Can we admit now that, for NBA-bound players, most universities are not the chaste playgrounds of amateurs?
I know, this O.J. Mayo thing is but one set of allegations, about one player. But stick that on top of every other story you have ever heard about high-stakes college recruiting, like David Falk's assertions on TrueHoop:
It's not competition based on merit. It's competition based on improper inducements. I think it's an abomination.
Add what a GM recently told ESPN's Chad Ford:
"If we started eliminating prospects based off of accusations that they've taken money or gifts, there wouldn't be anyone left to draft."
Put it all together with a big pinch of salt, and ask yourself: At what point do we stop assuming that more time on college campuses means more good influences on elite athletes? Yes, education is great. But when a big part of that education is in in under-the-table dealing, at some point it's better for your character just to move on into the world of the honest paycheck.
Also, I think it's important to realize that there has been a shift. It used to be that if you were talking about people giving athletes special treatment, you were talking about people giving athletes special treatment on behalf of a school. You know, boosters, alumni and all that.
For all I know, that's as rampant as ever. Really not an NBA issue, and I don't hear much about it.
But the stories I hear these days seem to be more and more about agents and financial advisers cozying up to young players.
In many cases, these people probably don't care much about where or if players go to college. Let's assume for a moment that Louis Johnson's version of events is gospel, and that Rodney Guillory was, as alleged, paid to steer Mayo to BDA Sports. So long as he winds up at BDA Sports, he could spend the intervening year in Australia, or on the moon, and the agent's investment would still be worth it.
It's a new day, and from where I'm sitting, the corruption that's a concern now isn't even necessarily a story about college basketball anymore. It's a story about the culture of basketball generally -- from junior high to retirement from the NBA.
What can anyone do about this?
I don't really put much stock in trashing the likes of O.J. Mayo. Poor teenagers, offered cash, a TV, a phone, or whatever will often take some. I'm not sure that's indicative of any great cultural failing.
However, I am very worried that a lot of people surrounding impressionable young athletes are not there for the right reasons. And I think it does affect the state of our game. How many top athletes "get on the wrong track" and never pan out?
How many of those people had the best mentors and role models in their lives -- some math teacher perhaps, a friend, parent, whomever -- crowded out by someone deadset on being close to the kid to make a buck?
The quickest fix is not likely. But athletes could do themselves a big favor, I'm convinced, by listening to Marc Isenberg. He's the guy who wrote the book Money Players, on how athletes should manage their your own business affairs. Isenberg says on his blog what a lot of the smartest NBA people say -- don't take the money:
I tell athletes, hypothetically, if the NCAA said tomorrow it was no longer a violation to take extra benefits from agents and runners, I would still argue strongly that they absolutely should not accept their money. The reasons have been discussed ad nauseam on this blog. Most important, when it comes time to select an agent, I want athletes choosing the best agents based on merit, not illicit relationships and benefits.
Give up a little cash up front, and over time the basketball world gets a market of solid agents, financial advisers, and experts who are lining up to deliver players the best possible services. Good trade.
A longer fix, I think, is for there to be a real minor league system where top players can be developed while being legally paid something that might come close to approximating their value. (It might seem like blasphemy to your typical college coach, but maybe removing elite, NBA-bound players from the educational system would be helpful to colleges too; they'd be left with the players who wanted to go to college and weren't as interested in being paid.)
If such a minor league never really emerges, if I were a top graduating high-schooler, and the NBA kept up its ban, I'd sign a short-term deal to develop under a top coach in Europe while being paid handsomely.
Will Sonny Vaccaro help us understand?
There are various investigations underway from the media, the NCAA, and whoever else. Everyone is trying to piece together this and that. But you could probably do worse than to talk to one of the most powerful men in sports. If I could dump truth serum into anyone and get them to talk to me about this whole O.J. Mayo story, I'd pick Sonny Vaccaro.
He's not close to every top basketball player. But he's close to this one.
He's in Kelly Naqi's article a little, seeming close to all involved. For instance:
[Louis] Johnson added that Guillory and Mayo were supportive of him while his troubles with the law were adjudicated. During that time, he said, their friendship was truly validated at a dinner at the Calabasas home of Sonny Vaccaro, the former shoe company executive. There, seated at the table along with Guillory, Mayo told Vaccaro, "Lou is family." Vaccaro didn't respond to an interview request.
Dan Patrick did talk to Sonny Vaccaro (or here) and Vaccaro used his airtime to savage the NBA's age rule that forces elite players into the NCAA. I'm with him on that one.
But other than that Vaccaro was vague, beyond saying a few times that he had to believe "the girl" -- reporter Kelly Naqi -- had done her homework.
If Vaccaro's serious about cleaning up the game -- and he talks at times like he is -- I wish he would come clean about his knowledge of the inner workings of this Mayo deal, and how it relates to the broader industry.
First of all, let's take the birds' eye view. What you have, in the big picture, are agents who need some way to get into the hearts of players who are scattered all over the country, and are generally prohibited from even talking to those players.
So they need intermediaries. People who will take the time to get to know the kids, and to befriend them, while seeing to it that when it's agent-choosing time, the kid chooses the right agent.
Those people are called runners, and there's a whole industry of running players here, there, and everywhere.
Now, if I wanted to know all about the relationships between alleged runner Rodney Guillory, Mayo's agent at BDA Calvin Andrews, and O.J. Mayo, I'd want to talk to the powerful insider who is close to everyone involved: Sonny Vaccaro.
- What kind of relationship do Sonny Vaccaro and Mayo have? They described each other two years ago in a Thayer Evans New York Times article: "Vaccaro said he had a 'very close' relationship with Mayo. ... 'Sonny's kind of a man in the back,' Mayo said. 'He handles a lot of business for me that I don't really know about, not just as a basketball player.'"
- Runners are typically people who live near the player they court. Makes sense, right? But Guillory and Mayo lived far from each other. Mayo is from West Virginia. Guillory is from Southern California. So, where would two people like that meet? According to Naqi's report on ESPN.com, the two met at Vaccaro's ABCD camp in the summer of 2003.
- In Vaccaro's interview with Dan Patrick, Vaccaro says that he was present with Guillory and Mayo when BDA sports made their presentation. Vaccaro says "we" met Duffy's firm. As in, Vaccaro put himself in the group with O.J. Mayo and Rodney Guillory.
- Before he became an agent, Calvin Andrews was an AAU Coach in California. The Slam-N-Jam program he founded has featured high-school players from all over the country like Chauncey Billups, Drew Gooden, Leon Powe, and LeBron James. When Vaccaro was at Adidas, Adidas was a key sponsor of Slam-N-Jam. (A small related point: When Vaccaro retired from Reebok -- which was acquired by Adidas -- complicated huh? -- Vaccaro was replaced by Chris Rivers, who has identified both Sonny Vaccaro and Calvin Andrews as key mentors.)
- That picture above, of Sonny Vaccaro and Carmelo Anthony, was taken at a BDA event at this year's All-Star Game. It happened to be one of the first pictures that popped up. But it's relevant, because all kinds of people saw Vaccaro and Rodney Guillory together that weekend.
- Calvin Andrews' most prominent client, of course, is that very same Carmelo Anthony. O.J. Mayo got in a little bit of trouble for taking NBA tickets apparently from Anthony.
Don't we all just want to know what really happened here? Just seems to me that when you talk about Rodney Guillory, Calvin Andrews, and O.J. Mayo, you should also talk about Sonny Vaccaro, who would appear to be in position to be extremely helpful in connecting some dots.
Given the opportunity, I, for one, would be happy to talk to him.
Is anyone going to get in real trouble here? Do agents and the like ever really get in serious trouble?
I'm no expert on this, and would generally tend to assume not.
Naqi says: "It is a misdemeanor in California for sports agents or their representatives to provide cash or gifts to student-athletes."
Isenberg and other experts have weighed in, and none of that sounds too scary.
Not to mention, at this point, I have seen no real indication that law enforcement is even all that interested.
However, I have talked to some people who actually know about the law, and they point out that the allegations of charities being abused could make this an atypical case. Speaking generally, when people abuse charities, potential charges like money laundering, tax evasion, wire fraud, and oodles of other legal unpleasantness can enter the discussion.
Also, when it comes to state law, it's not clear that California is the state you'd be worried about. If you read that Naqi report closely, Louis Johnson says that the money allegedly from BDA dried up about the time that Mayo left high school. That means the alleged violations occurred when O.J. Mayo was still in West Virginia.
And West Virginia law is pretty harsh on sports agents.
In that state, it is a felony for an agent to provide anything of value to an athlete or anybody else, as part of an attempt to lure that athlete to sign with you. From the West Virginia Uniform Athlete's Agent Act:
§30-39-14. Prohibited conduct. (a) An athlete agent, with the intent to induce a student-athlete to enter into an agency contract, may not:
(1) Give any materially false or misleading information or make a materially false promise or representation;
(2) Furnish anything of value to a student-athlete before the student-athlete enters into the agency contract; or
(3) Furnish anything of value to any individual other than the student-athlete or another registered athlete agent.
Later it says the penalty for violating this section is a fine of up to $50,000 and one to three years in a state correctional facility.
(Photo: Jennifer Pottheiser/NBAE/Getty Images)
