Dahntay Jones goes from NBA Champion to green real estate developer

For many NBA players, deciding what to do once their playing days are over is a difficult proposition. After spending the majority of their youth focused on the sport, and the entirety of their adult life playing professionally, finding their way in a world apart from basketball can be tricky. Though this is true for many, it is apparently not an issue for longtime NBA player Dahntay Jones who now, two years removed from his last NBA appearance with the Cavaliers, is entering the world of real estate, partnering with Pearl Homes as Managing Partner and Vice President in the hopes of building homes that are both environmentally friendly and affordable.

Jones and the CEO of Pearl Homes, Marshall Gobuty, have a nearly two-decade relationship, starting with their meeting at IMG Academy in Florida where Jones was training. In the years since, Gobuty — the winner of the 2018 LEED Visionary Award in recognition of his leadership in the world of green real estate — remained a fixture in Jones’ life, finally reaching out to him as he was about to sign with the Cavaliers to speak about Pearl Homes. Jones believed in the idea immediately, and they began to talk further about the product, what could make it stand out, and who they wanted it to be available for. Jones knew that he wanted to help build affordable homes that people can be proud of, “rather than being a boutique thing for people who can afford a second home or a vacation home,” he told The Step Back in a recent phone interview.

Despite playing in the NBA for over a decade, Jones is quick to assert his business credentials, having studied public policy at Duke, while also earning a minor in business. As his career wound down, Jones took business courses provided by the NBA and NBPA, before enrolling in Harvard’s Crossover Into Business program, specially created for professional athletes. Other NBA players who have participated in the program include Spencer Dinwiddie, Chris Bosh, and Caron Butler. For Jones, it was an awesome experience, “just helping me build this scheme of business,” while also learning what skills and knowledge he already had that could then be applied to the world of business.

While Jones does not see himself as an activist, he nevertheless has a passion to help people. While he had already developed a desire to work in real estate before connecting with Marshall about Pearl Homes, he knew that he wanted “to have a bigger impact socially rather than just providing a product or a service. I wanted to impact people’s lives.” For three years he owned a medical clinic in Brooklyn in the hopes of providing healthcare to an underserved community which reinforced this desire to do something similar upon entering the world of real estate. “I was wracking my brain trying to create that model… that sufficed that need to be able to help an enormous amount of people have a home that is affordable, number one, so they’re not stretching their budges to try to live in something that is outside of their means. But not only that, but have the ability to help the environment.”

Building Smart Homes is a natural progression of sorts for Jones, whose wife also works in the tech world as an executive at Google. It was her who initially introduced Jones to Google products by buying him a Google Home, which then evolved to him, “trying to expand on the Google products throughout our home… The next step was to find something to communicate with my Google Home so I went to the next product and I found a doorbell and the doorbell turned into cameras and now my home is all one functioning unit.”

Jones was quickly won over by the Google products and is encouraged by the possibility of children growing up with access to these products, as he was witnessed his own children use Google Home to “learn about their place in the world, to learn different facts.” After receiving his own Google products, he told Gobuty about his love for the products and it quickly became clear that it would make perfect sense to build homes that are both environmentally friendly and infused with technology.

Jones is also happy to reflect on his career and the role he played in the Cavaliers’ infamous comeback from a 3-1 deficit to defeat the Golden State Warriors in the 2016 Finals. While Jones only played one game with the Cavaliers in the regular season, he played fifteen games with them in the playoffs, including six in the Finals. Yet, despite being a new acquisition, adjustment came easily to him as he had pre-established relationships with a number of Cavaliers players and coaches, as well as a sense of what it was he wanted to achieve with the team.

“When I came on the team, I knew my role… and my goal was to make the team better and to use my influence and how hard I worked to keep pushing the team and provide a set of leadership that was different from what we already had.” In addition to providing veteran leadership, and helping to ensure that his teammates were “prepared at all points in time,” Jones also helped by working with his teammates by informing them what to expect from different defenders they would face in upcoming match-ups. “I had a set of knowledge and a set of skills that was helpful, and I just had people who were receptive to what I had to say.”

With the Cavaliers down 3-1, he says their resolve to come back spoke to “the cohesiveness of the unit from one to fifteen” and the leadership showcased by LeBron James, Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving and coach Tyronn Lue. “We knew if we executed our gameplan, nothing but success would come from it… those guys were super optimistic that the were going to get it done, [that] we were going to win if we just followed their lead.” And looking back, it’s the people Jones got to play with and the relationships that he formed over the course of his career — with players such as Paul George, Dirk Nowitzki, Pau Gasol, Jason Williams, and LeBron James among others — that stand out to him along with winning the 2016 Championship.

“Playing with a lot of different personalities and a lot of great people, learning how to interact and deal with personalities, different people, trying to get the best out of people — that has been the best part about basketball for me.”