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An anonymous NBA agent has a bone to pick with LeBron James, Rich Paul, and Klutch Sports.
On Wednesday, The Athletic spoke to an anonymous agent who accused LeBron of circumventing California state law and representing players through Rich Paul’s agency Klutch Sports.
An anonymous agent goes off on LeBron James and Rich Paul for costing Klutch clients millions of dollars
"It’s illegal for a player, particularly if you’re in the state of California, to be licensed to represent talent."
(Via The Athletic https://t.co/PpQ9jzv3Sd) pic.twitter.com/0gHHTHULIT
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) October 22, 2020
Via The Athletic
“The worst thing that LeBron is doing is forcing this power with Rich Paul and what that is, in terms of, he’s a player, but he has prowess in the media space. His company Spring Hill, that’s awesome. Doing the movies and all of the projects. That’s so commendable. I love that. But now that they’ve jumped into the agent game, which the reality is, it’s illegal for a player, particularly if you’re in the state of California, to be licensed to represent talent.
“Now I know it’s this façade that it’s Rich Paul, but it’s really LeBron who recruits for Rich Paul. So it’s almost like they’re trying to control AAU at the NBA level.
The agent goes on to say that Klutch Sports is currently mismanaging their clients and costing players millions of dollars in potential revenue.
“There’s at least five or six massive casualties. Nobody is saying anything and you can even say that the union should take some responsibility because they represent all of the players, not just LeBron James. Because this is anonymous. I hope you have the courage to put this out there, because nobody is talking about this but this is the reality, and if you ask any other agent what I just said, they would all agree.
What he’s done is he’s taking AAU basketball to the NBA, because he has the ability to do that because these young players idolize him. I’m starting to hear some rumblings that they might be overloaded. Because you can’t have this level of expectation for a client and service all of these guys. Ben Simmons. Garland. I know this as an agent, you can’t service them all at this level. You can seduce them, but you can’t service them all, at that level with what they say they’re doing. Nerlens Noel. Norris Cole. Shabazz Muhammed. They lost $80 million in Detroit. This is real talk.
That’s the only disappointment is LeBron has leveraged his popularity with young players for seducing them for Klutch and it’s not serving all the players well. But for the players that are suffering, there’s no repercussions. Nobody is criticizing what they’re doing. And you have to call out the union. They should be meeting with Rich Paul, saying, ‘What happened here? What happened here? They represent all the players. They all pay the same amount for dues. If Rich Paul were a lawyer, he’d be disbarred five times. But because LeBron is so powerful, there is no accountability. And that’s the only bad part with LeBron.
It is worth noting that the NBA looked into whether James had an ownership stake in Klutch Sports back in 2017, but found no evidence that he owned any part of the agency.
This anonymous agent comes off sounding salty that Klutch Sports is thriving and is able to sign major clients because of LeBron’s influence.