Jontay Porter, banned from the NBA, says he considered suicide

Jontay Porter, who was banned from the NBA for life in April 2024 over a betting scandal, revealed that he hit rock bottom after the ban and considered suicide. Speaking to The New Yorker, Porter said his faith and his unborn son are what kept him alive.

Porter said he went to a shooting range several times in those dark days to clear his head. He said that at one point, when not even his wife knew, he pressed a gun to his head and cried, saying, "I can't do this anymore." He said he thought his wife would leave him and that he did not want to live. Porter said the only things keeping him in this world were his faith in God and his unborn son.

Jontay, the brother of Brooklyn Nets star Michael Porter Jr., was accused of deliberately leaving games to leak confidential health information to bettors and to influence bets on his own statistics. According to the report, Porter's day trading, online casinos and sports betting absorbed an estimated $500 million over his lifetime.

Porter played 37 games in the NBA and now continues his basketball career with the Seattle SuperHawks of the USBL.