Let’s look at CAA’s basketball division, first.  Before hiring Henry Thomas, CAA already boasted three strong basketball agents: Leon Rose, Andre Buck, and Steven Heumann.  Heumann mostly deals with the high profile overseas players and those born outside of the U.S. who now play in the NBA (think Omri Casspi).  Andre Buck is up-and-coming, and serves as the primary agent for guys like Jason Thompson, Aaron Brooks, and Renaldo Balkman.  Then there is Leon Rose, who has LeBron James, O.J. Mayo, Jonny Flynn, Allen Iverson, Richard Hamilton…the list goes on.  The key thing that I notice with Henry Thomas’s arrival is that LBJ and D-Wade are now under the same roof.  The two most marketable basketball players (you can throw Dwight Howard in at #3 in my book) are at CAA.  Interestingly, though, LBJ has his own marketing company, so CAA, the sports marketing juggernaut, does not reap rewards from that account.  D-Wade will bring in some nice profits, though.  He recently switched from repping Converse to the Jordan Brand (both owned by Nike).

In yesterday’s post, I alluded to Jason Belzer’s Sports Agency Power Rankings.  The list was created a year ago, and I think that he would agree with me that the pecking order should be changed.  I believe that the top 4 are now CAA, WMG, Octagon, and BEST.  WMG, Octagon, and BEST are not all that far from one another, but all 3 are a giant step below CAA, in my opinion.

A key question is: How does one compete?  One thing is sure, you are not going to beat CAA by playing its game.  The company does not have unlimited resources, but something close to it.  They have more connections to producers, directors, potential sponsors, etc, so you can’t out-promise Creative Artists Agency on providing more avenues outside of the field/court.  What you can beat CAA at (possibly) is personal care.  CAA is the largest sports agency in terms of quality of clients and track-record of agents, but they are not interested in players who are going to be taken Day 2 of the NFL Draft, beyond the 10th round of the MLB Rule 4 Draft, or un-drafted basketball players (for the most part).  In fact, even if you are a 2nd round NFL draft pick, do you want to be splitting time with Matt Stafford?  If you are a 4th round pick, will you get the same attention as Derek Jeter?  LeBron Jame and Dwayne Wade might get a few more phone calls then a 2nd round NBA draft pick.

A lot of athletes crave attention.  They also want someone that they can relate to.  Personal relationships mean a lot in this business.  Just because CAA is growing by the day and seems like it is a company that is beyond competition, does not mean that it is immune to losing some big potential clients to a boutique firm that knows what it is doing and can connect with the athletes.  Don’t fight CAA at its strengths, find out what your own strengths are and use those to impress future clients.

All of that being said, CAA sure got a lot stronger with its latest acquisition.

Lottery picks are not stupid, and neither are their parents, AAU coaches, handlers, and whoever else might be involved in the agent selection process.  In most circumstances, agents for lottery picks do not make a dime off of the initial contract.  The first time they will make commission on a team deal will be in the second contract, which will be very lucrative for those rookies who outperform the competition.  If the contractual agent is not also acting as the marketing agent for the player, that means that the agent will be working pro bono for quite some time.  To make matters worse, other agents will be hawking at your lottery pick client nonstop.  If the client leaves you, you may lose quite a lot of money and time over this kid who was supposed to be “The One” to bring your agency to the top.

Recruiting money is never paid back, but often times, lottery picks will basically pay back the costs of workouts and travel expenses that the agent incurred in the pre-draft process.  You can call that a commission on the first contract, if you’d like.  Rovell is correct, most agents who represent lottery picks actually lose money…their hope is that long-term, these athletes end up paying for themselves and much more.

Sports Agents

• Past SportsAgentBlog.com interviewee, Mark Steinberg, chats with Darren Rovell about representing Tiger Woods [The Man Behind Tiger Woods].
• An interview with the agent of Maurice Jones-Drew and Matt Forte [Meet Sports Agent, Rob London].
• What it’s like to manage Kenyan runners [Kenyan runners' second home: Norristown].
• A UF Law grad making big moves [Lawyer, agent, world traveler].
• The anti-agent agent? [Bridgeton native Andre Buck bringing undervalued talent to light as rising basketball agent]

Baseball

• Moneyball will not be turned into a movie…yet [Sony scraps Soderbergh's 'Moneyball'].
• I guess I am in the minority, because I say no [Does Don Fehr Get An *?].

Basketball

• Time for agents to get creative. How about some type of running royalties deal with a minimum attached instead of the normal large up-front payment? [Bad Year For NBA Draft Pick Shoe Deals]

The NBA Draft is this Thursday?  Doesn’t it seem like there has been much less press/hype/coverage leading up to this year’s draft?  There are no LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, or Dwyane Wade caliber players in this year’s draft pool, but there are plenty of guys ready to contribute strong minutes in the NBA.

Even though there are less opportunities for players to showcase their skills in front of NBA teams, it seems like the athletes don’t mind.  In fact, many players are opting out of invitations to work out in front of scouts and GMs.  Some teams have taken a worse media backlash than others.  Chad Ford of ESPN.com thinks that the Memphis Grizzlies, in particular, are struggling with some image problems.  He quotes an unnamed person as saying,

“[The Grizzlies] don’t spend any money anymore. They don’t have a commitment to put a winning team on the floor right now. It’s not where an agent wants to send his star pick.”

Agents do have a lot of sway when it comes to where their superstar clients are picked.  A lot of that decision often revolves around the market of the city that the team plays in, the players already on the team, and the money that teams ordinarily dish out.  For rookies, though, that first contract is pretty much set in stone depending on the slot you get selected.

Memphis isn’t all that bad!  There is good BBQ, and it’s home of the Memphis Redbirds, where Pete Parise is tearing it up.

This year’s draft class has seen many non-senior talents withdraw themselves from the draft, which has led many analysts to claim that this year’s pool is mediocre at best.  Writers are already frothing at the mouth in anticipation of next year’s class, which is supposed to be extremely deep.  Don’t forget your life preservers!

The most recent players to bow out of this year’s draft are: Tasmin Mitchell (LSU), Nic Wise (Arizona), and Dwayne Collins (Miami).

Here is the most updated list of agent signings that I have:

• Aaron Goodwin – Terrence Williams, Demar DeRozan
• Aaron Mintz (Priority) – Tyrese Rice, Jeff Adrien
• Andre Buck (CAA) – Dionte Christmas
• Andrew Vye (ASM Sports) – A.D. Vassallo
• Andy Miller (ASM Sports) – B.J. Mullens, Daniel Hackett, Eric Maynor, Alonzo Gee, Rudy Mbemba, Robert Vaden
• Arn Tellem – Wayne Ellington, Gerald Henderson, Tyreke Evans
• Austin Walton (Dynasty) – Terrance Woodbury
• Bernie Lee (Lee Basketball Services) – Patrick Beverly, Dmitris Verginis
• Bill Duffy (BDA Sports) – Brandon Jennings, Hasheem Thabeet, Darren Collison, Jordan Hill, Josh Akognon
• Bill Strickland (BEST) – Kevin Rogers, Curtis Jerrells
• Bob McClaren – Josh Carter
• Brad Ames (Priority) – Ben Woodside, Joe Ingles
• Brian Elfus (Elfus & Siegel Management) – Connor Atchley, Marcus Thornton, BJ Raymond, Kyle Spain
• Charles Grantham (Ceruzzi Sports) - Jeff Pendergraph
• Chris Emens (Octagon) – Lee Cummard
• Chris Luchey (CGL Sports) – Eric Devendorf, Dar Tucker
• Dan Fegan (BEST) – Earl Clark, Ricky Rubio
• Dan Tobin (WMG) – K.C. Rivers, Aaron Jackson, James Johnson
• David Bauman (DB Hoops Management) – Josh Heytvelt
• David Falk – Toney Douglas, Alade Aminu
• Doug Neustadt (The Neustadt Group) – Jerel McNeal
• Eric Fleisher – Chris Johnson
• Happy Walters (Immortal Sports) – DeJuan Blair, Kevin Rogers, Curtis Jerrells, Tasheed Carr, Tyrell Biggs, Robert Dozier
• Herb Rudoy (Interperformances) – Stefon Jackson
• Jamie Knox (Strategic Sports Management) – Courtney Fells
• Jeff Schwartz (Excel Sports Management) – A.J. Price
• Jeffrey Fried (Peake Management Group) – Ty Lawson
• John Hamilton (Performance Sports Management) – Garrett Temple
• Justin Zanik (ASM Sports) – Sergio Llull
• Keith Glass – Luke Nevill, A.J. Abrams
• Kevin Bradbury (BDA Sports) – Chase Budinger, Jordan Hill, Dominic James
• Lance Young (Octagon) – Lester Hudson, Jack McClinton, Wes Matthews, Sam Young, Stephen Curry, Brandon Costner
• Leon Rose (CAA) – Nando De Colo, Paul Harris, Jonny Flynn
• Mark Bartelstein (Priority) – Jeremy Pargo, Micah Downs, Leo Lyons, DeMarre Carroll, A.J. Abrams
• Marc Fleisher – Brandon Ewing
• Merle Scott – Nate Miles
• Michael Hodges (Rice Sports Management) – David Holston, Lawrence Kinnard, Courtney Pigram
• Michael Siegel (Elfus & Siegel Management) – Ahmad Nivins
• Michael Whitaker (REID Entertainment) – Jermaine Taylor
• Mike Naiditch (Naiditch EntertainmenT) – Joe Krabbenhoft
• Rob Pelinka (Landmark Sports Agency) – James Harden
• Sam Goldfeder (Excel Sports Management) – Blake Griffin, Taylor Griffin
• Sam Porter (Sportstars, Inc.) – Russell Hicks, Tony Gaffney, Marc Egerson, Chavis Holmes, Travis Holmes
• Thad Foucher (WMG) – DaJuan Summers

Have anything to add or information about a change? Email me.

Also, Givony reports that this year there will be three major workouts, hosted by 3 NBA teams, with many other teams latching on to scout the highly touted players invited.  Golden State, Minnesota, and New Jersey are hosting, with the largest overall team turnout expected at the New Jersey workout.

Want to know who the players getting workouts have signed to represent them leading up to and following the draft?  Check out our most recent NBA Draft Signing Update.

Anyone purchase their TeeBows yet?  How long until a lawsuit shuts that site down?  Okay, so I have 4 finals out of the way and only 1 left, sitting there laughing at me.  His name is Corporations and I will battle him at 8:30 a.m. on Monday.  Then it’s back to business as usual, but that business will be conducted down in South Florida for a couple of weeks.  I have Blue Key induction tomorrow night.  Interestingly, Tim Tebow, is in my induction class and Urban Meyer will be an honorary inductee.  Here are some stories I missed over the past week:

Basketball

• Starting next year, underclassmen will only have until May 8 to test the waters [NBA draft entrants to get shorter decision time].
• In the thick of the playoffs and leading up to the draft…why not a Carnival? [Carnival of the NBA #64].
• Think any agents have talked to this kid yet? [Athlete Chat: Kelvin Amayo]

Sports Business

• Twitter mentions to become a standard part of endorsement contracts? [And now, a tweet from our sponsors]
• As I mentioned in my interview with Paul Swann, professional athletes need to be very careful managing online persona [The Brian Wilson Twitter Saga].
• Start reaching out to UA to procure those shoe endorsement deals [Under Armour Now Officially A Shoe Company].

Football

• A small agency that worked hard for its clients and got 5 of them signed after the draft [NFL: Local agent has five clients sign deals or get invited to camp].

Baseball

• The Yankees are worth a lot of money [Baseball's Most Valuable Teams].

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Whitaker is the primary agent for Stanley Burrell, Rashaun Freeman, Keith Langford, Ricky Minard, and David Teague (mostly overseas).  Most notably, he is the man behind last year’s surprise NBA Draft first-round pick, George Hill, and a guy who has seen his draft stock explode over the past week: Jermaine Taylor (pictured: left).

Whitaker does not yet have the name or resources to go after the Blake Griffins and Derrick Roses, but he has done a very impressive job securing less scouted, high talented players into his agency.  Last year, George Hill from IUPUI (which everyone loves to try to pronounce come tournament time) was a surprise first-round pick.  But many attributed his rise to the hard work put in by Whitaker.  Among those who noticed, is Whitaker’s most recent NBA Draft hopeful, Jermaine Taylor.  Taylor told Draft Express,

“What he’s done for George [Hill] is great. He was in the same position that I’m in right now. He came from a small school, not too many people knew about him, and he went first round. I’m trying to do the same thing; I have all the confidence in my agent and right now he’s showing me that he’s doing a good job.”

The 6′4 Shooting Guard from UCF is not doing too bad of a job himself.  Taylor has been the most talked about player at the Portsmouth Invitiational Tournament.  His performance has a lot to do with his recent press, but perhaps Michael Whitaker is playing an instrumental role as well.

Draft Express has done a great job of compiling information thus far, and will continue to provide valuable nuggets of knowledge leading up to the 2009 NBA Draft.  I have extracted the confirmed underclassmen and senior agent signings from the web site:

• Andy Miller (ASM Sports) – B.J. Mullens, Daniel Hackett
• Brad Ames (Priority) – Ben Woodside (good write-up on Woodside here)
• Brian Elfus (Elfus & Siegel Management) – Connor Atchley
• Chris Emens (Octagon) – Lee Cummard
• Dan Fegan (BEST) – Earl Clark
• Dan Tobin (WMG) – K.C. Rivers, Aaron Jackson, James Johnson
• David Bauman (DB Hoops Management) – Josh Heytvelt
• Keith Glass – Luke Nevill, A.J. Abrams
• Lance Young (Octagon) – Lester Hudson
• Leon Rose (CAA) – Nando De Colo
• Mark Bartelstein (Priority) – Jeremy Pargo, Micah Downs
• Michael Siegel (Elfus & Siegel Management) – Ahmad Nivins

Right off the bat, it looks like WMG is racking it up again.  Interesting to note that it is Dan Tobin making big moves with the underclassmen instead of Arn Tellem or B.J. Armstrong.  Priority has some nice names, as does Octagon.