Who is Damon Jones, the former NBA player charged with sharing LeBron injury secrets?

No one was sure what to really call him.

Damon Jones wasn’t a player, but he was in card games with Los Angeles Lakers players in the front of the team plane. Jones wasn’t a coach, but he’d wear the team-issued gear and fire passes to LeBron James inside the arena hours before tip-off. He wasn’t in coaches’ meetings, but he was on the Lakers team bus and back in the locker room.

“He was kinda just around,” said one team source who, like all sources in this story, was granted anonymity so they could speak freely.

But the star player’s friend, who was given special access because of his relationship with James during the 2022-23 season, is now ensnared in a federal gambling probe that led to multiple arrests on Thursday, including of Jones, Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier.

Jones, 49, of Houston, who did not return messages seeking comment, is charged in separate, ongoing federal cases. One, for his alleged participation with Billups in a scheme with alleged mafia members to defraud poker players. And two — with potentially far more serious implications for the NBA — for providing bettors advanced, private information about James and other Lakers’ players’ availability for games on which Jones’ associates would place bets and pay him for his information.

James, a source close to him told The Athletic, was unaware that someone he considered a friend was tipping information about him and the Lakers to gamblers, and a second source close to James called it “unfortunate” that Jones allegedly traded on the access James gave him.

The story of Jones’ last 10 years in the NBA is just like that — made possible by James and necessary for Jones to try and make back a small slice of the NBA fortune he’d earned as a player, then lost.

During the 2022-23 season, Jones wasn’t on Lakers coach Darvin Ham’s staff. Instead, he was mostly around James, which also meant he was often around the team. He’d help rebound in drills but never had any actual responsibility within the organization. He didn’t participate in planning or strategy sessions.

He had a level of access to the team not typically afforded to a non-staff member, the types of privileges teams occasionally extend to people in their star players’ orbits.

While Jones’ role with the Lakers was undefined in an official sense, unofficially, everyone around the team knew that Jones was there to be around James, his friend and former teammate.

“It was a weird deal,” one team source told The Athletic. “We really enjoyed being around him because he’s a really funny dude. He’s a great storyteller. But he was never a part of the staff.”

“He was a vibes guy,” another team source said in describing Jones as someone well-stocked with outlandish stories, good cigars and plenty of time on his hands.

Jones was also, according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday in New York, using his Lakers access to make some cash on the side.

Jones, according to federal prosecutors, found out on the morning of Feb. 9, 2023, that “Player 3” would not play in the Lakers’ game against the Milwaukee Bucks that night and told an unnamed co-conspirator to place a “big bet” on the Bucks because he was out. “Player 3” had not been named on the team’s injury report yet but would miss the game. James, who two days prior became the NBA’s all-time scoring champ, scoring 38 points against Oklahoma City to pass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar atop the league’s career scoring list, did not play against the Bucks. He was the only regular Lakers’ starter who didn’t play.

Jones wasn’t around the team in an official or unofficial capacity the following season, though it allegedly didn’t stop him from trying to capitalize on insider information.

Jones also shared information on another top Lakers player the following season, the indictment said, ahead of a game on Jan. 15, 2024, after he learned from a trainer that the player was hurt and his minutes or performance would be affected.

Marves Fairley, another defendant, allegedly bet $100,000 against the Lakers for this game, and the injury report simply said that the player was probable. The Lakers, however, won the game, and the player played to form and Fairley asked Jones to repay him the $2,500 he was paid for the information, according to the indictment.

Lakers star forward Anthony Davis, though not mentioned by name in the charges against Jones, was on the team injury report for that game, listed as “probable” with an ankle injury. He scored 27 points with 15 rebounds in the Lakers’ triumph.

Damon Jones, left, battles Chauncey Billups in a March 2008 game between the Cavs and Pistons. Now both former players have been indicted by the federal government as part of an illegal gambling investigation. (Nathaniel S. Butler / NBAE via Getty Images)

Born and raised in Galveston, Texas, a gulf community about an hour from Houston, Jones played his college ball for the Houston Cougars. Undrafted in 1997, Jones’ professional career began in the now-defunct International Basketball Association with the Black Hills Posse, a team playing in Rapid City, S.D. He graduated to the Continental Basketball Association, where he earned a spot on the CBA’s All-League First Team. He had part-time success the following two years in the NBA, where he played for the New Jersey Nets, Boston Celtics, Golden State Warriors and Dallas Mavericks.

He spent the next four years trying to find an NBA home with stints in Vancouver, Detroit, Sacramento and Milwaukee, finally breaking through with the Bucks. He played one year (2004-05) in Miami with Shaquille O’Neal and Dwyane Wade, before joining James the following season in Cleveland – where he spent the longest stretch in one place for his whole career.

His biggest shot in Cleveland, though, has gambling undertones. Jones came off the bench cold to hit a 3 in overtime to win the Cavaliers a first-round series against the Washington Wizards in 2006. Gilbert Arenas, who was charged in July for his participation in an illegal poker ring, explained in multiple interviews that James told him “if you miss these free throws, you know who’s going to win it” before Arenas missed two at the line late in overtime.

James, Arenas told Shannon Sharpe in a 2023 podcast interview, was talking about Jones, who had been gambling and losing to Arenas in card games throughout the series.

“He was horrible at cards,” Arenas said to Sharpe. “He owed me money. Every time we played them, I always used to scream out, ‘The Landlord is here. The Landlord needs his rent money.’”

Arenas said he attacked Jones so often in the series that the Cavaliers didn’t even play him in that critical sixth game. So when James whispered to him at the line, “I knew what he was talking about and I think the thought went into my head, ‘They really going to put Damon Jones in?’”

Gilbert remembers what LeBron told him before missing 2 clutch free throws in 2006 Playoffs

“LeBron whispered: ‘If you miss these free throws, you know who’s going to win it.’ When he said that, everybody assumed it was going to be LeBron, but I knew what he was talking about.” pic.twitter.com/k2oiVUB6TM

— Club Shay Shay (@ClubShayShay) December 11, 2020

Jones stayed with the Cavaliers through the 2008 season, appearing in all four games of the 2007 finals loss to the Spurs. He played in only 18 games the next season in Milwaukee before his NBA playing career ended.

Jones spent a year playing in Italy, something he said later was “a real waste.” He signed on with Pro Sports Marketing Ventures & Promotions in 2013 for a two-week tour of U.S. military bases in Afghanistan, but he was sued for breach of contract after he backed out of the trip. The lawsuit was dismissed four months later, according to Texas federal court records.

All told, Jones earned nearly $22 million in salary as an NBA player. But, according to numerous league sources who know Jones, and to public records, he lost most of his fortune. Jones held expensive tastes, desired the fancy cars, clothes and houses typically reserved for his wealthier, All-Star teammates like James and O’Neal. He loved to play cards, too, again, betting above his means against teammates who could better afford it if the pot went away from them at the table.

Jones tried, twice, to file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in Texas, in 2013 and again in 2015, but both cases were “dismissed,” which means creditors could continue pursuing the debts he owed.

In between Jones’ two bankruptcy cases, James announced in the summer of 2014 that he would leave Miami and return to the Cavs. Not in the announcement, but nevertheless true, James was bringing his friend, Jones, with him back to Cleveland, but not as a player.

Jones wanted to get into NBA coaching, but to do so, he needed the help of another friend.

Before James decided to return to Cleveland, the Cavs had already hired a new coach, a man respected internationally but with no NBA experience.

David Blatt, a Harvard graduate who had won numerous titles coaching overseas, was an out-of-the-box hire to guide a young Cleveland roster with Kyrie Irving as its centerpiece.

To be clear, Blatt was not Jones’ friend. In fact, Blatt had already filled out his coaching staff by the time Jones arrived with James in September 2014. It was Blatt’s lead assistant, however, with whom Jones had already established a strong, longtime friendship.

To provide a backstop for Blatt’s NBA naivete, the Cavs had hired former NBA player and Celtics and LA Clippers assistant coach Tyronn Lue to be Blatt’s right-hand man. Lue is someone Jones commonly referred to as “my best friend.”

That first year in Cleveland, 2014-15, with Blatt as coach, Lue as top assistant and James as the star player, Jones was around the team at training camp, working with James much the same way he would years later on the Lakers. He was considered a “shooting consultant” who could, theoretically, work with any player either on the Cavs or in the G League. Jones joked to a team source, “They asked me for my résumé. I went out on the floor and made 8 of 10. I said, ‘There’s your (expletive) résumé).’”

Jones begrudgingly accepted a role as an assistant for Cleveland’s G League affiliate, about an hour south of Cleveland in Canton, Ohio, the following season. Lue succeeded Blatt as head coach in January 2016 and led the Cavs to an NBA title; Jones was back working with the Cavs by the playoffs. In September 2016, Lue promoted Jones to his staff on the Cavs. He coached Cleveland’s summer-league roster in Las Vegas in 2017 and acknowledged then that he had gotten the opportunities in Cleveland because of James and Lue.

“One thing I’ve done, I’ve matured. I’m way more humble than I was,” Jones said to The Athletic at the time. “When you go through things, when you go through situations and you come through them, you learn through those steps. Nobody wants a guy talking about himself all the time. Nobody wants to be around that type of guy. Now I’m just plain old Damon Jones that’s behind the bench for the Cavs and trying to get to my fourth straight finals.”

As he would be in Los Angeles, Jones was, for the most part, well-liked by most of Cleveland’s players and personnel. It was clear Jones was tied to James, which carries weight in any locker room. His love of card games was known amongst the Cavs — he would play them on team planes — and his constant banter wasn’t always well received.

“I don’t know if there is anybody who likes to listen to his own voice more than Damon Jones,” Kevin Love told The Athletic in 2018.

In March 2018, Jones made news for the wrong reason. The Cavs’ assistant got into a verbal altercation with player J.R. Smith, who threw a bowl of tortilla soup at Jones in irritation.

The following fall, with James gone to Los Angeles via free agency and the Cavs off to an 0-6 record, Cleveland fired Lue as coach, as well as a few of his assistants. Jones was among the coaches dismissed.

In 2022, he found himself back around James and back inside an NBA locker room.

As the team built chemistry throughout the season, the group adopted a 3-point celebration that many people assumed was modeled after D’Angelo Russell’s “ice in my veins.” But according to the Los Angeles Times, as players like James, Davis, Dennis Schröder and Austin Reaves extended their arms to the ground after drilling a 3, it wasn’t an homage to Russell.

It was a reference to Jones sweeping up a pot at the team’s card games. After winning a hand, Jones would pretend like he was whipping out a badge.

“Freeze!” he’d say. “Miami Vice!”

And then Damon Jones would sweep up the cash.

The Athletic’s Jason Lloyd contributed to this story.