said. “I think the issue is if you didn’t have that legalized structure, what would otherwise be going on that went undetected?”

DENVER—Imagine Communications has announced that it is deepening its commitment to the North American sports and live events market with investments in its product portfolio and in its staff.

As part of that effort, it has promoted of Jimbo Haneklau to vice president of sales, sports and live events and the hired of Sophee Mink to the newly established position of business solution associate, sports and live events.

OPPO is introducing the Watch X2 Mini, a compact wearable device that integrates continuous health monitoring and professional-grade fitness tracking. The device will be available in Latin America, Asia-Pacific, the European Union, the Middle East and Africa. It will be launched in Mexico at MX$6,199 (US$330.6).

“The OPPO Watch X2 Mini brings intelligent wellness tracking to a smaller form factor without compromising capability,” says the company. OPPO is positioning the device as both a consumer fitness product and a personal health management tool. It supports over 100 exercise modes and offers biometric monitoring features intended to provide early indicators of physical and emotional stress.

Equipped with 24-hour heart rate and blood oxygen monitoring, the device applies proprietary algorithms to deliver continuous data collection and risk assessment. A multidimensional sleep monitoring system tracks rest quality, and analyzes respiratory patterns to flag potential disruptions, contributing to early detection efforts in sleep-related conditions. The device includes a new “Mind and Body Evaluation” that aggregates HRV, resting heart rate, activity level, and sleep metrics to present an overview of emotional and physical fatigue.

The Watch X2 Mini also integrates features typically associated with clinical-grade wearables, such as fall detection (configurable manually) and menstrual cycle tracking. These functions support user-led health management in daily environments, with visual feedback provided through customizable animated watch faces designed to encourage behavioral change.

OPPO has expanded its data capabilities with a Pro Running Mode that tracks running form metrics — such as ground contact time, stride length, and lateral balance — used in physiotherapy and sports science. A new Fat Burn Evaluation tool enables users to maintain real-time heart rate within optimal zones for weight loss, a function aligned with evidence-based training practices.

The hardware architecture uses dual chipsets — Snapdragon® W5 and BES2800BP — to toggle between Wear OS and a power-saving RTOS mode, extending battery life up to 60 hours in standard usage. Fast charging via Watch VOOC Flash Charging provides a full day of use after 10 minutes of charging.

Additional integrations include Google Wallet for contactless payments, Google Maps for real-time navigation, and YouTube Music for offline playback. The device is also expected to support Gemini, Google’s generative AI assistant, in future updates—suggesting deeper potential for personalized health insights.

LEXINGTON — The NFHS has announced a new three-year corporate partnership with Game Day Signals as the Official and Exclusive Baseball and Softball Coach-to-Catcher Electronic Communication Device Partner of the NFHS.

This partnership marks a significant milestone in enhancing communication, reducing sign-stealing, and streamlining game flow for high school baseball and softball programs across the country. Game Day Signals’ cutting-edge wearable technology allows coaches to send pitch calls and strategy instructions directly to catchers using an encrypted, wireless communication system—replacing traditional hand signals with a faster, more secure method.

“We are excited to partner with Game Day Signals, a recognized leader in the electronic communication system industry, to enhance the communication tools available to our high school baseball and softball programs across the country and further our commitment to equipping coaches and teams with the latest game-enhancing equipment,” said Chief Executive Officer Karissa Niehoff. “This partnership represents an important step forward in empowering teams with innovative solutions that streamline in-game communication.”

“This collaboration marks a significant milestone in our shared commitment to equipping coaches and teams with cutting-edge tools to enhance in-game communication,” said Erica Beers, President & CEO of GameDay Signals. “We have always viewed the NFHS as an ideal partner, and we couldn’t be more excited to join forces with them. This partnership reinforces our mutual dedication to innovation and the continued evolution of coaching strategies.”

Game Day Signals’ easy-to-use system has already been embraced by teams nationwide for its simplicity, reliability and ability to reduce confusion on the field. The NFHS partnership will help bring this innovation to more high school teams while reinforcing best practices for communication and sportsmanship.

A new type of deal has swept through Silicon Valley in the past year or so, driven by the AI boom and antitrust limitations.

I call these transactions “acquihires on steroids,” and they have some of the unsavory flavor of steroid use in sports. If you’re a Big Tech company, you can’t do big acquisitions as easily anymore because of antitrust scrutiny. So, instead, you pay handsomely to hire the top talent and license the technology, leaving the remaining business and employees to soldier on alone.

Crucially, Big Tech is not technically acquiring these startups, so the deals are not subject to the same antitrust rules. Depending on who you ask, the attorneys who devised this way to avoid the spirit of US law should either be awarded a Nobel Prize for business or imprisoned.

Remains of the prey

I’m not here to judge that. I’m focusing on what happens to the remains of these startups — and why the latest example, Windsurf, differs from the rest of these big, gnarly acquihires.

OpenAI planned to buy Windsurf for $3 billion. The deal fell apart, and instead, Google paid $2.4 billion to hire Windsurf cofounder Varun Mohan and other senior researchers and purchase a Windsurf license.

For a day or so, it looked like the remaining Windsurf business and staff would be cast to the wind, so to speak. Similar acquihires of Inflection, Character.ai, and Scale AI have left the remains of those startups floundering. For instance, an unprofitable Scale AI cut hundreds of jobs this week after Meta hired away its CEO, Alexandr Wang, in a $14 billion deal.

A different outcome for Windsurf

Windsurf’s story took a different turn. Another AI startup, Cognition, quickly snapped up the Windsurf remnants. Why? The answer relates to one of the main ingredients for success in generative AI: data.

You need AI talent, for sure. This is the main reason Google paid so much for a handful of Windsurf leaders and researchers. You also need infrastructure, including GPUs, data centers, and huge amounts of electricity. Tech giants spend hundreds of billions on that.

The third ingredient, data, is less talked about. That’s because AI companies don’t want to pay for data, so they pretend it’s not that important. Yet data is crucial for AI model development, and it’s a real reason the remains of Windsurf were bought so swiftly.

The IDEs of July

Windsurf’s main product is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE). IDEs are coding tools installed on developers’ computers — a bit like PowerPoint for writing software. They have become the go-to interface between professional programmers and their code.

When Cognition CEO Scott Wu announced the Windsurf deal this week, he described the main assets he’s getting — and put Windsurf’s IDE at the top of the list. He wrote that combining that product with the “rapid adoption” of its AI software engineering assistant, Devin, will be a “massive unlock.”

Windsurf CEO Jeff Wang highlighted the same point, saying the combination of Congition’s autonomous coding agents with Windsurf’s IDE will lead to “breakthrough developer experiences.”

Unique, granular data model fine-tuning

IDEs are valuable in AI because they provide a massive stream of unique, granular data on how human developers write, fix, ship, and update software code, said Armando Solar-Lezama, a distinguished professor of computing at MIT.

“This is why you’re seeing so much dealmaking activity around some of these startups,” he told me in an interview this week.

Big Tech and AI companies aim to make AI models really good at coding. Solar-Lezama said that one way to stand out is to use the data from IDEs in the post-training phase of AI model development.

At a high level, building AI models involves two main stages:

The first is pretraining, where tech companies vacuum up all the data on the internet and use it in huge training runs so the models learn a general understanding of how the world works. Everyone has already stripmined the web for this information, so there’s not much advantage to be gained here in the AI race anymore. It’s table stakes.

Then comes the second stage, known as post-training, that fine-tunes AI models and polishes away bad behavior while giving them their distinctive style. This is where things differ from company to company, and you get custom, proprietary approaches, Solar-Lezama said.

“All these companies, once they have exhausted all the data on the internet, there’s no second internet to mine for data. They are all hunting for alternative data sources,” he said. “One of the big advantages of IDE companies like Cursor and Windsurf — they have access to a rich stream of data that some AI model providers don’t get to see directly.”

An IDE provider like Windsurf can see every keystroke and every time programmers run their code, as well as how they run it and how they debug it, through the IDEs installed on developers’ computers.

“This provides unique access to a lot of information about what people are doing with their code, versus just what they might enter into the prompt box of a more simple coding website — that’s a lot less,” Solar-Lezama said.

The big AI companies often provide the underlying models that power IDE products. For instance, Anthropic models mostly power Windsurf’s IDE. However, these AI labs may have access to less detailed coding data.

“IDEs have a level of granularity that’s impossible to get any other way,” Solar-Lezama said.

Sign up for BI’s Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@busienssinsider.com.

Advance Sports, an executive search, talent strategy and HR consulting firm launched by former Comcast Spectacor executive Pete Powell last year, is joining Phoenix Sports Partners’ portfolio of companies upon Phoenix acquiring Ventnor Ventures, an early backer of Advance and the firm’s controlling shareholder. Powell is Advance’s only full-time employee and will, along with contractors, transition to Phoenix post-acquisition. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Pre-acquisition, the Chicago-based Phoenix was Advance’s biggest client, including Advance placing Phoenix portfolio company LeagueSpot’s COO. Phoenix’s portfolio, which focuses on early-stage youth sports and sports technology companies, also includes football tackling analytics firm Atavus, visual training platform Vizual Edge and mobile concession-ordering platform FanFood.