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Los Angeles Lakers ahead LeBron James (23) prepares to shoot a foul shot towards the Minnesota Timberwolves at Crypto.com Enviornment on October 22, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.
Gina Ferazzi | Los Angeles Occasions | Getty Photographs
A brand new bombshell indictment criminally charging former NBA participant Damon Jones means that whereas affiliated with the Los Angeles Lakers, Jones leaked details about the damage standing of celebrity LeBron James to sports activities bettors earlier than a February 2023 sport.
James shouldn’t be accused of wrongdoing within the federal indictment, which alleges that Jones, 49, and others defrauded betting firms.
Jones and James beforehand performed collectively on the Cleveland Cavaliers. Jones was performing as an unofficial coach for the Lakers on the time of the February 2023 sport in Los Angeles that’s talked about within the indictment.
A James spokesman declined to remark to CNBC.
The indictment refers to an unidentified Participant 3.
The doc says that Jones “was a teammate and coach of a outstanding participant,” who was Participant 3.
The indictment says that Jones, on the morning of a Feb. 9 sport between the Lakers and the Milwaukee Bucks “despatched a textual content message to Co-Conspirator 9, writing: ‘Get an enormous guess on Milwaukee tonight earlier than the knowledge is out! [Player 3] is out tonight. Guess sufficient so Djones can eat … now!”
Coach Damon Jones appears on in the course of the sport in the course of the 2025 G League Elite Camp on Might 11, 2025 at Windtrust Enviornment in Chicago, Illinois.
Jeff Haynes | Nationwide Basketball Affiliation | Getty Photographs
“On the time Jones offered this private details about Participant 3 to Co-Conspirator 9, Participant 3 was not dominated out on the NBA’s damage report for the” sport, the indictment says.
James later sat out that Feb. 9 sport with a lower-body damage, to his ankle
The indictment says, “Attributable to a decrease physique damage, Participant 3 didn’t play within the February 9 Sport.”
The one different lively Laker participant to sit down out that sport with an damage was Scotty Pippen Jr., who didn’t have a lower-body damage. Pippen was within the concussion protocol for the sport.
Milwaukee defeated the Lakers in that sport by a rating of 115 to 106.
The Bucks went into the sport as a favourite by a median of 8 factors, in accordance with varied odds websites.
An individual acquainted with James’ scenario stated James didn’t know his data could be used for betting.
— Extra reporting by CNBC’s Jessica Golden
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