BASKETBALL
Tiago Splitter becomes Brazil’s first-ever NBA head coach
Tiago Splitter: thrown into the fire a day after the Portland Trail Blazers' season started. Photo: IG/@tiagosplitter
It’s a historic moment for Brazilian basketball — but it comes during one of the NBA’s most chaotic weeks in decades.
On Thursday, the Portland Trail Blazers named Tiago Splitter, 40, interim head coach after Chauncey Billups was arrested in Oregon in connection with an FBI investigation into illegal gambling and rigged poker games tied to mafia families in New York. Billups, a Hall of Fame inductee last year, has been suspended by the league pending the outcome of the probe.
Federal US law enforcement charged at least 31 people, including…
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