Just a few days after an impressive 32 point, 9 assist performance against Chauncey Billups and the Nuggets, Brandon Jennings dropped an insane stat line. 55 points on 21/34 from the field (62%), 7/8 from 3pt range (88%), 5 rebounds and 5 assists with 4 turnovers. What makes his 55 point performance even more impressive is that he failed to score a point in the first quarter, went for 29 in the third, and most important of all, led his team to a victory.

Jennings’ difficult time in Europe has been well documented. From getting kicked out of practice for not working hard enough, to meager playing time and scoring output, many skeptics deemed his choice a failure very early on. However, Jennings apparently learned a great deal in his year abroad. While his flashy style and controversial public comments have painted one picture of Jennings, his actions and performance in the NBA have displayed something very different thus far.

When top scorer Michael Redd went down with yet another knee injury, many said “here we go again” for the woeful Bucks. However, Jennings apparently was not one of them. He has picked up the scoring load, shown poise and leadership, helping to guide his team to a 5-2 record with a 4 game win streak. He is also leading his team in points (25.6) and assists (5.1). Jennings is also adding over 4 rebounds a game, 1 steal and shooting nearly 50% from the floor and 57% on 3pt.

There is no question that we surely will see players choose the path of Brandon Jennings by going to Europe as opposed to their requisite year of college. There also certainly will be those who are not fit to make that jump. Hopefully we do not see a rash of “advisors” steering players who should be playing college basketball, towards the overseas payday for their own monetary gain; however, it may in fact be a good move for some players.

Maybe it takes a year of sitting on a bench in Europe, getting treated like any other professional player and having to work hard, rather than walking around a college campus like a celebrity for a year. Maybe it is too stressful for some to be labeled the next Jordan, Kobe, LeBron, etc. every night on ESPN during March Madness. Maybe, for some, this really is a successful path to choose.

While it is still too early to grade the Jennings experiment a complete success, I would venture to say that he is off to an exceptional start and proving a lot of doubters wrong. Somewhere Sonny Vaccaro is smiling.

Agent Mark Stevens is in the news again. Back in 2006 he was compared to Drew Rosenhaus when he and another high profile client, Ron Artest, were in a strikingly similar situation. Well he seems to be attempting to follow the same playbook in his most recent attempt to get Stephen Jackson traded out of Golden State.

After publicly stating a desire to be traded back in August and some initial backlash with coach Don Nelson resulting in Jackson being absolved of his duties as captain, things have seemed to quiet down in Golden State. Jackson has been playing without incident and has put up numbers in line with his career averages. Jackson even had a 15 assist night just a few days ago. Golden State is said to have been in talks with up to 10 teams with interest in Jackson and has been attempting to weigh offers and find a reasonable trade. It seemed as if an amiable end is possible after this falling out.

Then Jackson’s agent, Mark Stevens, decided to publicly insult Coach Don Nelson in an obvious effort to speed up the process of getting his client traded. Whether or not Stephen Jackson had known Stevens was going to publicly insult his coach, we will never know, but this seems all too familiar territory for Stevens and seems to be a well thought out plan (or not so well thought out depending on your point of view). Could this be Stevens’ way of speeding up the trade process, while attempting to deflect some of the blame from Jackson, who already has character issues and a bit of a troubled history in the league?

Where I take issue with the strategy is that now GMs are not only concerned with dealing for a player who is going to publicly bad mouth them or the team, they are going to be dealing for a player whose agent will publicly bad mouth the organization. That is certainly not the type of thing an agent would like to develop a reputation for. Maintaining a positive dialogue with the organization would certainly increase the odds of a mutually beneficial resolution. Stevens’ strategy may result in Golden State choosing to eliminate the headache and the contract by trading Jackson for little in return, which could result in Jackson ending up with another non-contender…which is why he originally wanted out of GS.

It remains to be seen how the whole situation will play out; however, the bigger question is when, if ever, as an agent, is it beneficial to make inflammatory comments about a client’s coach, team or management? While this may be the strategy that some choose to use, in the long run respectable, private negotiations seem to be the best avenue for accomplishing the goals of all parties involved. We have seen many a case in which an unhappy player and agent try to force their way out of a situation, but they very seldom work out positively for all sides.

*Note: Ron Artest is no longer represented by Mark Stevens and Stevens does not have any other NBA clients.

The young Celtics PG has improved his regular season averages significantly each year in the NBA and in his third year averaged 11.9ppg, 5.3rpg and 8.2apg. However, Rondo truly proved his worth when it counts most, in the playoffs. With Kevin Garnett sidelined, Rondo stepped up and almost averaged a triple double in the Celtics series with the Bulls and Magic, by posting 17.6 points per game, 9.7 rebounds per game and 9.8 assists per game, and adding 2.5 steals per game.

After such a stellar playoff performance, Rondo seemed to be a cornerstone of the Celtics franchise, however some in the organization questioned his leadership as well as his attitude. It was then rumored that Rondo was being shopped around in potential off-season trades by Celtics GM Danny Ainge. Without the extension, Rondo would have became a restricted free agent this summer.

As the deadline approached, it looked as if there was a chance that the extension would not get done in time. The Celtics and Rondo’s agent, Bill Duffy, were afforded an extra few days to hash out this deal due to the fact that the Oct. 31st deadline fell on a Saturday, and therefore was moved to midnight of the next business day. Fortunately for Celtics fans, the organization improved their offer and Rondo signed hours before the deadline on Monday.

Bosh, who is known to be an avid user of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and has operated his own YouTube channel since 2007, was looking to expand his web presence with his own site. He then learned that someone had beaten him to the punch and had already registered his name, chrisbosh.com. He settled for chris-bosh.com, but chose to pursue legal action to retrieve his domain.

Bosh’s legal counsel, Winston & Strawn LLP, was able to track down the owner of chrisbosh.com, Luis Zavala. Zavala’s company, Hoopology.com was displaying ads using Bosh’s name to generate revenue without Bosh’s knowledge or consent. Zavala also had registered over 800 domain names of NBA players as well as international, college and high school athletes, with the intention of selling them back to the athletes at a premium, a practice known as “cybersquatting.” It was determined that Zavala was in violation of the Federal Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, and as a result of Zavala failing to show in court, Judge Florence-Marie Cooper awarded Bosh the rights to chrisbosh.com as well as $120,000 in damages. As a means to recover some of the damages, Bosh was also awarded all of the domain names registered to Zavala.

Bosh is offering to return all the domain names to their rightful owners, free of charge, through his web media firm: Max Deal Technologies. Max Deal is a web design, marketing and consulting company that “offers web design and technology consulting to clients who demand to stay current with the fast paced world of online communication.”

Ever the entrepreneur, Bosh stated, “I am thrilled that I am able to offer the return of these domain names to a host of other athletes and celebrities whose names were cybersquatted. I will offer the return of the domain names free of charge, but I’d also love the opportunity to show their owners how Max Deal can help.”

Not only does Chris Bosh retrieve your domain name from individuals looking to illegally profit from it, but he returns it to you free of charge and then offers you advice on what to do with your newly rescued domain. However, we have to assume that Max Deal’s advice will not be free of charge.

You can view a list of all 800+ domain names turned over to Chris Bosh here.

Bradley R. Marshall was an attorney that had been accepted to practice law in the state of Washington.  He began his career as a sports agent, representing NBA players like Doug Christie, Clifford Robinson, James Edwards, Spencer Haywood, and Jason Terry (now represented by Dan Fegen at BEST).  Beyond serving as many athletes’ negotiator for their professional contracts, Marshall was also retained for his legal counsel in relation athletes’ problems with deceptive business partners and other opportunistic individuals.  Meanwhile, it seems like it was Marshall doing the deceptive acts and it looks as if the athletes should have hired someone to protect them against Marshall.

As reported by The Seattle Times, the Washington Supreme Court disbarred Marshall for numerous ethical and legal violations.  The State Bar Association had charged Marshall with twelve counts of violating the state’s Rules of Professional Conduct.

“These violations include demands for additional fees to continue a lawsuit that was paid for on a flat-fee basis, filing a lawsuit and a lien against a client who refused to pay him additional fees, a deceptive attempt to compel settlement, failure to obtain consent for a conflict of client interest, and other deceptive practices,” wrote Justice James Johnson. “These facts are accompanied by multiple aggravating factors, including prior discipline for similar conduct.”

A man who taught ethics and business law at Seattle Pacific University was found to have no ethics.  In his LinkedIN profile, Marshall wrote,

Bradley Marshall is committed to the highest standards of professionalism, and his personal ethics and dedication on behalf of his clients have earned him the respect and accolades of his peers, as well as community and government leaders.

The state of Washington disagrees.  Side note: Marshall’s website is no longer online.

The actual Washington Supreme Court decision is embedded below.

Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal announced that they would expand their sports section from its once-a-week appearance to an everyday section, and I’ve been following the online version since.  Last week I came across a very interesting article by Allen Barra, and I wanted to explore the possibilities of an idea he proposed.  Barra argued that with the exception of MLB, America’s major sports leagues don’t pay for the development of their athletes.  Rather, this financial burden is placed on their collegiate institutions.  Based on Murray Sperber’s evaluation of college sports, Barra noted that most college athletic departments lose money and drain funds from alumni and taxpayers.  Apparently, this is an injustice.  Barra’s solution to this problem: The NFL, MLB, and NBA should provide a full scholarship to each school for every player drafted from that institution.

The fact that major league baseball is supported by their extensive minor league system should be enough reason to take them out of the equation, but they do still draft many college players.  Almost all of these players will still enter the minor league system to be trained for the big leagues, unlike their NFL and NBA counterparts.  So let’s include them anyway.  Perhaps each major league team could give a 50% scholarship rather than full tuition for every player placed on a minor league roster.

The real bulk of this question is dealing with the NFL and NBA.  Why on earth would they ever agree to this?  More importantly, how would the NCAA ever hold a strong enough position on the situation that they could strong arm the leagues into completing such a deal?  The simple answers to these questions are that they probably wouldn’t, and that the NCAA never will have this ability, unless they have incriminating pictures of Roger Goodell and David Stern.  However, consider this possible benefit for both leagues: They can stop trying to convince themselves that they are even capable of creating systems that are a one-hundredth as effective as baseball’s minor leagues.

First take a look at the NBA Developmental League.  According to the league’s website, over 15% of current NBA players are D-League alumni.  That’s actually a lot higher of a percentage than I would’ve imagined, but compare this to the amount of professional baseball players cycled through the minor league system.  Furthermore, it’s been 8 years since play began and the league still only has about half the amount of teams of the NBA.  I would hardly call that a successful minor league system.  The developmental league has sent several noteworthy players up to the big leagues, like Rafer Alston and Jamario Moon, but these aren’t enough reasons to keep the league around.  The only reason I agree with for keeping the D-League is that it gives many players who will never make it to the NBA the opportunity to play ball at the next level.  If I had to guess, the D-League isn’t much of a revenue stream for the NBA.  If it’s anything like its defunct NFL counterpart, NFL Europa, it’s actually losing money.  The vision of a development league for the NFL closed its doors in 2007, 16 years after it started play.  The league reportedly lost about $30 million a year.  Off the top of my head, Kurt Warner and Jake Delhomme are the only players I can think of that started their professional careers in NFL Europa.  It just seems that there is no place for second-tier football leagues anymore.  The Arena Football League just suspended play, and who knows if they will make a comeback.  The United National Gridiron League which envisioned itself as a sort of minor league system for the NFL had a planned 2009 start date, but has already postponed this until 2010.

This brings us back to the question of why the NFL and NBA would give back to the colleges, even if it gave them good reasons to shut down their sub-par minor leagues.  For starters, it would look good.  Potentially it could create more competition among programs as they look to attain scholarships, resulting in higher quality athletes.  On the surface, Barra’s idea is pretty sound, and would make for great PR.  But it’s extremely hard to believe that something like this would ever work, so I’ve thought of a different solution to off-set this “free” training.  As an aspiring agent, I obviously want my clients to be successful monetarily, but I also want them to exhibit respectable character traits and morals.  If a majority of agents advocated that their clients personally donated a scholarship to their alma mater once such an act became financially feasible, I believe that all parties involved would be thoroughly satisfied.  Moreover, it would reflect greatly on the character of the athlete.  This is just a thought.  I’m sure many athletes already give back to the universities that gave so much to them, but a structured program, perhaps through the league or players association, would do leaps and bounds for the morality of sports in America.

Mr. Smith is only one of the many amazing names that will be in Chicago at the conference. Some of the other great names include Jeff Gewirtz, Senior VP and General Counsel of NETS Basketball/ Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment. Stephanie Varvadas, Managing Attorney for Nike Inc. Donald M. Fehr, Executive Director and General Counsel for the MLBPA, Richard J. Berthelsen, General Counsel for the NFLPA,  along with Professors Richard Karcher Director of Law and Professor Florida Coastal School of Law Center for Law and Sports, Vared Yakovee Professor at USC Gould School of Law and Editor-in-chief of Entertainement & Sports Lawyer, Gary R. Roberts from Indiana University School of Law and Gabe Feldman, Director of the Tulane Univesity Sports Law Program to name only a few.

Football

• DeMaurice Smith was selected to be the successor to Gene Upshaw as the Executive Director of the NFLPA [Smith elected to head NFLPA].
• One step in the right direction towards bringing back the AFL next year [AFL might be back in '10].
• Devin Hester is about to sport his wings with Red Bull [Hester Is A Flash In The Can].
• Great wrap-up of the early Pro Days [Pro Day Recap - Part 1].
• An agent rarely wants to see his name in the press.  This is the 2nd week in a row that we can’t help but notice Bus Cook getting attention [Agent explains Cutler timeline].

Baseball

• $1.5 million guaranteed plus the possibility of making another $1.5 million this year [Rodriguez, Astros agree to contract].

Basketball

• The NBPA was not too happy with that Yahoo! Sports article calling out Ceruzzi Sports and Pat Barrett [NBA Players Association to probe agency].

Sports Business

• Make sure you provide your clients with solid financial planners [IRS Looking At Athletes More Closely].

I wrote several articles relating to this specific matter regarding Miles (Blazers Miles From Resolving Conflict) and his financial situation with Portland, and after this last bit of news it is pretty much official.  Even if Darius did not re-sign for the entire season, the Blazers were in debt to him for $18 Million from a two year contract since January 16th, when he participated in his tenth game of the year.  The Blazers were told that Miles was to have career ending surgery on his knee last year when he had two years left on his contract.

Since his amazing return from injury, Miles has averaged 5.7 points and 2.6 rebounds in 10 games this season.  He is looking good for someone who had a “career ending injury.”  Maybe Portland was too quick to dismiss him and pay the minimal amount for ending a contract with an injury, versus paying the rest of his salary and seeing if he could recover.

Despite everything, the implications of this are not as severe as the Trailblazers made it out to seem when they sent threatening emails league-wide.  The new arrival of Darius’s yearly salary to this year’s cap puts Portland at $80,884,803 on the season.  The additional $9 million each year would clearly place them over for this year and force the team to pay a large luxury tax, which would change the team’s ability to go out and re-sign and sign free agents this off-season.  Not to mention another $9 million they would have to account for in 2010.

This could be good for some players and agents as the Blazers will be looking to unload some talent and large contracts to free up much needed cap space.  Channing Frye, Steve Blake and Ike Diogu will all be looking to sign again with the team after this year and could be the first ones management looks at to find some space.  All three have no official contract for the 2009 season yet, only qualifying offers that are non guaranteed contracts.  No one on the team has a contract with an early-termination clause.  Stars like Greg Oden, Brandon Roy, and LaMarcus Aldridge are looking good in Portland jerseys and will likely continue to do so for many years to come.

The Blazers have many young, talented players, making the future seem bright.  However, the Darius Miles situation does throw an unexpected wrinkle into the salary aspect of the team and will cause this free agent season to be one to remember for Portland.  On top of Miles, Portland is paying Steve Francis $15,730,000 for this season and he is no longer with the team. Any way you see it ,the team will have to make some adjustments.  Agents for some players will be forced to get their clients adjusting to playing elsewhere.

After all of the hype last week about the Blazers sending threatening emails to all NBA teams, Miles did not do much over the weekend and still needed only one more game to make the Portland organization really upset.  Well, as of only hours ago, the Grizzlies have signed Miles to yet another 10-day contract.

After his first debut with Memphis, Miles played in three games overall and averaged 8.3 points and grabbed 3 rebounds.  His stats and ability on the court are what the Grizzlies will be evaluating again, however, what the Blazers and the rest of the league will be watching for is if Miles will step on the court in a game for any amount of time and ruin the Blazers off-season.

After signing a second 10-day contract, it seems likely that Miles will log some minutes.  The number of games and overall minutes he plays in will be crucial as Portland is likely to file some type of greveince or complaint regarding the issue.  A loss of $18 million more to the Blazers budget will only make the rough economy seem worse for Portland, but realistically they have to honor the contract they made with Darius and may be held to it fully.