Been a great two weeks, finished college thursday and signed with @BDA_Sports this week...looking forward to what the next chapter holds!

March 20, 2011 10:08 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@Mpayne11

Mark Payne

It truly is unclear what the future holds.  He will probably become more of a shooting guard than a point guard, looking to take shots instead of create opportunities for his teammates.  I am sure that a lot of scouts will be looking at what he does at the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, which kicks off play this Wednesday.

Mark Payne Hires BDA Sports For Representation from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

Basketball agents have been on the grounds of several universities for quite some time, and may have even been recruiting certain players well before they entered their current institutions of higher education.  Lately, we have been running a feature titled, Agent Selection Scenarios, where we look at schools who have made it to the NCAA Tournament, their former players who have professional experience, the agents they chose to represent them in contractual relations, and current players at the school who may be drafted in 2011.  Sometimes we make a prediction as to the agents that the players might be considering.

One agent who has success year after year is Bill Duffy of BDA Sports.  I have heard of a few players that BDA Sports has been focusing on in the 2011 Draft, putting great emphasis on recruiting these gentlemen.  Names like Klay Thompson of Washington State, Nikola Vucevic of Southern California, and JaJuan Johnson of Purdue are prospects that I hear are at the top of the radar.  But I am also hearing that BDA Sports is in the mix for BYU standout Jimmer Fredette, Georgia’s Trey Thompkins, and is also in the races to represent Marcus Morris and Markieff Morris from Kansas.  Rumors have also surfaced that BDA Sports is seeking (and may be in the lead) to represent future lottery pick, Derrick Williams of Arizona, but that Rob Pelinka of Landmark Sports Agency and Bob Myers of Wasserman Media Group are competitors.

Bill Duffy has proven his capacity to be an excellent negotiator for his clients over the years.  However, last year Duffy only represented one player who was picked in the first round of the Draft.  That would be a major win for most agents, but certainly was not the norm for Duffy, who represented 6 first rounders in 2009, including the #2 overall pick, Hasheem Thabeet.  Did the OJ Mayo scandal have anything to do with that?  Will his 2011 Draft class look more like his 2010 class or his killer 2009 class?

Looking at the partial list above, Duffy casts his recruiting net far and wide.  The only concern is that it gets difficult when one has to manage so many talented players at the same time.  I suppose it is a good problem to have, but if Duffy already has Klay Thompson, Nikola Vucevic, and JaJuan Johnson “locked up”, will his company also have the time to represent all of the other talented players listed above?

Recruiting For the 2011 NBA Draft Is Heating Up from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

The Jayhawks are the deepest team in the country, by far, and they even reinstated starting guard Tyshawn Taylor. Not that they really needed him, because the Jayhawks have four or five players they can put in his spot and not miss a beat. They also have a powerful inside game with the Morris brothers, Marcus and Markieff, they’re active on both ends of the floor, and they’re an experienced group who have meshed well with their younger counterparts. They also have an x-factor in freshman Josh Selby who may be the most talented player on the team, and if he gets hot, the Jayhawks should roll through their bracket.

The Blue Devils are looking to defend their title by including more of an inside presence with their deadly outside shooting. Mason and Miles Plumlee are a poor man’s version of the Morris brothers, but they can bang inside. They also have a national Player of the Year candidate in guard Nolan Smith, who has taken over the reins from preseason All-American Kyle Singler, and the forward is starting to come around. It’s a shame that freshman sensation Kyrie Irving is hurt, but Seth Curry has stepped in and fill his role coming off the bench for the Blue Devils, who have the experience of last year’s championship run to fall back on. That experience makes up for any lack of talent that Duke lost from last season.

Jayhawks, Blue Devils Should Top List Of Favorites For Good Reason from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

College sports has a handful of core problems: “One and done,” academics, commercialism, gambling and agents. When someone does something wrong or a scandal breaks, we put the klieg lights on the people and the problems. The NCAA has made agents the issue de jour. Rachel Newman Baker, NCAA’s head of agent, gambling and amateurism activities, told ESPN.com: “People are just kind of tired of it. They’re fed up, and our membership feels very strongly about agents and wants us to aggressively pursue agent issues.” Alabama football coach Nick Saban also fanned the flames when he equated unscrupulous agents to pimps.

Some believe agents and their runners are the bane of college athletics. The case many coaches and athletic administrators make against agents is impressive:

• They pay players, their families, and anyone else who might influence players to sign with them.
• They have no regard for NCAA rules.
• They don’t care about players’ welfare, especially their education.
• They influence high-school players in their recruitment.
• They operate outside the law.
• They all cheat, even the so-called super agents.
• They give bad advice when it comes to leaving school.
• They have no integrity.

(Of course, many of the same things could be said about some college coaches.)

Not surprisingly, NCAA and its members have stepped up its efforts to combat the “agent problem.” On the flipside, we should not lose sight of the fact that agents play a vital function in protecting the interests of their clients. Of course, the focus is on the bad apples, which spoil the whole batch – and give credence to those who want to demonize agents.

The mounting frustration is understandable, but the finger pointing ends up clouding the real issues. Like a lot of things in college athletics, the real world is far different than the lofty ideals and the news releases.

Athletic departments are adopting protocol about agents contacting their athletes that is far more restrictive than NCAA rules.

Here is a snippet from an athletic department regarding its agent policy:

“Athletes … will be instructed not to give out phone numbers or addresses. All mail should be directed to the athlete in care of the interview coordinator. Athlete agents shall make no phone calls to athlete until completion of final game of senior year.”

Another school goes a step further:

“All correspondence from athlete agents should be sent in duplicate. The original will be given to the student-athlete, and the other will be kept in the Compliance Office in the athlete agent’s file. (School) will not provide the addresses or telephone numbers of student-athletes. Furthermore, we request all agents and advisors to refrain from telephone contacts and face-to-face encounters with student-athletes, or their parents and relatives until the student-athlete has exhausted his or her NCAA eligibility.”

The fact is, schools cannot effectively police unethical agents. Such restrictions can have the unintended effect of driving unsavory agent activities further underground.

So, what is the solution? Solving the agent problem is similar to the pursuit of peace in the Middle East (without the actual bloodshed, of course). Factions are so entrenched that reasonable compromise becomes impossible.

There is a current proposal to ease up agent restrictions. No one is suggesting agents should be allowed to pay college athletes, but they should be allowed to provide them competent counsel.

Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe agrees: “Let agents have contracts with players and the schools. Those clauses would have a liquidated damages clause, where it would cost the agent $1 million or $2 million if they did anything that made the player ineligible … The ethical guys will come out of it in better shape by putting sunshine on this. You’ll promote the agents who want to do it the right way.” There’s definite merit to Beebe’s proposal.

On the other hand, two college basketball coaches I greatly respect point out the potential downside of embracing agents. Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim calls it “about as bad an idea that I can think of off the top of my head. It’s putting the wolves in the sheep’s den.” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski believes that if the NCAA goes down this path, agents will get involved “even earlier. If you open that door even a little …”

Others think the NCAA and athletic departments need to batten down the hatches. Until the NCAA membership institutes new rules, the NCAA will continue its aggressive approach, monitoring the activities of high-profile players like never before. We definitely don’t need additional NCAA agent rules, especially with the problems the NCAA has enforcing existing rules.

My suggestions:

1. Allow athletes to get the counsel they need. Elite college athletes should absolutely be allowed to consult with informed experts about their prospects. These experts are called agents. Good agents are well-positioned to properly advise amateur athletes about the market realities.
2. Improve the message to athletes. I totally support NCAA rules prohibiting athletes from accepting benefits from agents. When I speak with college athletes, I say, hypothetically, if tomorrow the NCAA said agents could pay players, I would absolutely argue that agents are the last people on earth athletes should be taking money from. Even if the NCAA never finds out that an athlete violated a rule, accepting “gifts” makes them beholden to an unethical and quite possibly incompetent agent. These arrangements always come with strings attached, which can be far more costly in the long run.
3. Improve education. College athletics needs to do a better job preparing athletes for the business of pro sports. Agent education should involve more than scaring them about the dangers of associating with unscrupulous characters. It should be about helping athletes (and their families, too) understand the roles agents and others play in helping athletes. Until we all do a better job helping athletes understand the connection between whatever rules exist and why it is in their best interest to follow the rules, we’re never going to get in front of the problem. I devoted an entire book to the topic of preparing athletes to succeed in the business. Along with my business partner, Ryan Nece, who played seven seasons in the NFL, we work with athletic departments to prepare student-athletes and their families for success in sports, business and life.

Sports Agents = The Issue de Jour from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

We got lost in the craziness.  Every day, there was news of another school under the magnifying glass, but we forgot to ask a few questions in each circumstance:

1. Why are the rules there in the first place?
2. Why are these particular players and schools unreasonably being singled out when this type of activity is commonplace across collegiate athletics?
3. Why are we only focusing on the sport of football?

Let’s focus on #3 in this post.  Many of my colleagues would agree that football has its problems.  The barrier to entry is high, especially if you want to play against the people who have financial backing and are willing to spend.  But many of those same people would also say that recruiting in basketball is just as dirty, if not worse.  Here are Pat Forde’s words:

It’s not just a football epidemic. It’s even worse — a pandemic, really — in men’s basketball.

Part of the problem is that in basketball, there are less players who truly stand out from the pack and are NBA ready (even though every person who has picked up a basketball thinks he can go toe-to-toe with Carmello Anthony).  The other factor is that there are less spots on an NBA team and more wealth accumulated by those who actually make it on the roster.  Usually, when the reward increases, people will take more risks.  Sometimes that means ignoring NCAA, state, and federal rules and regulations.

Instead of waiting for the media to start truly inspecting the sport of basketball the way it recently did with football, my hope is that the NCAA and other regulatory bodies will be proactive and begin to start looking into college basketball programs without any unnecessary prodding.  The writing is already on the wall.  Dana O’Neil of ESPN.com recently asked aloud – What’s wrong with college basketball? When she asked 20 high-profile head coaches, What is the biggest problem facing college basketball?, with 100% consensus the answer was: agents and runners.  And I don’t think it’s because coaches naturally hate agents.  In fact, most of them hire a non-agent attorney, at a minimum, to negotiate and structure their contracts.

When there is no paper trail, the agents who are violating rules are hard to catch.  And just because some might be violating the rules/laws, doesn’t make them stupid.  Here’s the kicker:

All but three coaches thought the NCAA was at least trying to get a handle on the problems of college basketball. The catch? No one thought it could succeed.

The coaches pointed to a variety of reasons, including too few NCAA investigators, conflicts of interest, and the need to hire more competent men investigators.  Not many people have faith that the current NCAA’s Agent, Gambling and Amateurism Activities staff has what it takes to enforce the rules that the body has created and modified over the years.  And I put almost no trust that there is any chance that the NCAA allows student-athletes to sign agency contracts with athlete agents.  Dan Beebe would like those contracts to have mandatory liquidated damages clauses where it would cost the agent $1 million or $2 million if they did anything that made the player ineligible.  Slight problem – the NCAA would have to first have all states and the federal government alter their laws to allow any type of student-athlete agency contract, because while the NCAA rules may permit those contracts in the future, most states and the federal government still have laws that deem such activity illegal and punishable.  And how exactly will the liquidated damages clauses become mandatory?  The NCAA doesn’t have subpoena power.  Now all of a sudden it has the power to tell two contracting parties that they must include a $1 million+ liquidated damages clause?

The answer is not getting rid of the NCAA’s rules.  The answer is to continue educating athletes, ramp up enforcement of existing rules and laws, and modify the current state/federal/nothing hybrid into a comprehensive federal program.  Believe me, most agents will be happy with stronger penalties that are actually slapped on the agents who ignore the law if it means that they will only have to submit one licensing filing fee instead of having to navigate the disgustingly unstructured system of state licensing that currently exists.

Athlete Agent Enforcement Thus Far, And Where To Go From Here from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

2010 NBA Mock Draft 2.0 (First Round) from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

Since the end of this past college basketball season, the biggest draft question did not focus on whether someone would keep his name in the draft pool.  Instead, it was on who the future #1 overall pick, John Wall, would select as his representation leading up to the draft.  That person will pick up the obligation of trying to sign Wall to a team over the assigned slot value ($4,286,900 for the #1 overall pick this year) and find Wall endorsement deals, including the always popular shoe deal.  I had heard many rumors about who John Wall would sign with.  I heard that CAA and Leon Rose had the best chance at locking him up (Leon’s close connection to Coach Cal wasn’t enough), but that Happy Walters was a darkhorse, who might have had an inside track at Wall.  Neither ended up signing him.  Instead, it was announced yesterday that Wall has chosen Dan Fegan, who recently joined the basketball team at BEST (Blue Equity Sports Television), which has been rumored to be in the process of being bought out by a French company called Lagardère.  Fegan and BEST will handle Wall’s team contract and also co-represent him with another agency for marketing purposes.

Fegan already has quite a list of clients.  His clients include, Nene, Nick Calathes, Matt Carroll, Earl Clark, Juan Dixon, Melvin Ely, Reggie Evans, Drew Gooden, Zendon Hamilton, Al Harrington, Jarvis Hayes, Jrue Holiday, Kris Humphries, Yi Jianlian, Dermarr Johnson, Coby Karl, Matthew Knight, Shawn Marion, Troy Murphy, Eduardo Najera, Ruben Patterson, Jason Richardson, Ricky Rubio, Joe Smith, Jason Terry, Anderson Varejao, Von Wafer, Earl Watson, and now, John Wall.  A Fegan celebration would be a fun gathering to attend.

When you think of the current most prominent basketball agents, you probably think of Arn Tellem, Leon Rose, Dan Fegan, Bill Duffy, Jeff Schwartz, and Rob Pelinka.  But in what order?  Does the signing of John Wall change where Fegan ranks?

John Wall Signs With Dan Fegan And BEST from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

Yesterday, I discussed a phrase that is regularly used around this time every single year – testing the waters.  But testing the waters is not right for everyone.  In fact, college basketball players who know that they definitely will not be returning to school should not test the waters.  It only delays the inevitable, and has the potential of allowing the player’s name to slip on some draft lists.

While not every player from this past year’s extremely talented University of Kentucky basketball team has made a decision on whether to stay or leave to play professionally, DeMarcus Cousins has made a decision – he will be going pro.  DraftExpress.com currently has Cousins being drafted third overall to the Detroit Pistons.  With that type of draft grade, you might assume that he signed with a big name like WMG, BDA, CAA, or BEST.  But that is not the case.

Cousins selection = John Greig.  Longtime readers of SportsAgentBlog.com will remember the name.  Greig is the owner of SportsTalent (which does not have a working website – c’mon Greig!), a company based in Sammamish, WA.  Hopefully the commissions earned on Cousins is enough to keep Greig warm in the winter months.

How did a guy like Greig land DeMarcus Cousins?  I absolutely love it, because it gives rising agents hope that they can compete against the “big boys”.  That said, his biggest American client is Pops Mensah-Bonsu, and most of his practice is based on representing players overseas.  I would have thought that his first big NBA client would be a player from one of the schools in his state.  Washington can’t be heavily recruited.  And Cousins was probably approached by at least 50 agents.

As stated above, if you have read this blog for a while, you know the name John Greig.  I did an Agent Spotlight on him back in August 2009.  In that spotlight, I even mentioned that he needs a website!  Greig tells me that he has had a website, will have one again, but that he thinks websites are more beneficial to the agent than they are to the player and that websites are overrated.  That said, Greig does have a Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace page.  I am a little bit confused, but I will move on.  In the piece from August 2009, I also gave Greig huge props for managing a fairly large agency by himself.  In his playing days, Greig had a short stint with the Seattle SuperSonics, and played in Spain, France, and Switzerland.

So how do you think Greig signed DeMarcus Cousins?  I bet that there will be a lot of big agents talking to Cousins in an attempt to pry him away in the future.  Let’s see if Cousins stays loyal to his original selection – I hope he does.

In response to asking Greig for something inspiring for you all, Greig said, “Maybe inspire your readers by telling that perhaps sometimes good guys do finish first !!!”

DeMarcus Cousins Signs With John Greig from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

So when you hear a guy like Alex Tyus from my alma mater, University of Florida, has entered the NBA Draft, don’t immediately start screaming “What the hell is he thinking?!?!?!”  Tyus is most likely waiting to receive some draft grades, and my guess is that he will return to school.  Thus, he won’t hire an agent and will just test the waters for now.

What Are These Waters Being Tested? from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

The success John Calipari has been able to attain in his first year in Lexington is impressive. No one can argue with this. He has been able to exceed expectations where expectations are rarely exceeded, and has stepped up to the pressure of being the most talked about person in the Bluegrass state. The problem with Calipari is his recruiting. Problem? How can the #1 recruiting class in the country be a problem?

College basketball is unique from the NBA because talent is not the only thing that brings championships. Of course, it is a major factor, but less so than in the NBA. College basketball is about cohesiveness and teamwork. Without these integral aspects, all the talent in the world will still not allow a team to succeed in the long run. The collegiate game is true fundamental basketball. Passing, dribbling, movement, screens, defense, all the less glamorous aspects of the game, are what separates teams. To solidify this point, let us examine one of the most successful college basketball teams of the past two decades: Duke. The Mike Krzyzewski led Blue Devils have won three national championships and countless ACC titles executing the less glamorous aspects of the game better than anyone else. Sure, they have had their talented players, but much less so then some other teams of the past twenty years. Dukies often flounder in the NBA because they simply don’t have the raw skills to keep up. This is proof that it is something deeper than pure talent that drives collegiate basketball.

With the still fresh NBA by-law in place stating that a player must be at least one full year removed from high school before he enters the NBA draft, the best recruits in today’s game are the ones who five years ago would have made the jump straight to the NBA. These recruits aren’t going to college to get an education or to further develop their skills, they are going to college because they have no other choice (except go overseas, of course.) With this said, their plan is to satisfy the year requirement and enter the NBA. As a result, the coach who acquires the top recruits only benefits from a single year of productivity before the players say bye bye. This constant shifting in atmosphere in both the locker room and on the court doesn’t allow the cohesiveness and bond to develop amongst the team, and furthermore, will not lead to championships. While Calipari is spending his time and efforts recruiting players who are giving him and the school a single year of service, other coaches are getting kids who, although not as talented, will most likely be delivering four years to their respective schools. This gives the lesser recruits a chance to develop (both on and off the court), bond with the coaches, mesh with the other players, and engrain themselves into the threads of everyday university life.

Of course, this will not change the environment of collegiate recruiting. Calipari will be gunning for the best of the best next year and the year after that and so on. But, just maybe, if he focused more of his attention on garnering devoted players who don’t plan on bailing as soon as possible, he would be cutting down the nets in April instead of watching someone with a less talented squad do the same.

The Best Recruiter Gets the Least in Return from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules