Who is Damon Jones? The former NBA player linked to the mob

Between all the chaos and uncertainty, Damon Jones has become the unlikely face of a scandal that has shaken the NBA to its core. The former player turned coach has been accused of playing a key role in a criminal network connecting America’s top basketball league to the mafia. In fact, Jones appears in both intertwined investigations – the rigged poker games that lured celebrities into fraudulent matches, and the match-fixing ring that profited from inside information.

Among the 31 people arrested across 11 states – including 13 with direct ties to organized crime – three were allegedly involved in both plots. Jones is the only one with an NBA connection. He has been charged with taking part in the poker scam and leaking insider details to manipulate betting outcomes. The most serious accusation stems from an incident in 2023, when he was LeBron James’s shooting coach. Jones reportedly told associates that the Lakers star would sit out a game against the Milwaukee Bucks, encouraging them to bet on the Wisconsin team. Neither LeBron nor the Lakers have commented publicly, and neither is currently implicated in the case.

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From player to coach – and suspect

But who is Damon Jones? Unlike Chauncey Billups, whose name surfaced in the poker scheme, Jones was never a household star. Billups, of course, is well known – not just as head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, but as the 2004 NBA Finals MVP who led the Detroit Pistons to victory over the Lakers. Terry Rozier, also linked to the scandal, lacks Billups’s pedigree but has carved out a solid decade-long NBA career, from Boston to Charlotte and most recently Miami, where he allegedly took part in the 2023 betting operation. Both Rozier and Jones have been banned from the league and are currently free on bail awaiting trial – one that could redefine the NBA’s credibility for years to come.

A journeyman’s path through basketball

Jones, now 50, has spent a lifetime hovering around the league’s edges. A 6’3” guard out of the University of Houston, he went undrafted in 1997 and bounced through minor leagues – Black Hills Posse, Jacksonville Barracudas, Idaho Stampede – before landing short stints with the Nets, Celtics and Warriors in 1999 after the NBA’s lockout. From there, he hopped from team to team: the Mavericks, Grizzlies (then in Vancouver), Pistons, Kings and Bucks.

His breakout moment came during the 2004–05 season with the Miami Heat, alongside Shaquille O’Neal and a young Dwyane Wade. Jones played all 82 games – starting 66 – and averaged 11.6 points while shooting over 43% from three-point range, an impressive feat for that era. He stayed hot in the playoffs, averaging 12.1 points and hitting 7-of-9 from deep in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, where Miami ultimately fell to Detroit in seven games.

The following year, the Heat won their first title under Pat Riley, though Jones had already moved on – to Cleveland, and to LeBron. His sharpshooting earned him a five-year, $16 million deal with the Cavaliers, with whom he reached the 2007 Finals, though with reduced minutes. After a final NBA stint with Milwaukee in 2008, he drifted back into minor leagues and retired in 2012.

Following LeBron – until everything unraveled

Post-retirement, Jones transitioned to coaching, joining Tyronn Lue’s staff in Cleveland from 2016 to 2018. He reunited with LeBron James once more in Los Angeles as a shooting coach – a position that placed him at the heart of the alleged betting network.

Now, his legacy lies in ruins. A man who once navigated the NBA’s locker rooms is instead accused of navigating its underworld – caught between poker tables, point spreads, and criminal networks. For the NBA, the silence may not last much longer.

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