We all cheered on when it was announced in August that Belizean Milton Palacio had catapulted himself into an assistant coaching slot with the NBA's Portland Trailblazers.
For Palacio, who'd led Belize to a gold in the CARICOM games in 1998, and then went unto a successful career as a professional player at the NBA level and in Europe, it was a jump to that next level, and he hoped the first step towards a head coaching position in the biggest basketball league in the world. Here's what he told us in August when he had just been hired by Portland's new coach Chauncey Billups:
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"Do you some day dream or aspire to be an NBA head coach?"
Milton Palacio, Asst. Coach, Portland Trail Blazers
"Definitely, I would love to. I think that was the biggest conversation myself and Chauncey had, he said listen, you are going to be developmental coach, you are going to be assistant coach, I want to groom you to be next."
But, things have taken a sharp wrong turn - and, for the time being at least, Palacio has been derailed from that career track.
On Thursday he was one of 18 former NBA players indicted in an insurance fraud scheme. The allegation is that the alleged fraud was executed from 2017 to 2020, and totaled roughly $4 million in false claims. Out of that money, the accused allegedly received about $2.5 million in reimbursements. How it worked is that former players would present fake medical invoices that they could then submit for reimbursement from the league's health and wellness benefit plan. The players face a count of conspiracy to commit health care and wire fraud, along with aggravated identity theft - which are federal offences.
And with that news, came the announcement yesterday from the Portland Trailblazers saying, quote,"Palacio has been placed on administrative leave by the organization, pending further notice. The federal investigation of the Trail Blazers organization and we will have no further comment pending the outcome of the legal process."
We did reach out to Palacio for comment but up to newstime, there had been no response.
