December 29, 2025 • 45 mins
Coach Gottlieb gives his report card on his team as they head into 2026 coming off a disappointing road loss to Campbell.
Then, he’s joined is joined by Daniel Poneman of Weave Basketball, a player representation and consulting group focused on NIL,to discuss the latest NIL controversy surrounding Scott Drew and Baylor signing ex-NBA draft pick James Nnaji to an NIL deal in the middle of the season, why the situation was inevitable given the lack of NIL regulations, and if it’s good for the sport, or a sign of the decline.
Subscribe NOW to get all the latest All Ball Podcasts and visit Keeper’s Heart for an Irish take on American whiskey that is changing the game!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hey wan to buo. Come in. I'm Doug Gottlieb.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
This is All Ball part of the new Doug Gottlieb
Show podcast where every every week, in addition to talking
about other issues in basketball and as we expand back
to others issues in sports, we welcome in the biggest
name in UH management for current college athletes.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
That would be Dan Paneman. Of course he started the
weave or is it the weave Dan? Or is just weave?
I've actually always one of that just weave. Yeah, how'd
you get to you? Why'd you name it We've?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I mean, I know We've is like a basketball analogy,
But how'd you come upon weave?
Speaker 1 (00:46):
You know?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Actually I was in the jumbles of Costa Rica on
a retreat and I kind of knew I had to
rename the company. It was called Ponham and Data's Representation.
I'm Dan Pohman and my partners Mike Nats. When we
started this company, we did not ten for it to
become a large company. We thought we'd have a small
little bootique agency, two guys, a couple of clients.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
We called it Pondament and Native and it.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Started grow and grow, and I knew I needed to
name that encompass our mission more with all the different
agents and clients we have, and you know, naming things
is hard. So I was in the jungles of Costa
Rica on a retreat. Actually a woman, a Costa Rican woman,
I know, it was like, you know, it came up
to me. She said, you know, my husband always asked
about you. She says, he says, your friend who works
(01:29):
in basket? And another woman walks up and she's like,
you work in basket? I said, yeah, Like so you
weave baskets. I said, no, no, I don't weave baskets.
And then I had a friend who was with me
on that retreat and we thought about it, and he said.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Well, you know, Dan, you do we've. You weave people together.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
You we've we've players, careers, you weave communities, you have
spirituality supports, you do we've You should call your company
that weave my friend Jack Dreyfus, and I said, that's
a great name. And I went and served the trademark
who was available. And obviously it's the three men weave
in the woven basket. But for me, it's more the
symbology of like weaving people together and weaving a career.
(02:06):
Uh and and and uh weaving our communities and uh
and then actually our flying Telo Larson, who plays for
the Heat, drew our logo. If you can see our logo,
I know some people are listening on audio. It actually
makes a weave in a circle.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
W it's w E A V E. It makes a weave.
So so that's where we've for good. Now we we've
there's no high and weave as I say, no, I.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
And we've Okay, there's a bunch of I mean, this
one's served up on a platter for you because a
lot of Twitter, Warriors and some college basketball people have
been obviously discussing, maybe not you personally, but people in
your field a great deal. Plus, Baylor signs a kid
(02:49):
who played summer league ball with the Knicks.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
That one's interesting.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
So let's start with the biggest current agent narrative that
social media has presented this week.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
What do you what? I have my thoughts.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
What do you think the biggest maybe misconception that is
currently circling in the world social media?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
The question is are we talking biggest misconception and biggest story?
I mean, the biggest story is obviously the kid that
Baylor signed and then.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
The two let's let's start there. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
I love the sport of college basketball as much as
everybody else. If someone played in the NBA, I aim,
and I, as a player first advocate, have a hard
time stomaching a guy who previously has the NBA experience
playing in the NBA. Similarly, I have a hard time
stomaching these mid season editions now to be as an
agency participating in some of those midseason editions.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Yes, we don't make the rules, we buy by them.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
If we have players in Europe who want to come over,
then we'll come over, bring them over.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
But I do have a hard.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Time feeling like it's good for the game when guys
teams are adding mid season now. As far as the
NBA thing, yes, if someone played in the NBA, I think,
just like my gut says, it's probably not best for
the sport of college basketball for a former NBA players
going to play now the guy was like drafted and
never played in the NBA or went through the draft
(04:19):
process and.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Didn't get picked.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
I do think if they're within the age bracket, they
should have an opportunity to play.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
I've always felt that, like if a guy goes through
the draft process and doesn't get picked.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
The prior rules said you can't return and play college basketball,
so they're stuck in the G League. If you go
through the draft process, you get bad advice, you don't
get picked. I don't see a reason why you shouldn't
be able to play college basketball. I think the former
G League Ignite guys who kind of got duped into
joining G League and Nite to get paid rather than.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Playing college basketball, and then they folded G League Ignite.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Yeah, they should have an opportunity to play college basketball,
but ultimately talk to a bigger thing. It's like, is
it Scott Drew's Is he the villain for adding someone
within the rules? As the ends AAA the villain for
allowing it. Well, the NACA is not allowing it. The
courts are allowing it.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
Right. The NCAA has tried to doesn't want any of
this stuff to happen.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
NCAA wants it to go back to the old days
where players are effectively slaves, right, whether they're working and
making money for everybody but themselves. Right, the nca doesn't
want any of this. They will have been forced into
all this by the courts. So because you have a
system where the NCAA tries to block everything, the court's
rule that pretty much everything may do is illegal, and
that becomes the battleground, then all these things get allowed
(05:29):
and people are like, who's to blame, Well, who is
to blame is the coaches for working within the system,
the agents are working within the system, the players are
working within the system. The NCAA for being so incompetent
that they can't stop any of it for happening. I mean,
ultimately it speaks to what I've said all along is
that we're not going to like patchwork fix this thing.
It's gonna be teared down, rebuild built. It's going to
be players as employees having a union collectively bargaining. It's
(05:50):
going to be potentially power five, power four breaking off
and having you know, multiple divisions as they do in
the NBA with the GVUE, as they do in Europe
with multiple divisions. Like, there's going to have to be
to tear it down, rebuild, and we're just appointing it
and it's going to be messy and it's going to
be complicated. But within the current system, there's nobody to
stop what's happening, and we just have to work within
the rules.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Well I have, I have some different thoughts.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Let's start with the bringing up here, here's the issue,
and I want to get to the ignite issue in
a second. You know, for years, I don't know if
you felt this way, I felt like the European guy was.
It was harder to get Europeans in school into play
because like en it's Canter. They've basically been pros overseas.
But that's all there is, right, there's the junior system
(06:38):
and then and then you get signed by a protein.
You may stay junior ball, you may get least out whatever.
And so technically I actually understand that once you allow that,
because last year at semester we added Jonatan Levy, who
was a pro right now, we were able he was
able to show that he didn't make any money, you
(07:01):
know that it simply covers his expenses or whatever. So
he was able, cleared, able to play as a freshman,
just part being in his mid twenties.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
And so.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Once you allowed foreign professionals to play, well why shouldn't
a domestic professional bio play like it does? Become a contradiction, right,
So I understand that's a hard one where I differentiate
with the g League ignite what guys is that despite
the fact that the system has changed a great deal,
(07:33):
the nil and collective era has been opened long enough
to where even when those guys originally went in, you
made the cognitive decision where you could be a college
player or be a pro, and you chose to be
a pro. Right and by the way, every other sport
has this, They just so people are aware.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
I don't think it's unfair.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
I don't because college baseball players is exactly same thing.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
You draft at a high school. You have a choice.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
You can go one year or you know, you can
go after one year, you go, you go right away,
or you go after year three. Right, football you don't
have that choice. Hey, you don't. But you know, my
daughter's an equestrian. They know they can be juniors up
until a time where they go to college or they
become a pro. That's a decision, that's a choice they make.
(08:24):
Tennis players, same thing, golfers, same thing. You can be
an am or you can be a pro. They all
chose to be pros. That's the choice.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
That's it.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with you on
that specific example, as you think.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
The problem is the problem is that you've now allowed
foreign players who didn't necessarily feel like they had that
choice right to now go. Well, I know you were
a pro there, but you can come back and play here,
whereas if you're in the States and you make essentially
what's what on paper could be seen as the same decision.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
You can't come back and play college.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
It's got to be really hard because the law doesn't work,
doesn't have it doesn't allow as much nuance as real
life has in terms of nuance. That's why I think
people get really stuck with it.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
And I think here one hundred percent right, I think
there's two issues here. One like you described, there's the
pre nil World rules in the post and now World
rules and Nile World. It's constantly changing. So you see
guys like James Nagy I believe his name is Juana Xavier.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
He maybe didn't think.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
That making money in college was an option, so he
went the pro route, and now things have changed, so
he gets to backtrack. And we're seeing a lot of
these older pros coming over who when they were eighteen seventeen,
college didn't seem like a viable financial option, So now
they're getting in to correct it. I think in a
few years we're not going to see it. Maybe in
two years we're not gonna see as many older pros
coming over because those same guys will go to college
(09:49):
when they're eighteen nineteen. Right now, he said the ignite thing,
and it is a different case.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
It's funny. Someone sent me the name of a player
yesterday who.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Played OTE right, who made money an over time than
did G League, then went overseas, and I was like,
I remember talking to this kid when he was choosing
OTE and telling him, don't go to OTE.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
You're much better off going to college.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
You're gonna lose your eligibility and there's a lot of
money coming in college.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
He made the choice to go to OT, and now
he wants to back from playing college. I completely agree
with you.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Once the dust settles in a year or two, where
like this wave of guys who missed their chance at eighteen,
went pro at eighteen and now want to play play
in college. Once that wave is gone, it's going to
stabilize a little bit because then it can actually be Hey,
if you choose to go pro, you're a pro, and
that's it. And if not, you go to college and
you have to make that choice. But a lot of
these guys didn't get that choice when they were eighteen
(10:38):
because NIO wasn't what it is now, right, So but
I agree, we have to get to a point where
you have.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
To pick your path and go with it, and we're.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Gonna see a lot more guys picking college. I can't
imagine why you would pick going to the G League
or going pro overseas as an eighteen year old. In
college was a viable often. I mean maybe because they
give you a little more money there than you would
at a lower bit major. Okay, fine, there's gonna be
some exceptions, But then the question becomes who enforces those rules.
The NCA doesn't have teeth to enforce it. The courts
(11:06):
are going to advocate for a free market, so kind
it goes back to collective bargaining setting rules that everyone
agrees to a bide by, and we're a long way
away from that. There's too much money at stake, and
the courts keep siding with the players. So I don't
know who's going to set those rules. But I think
everybody it's like everybody's crying out, we need guardrails. We
need rules, but okay, who's who's making the rules, who's
(11:26):
deciding there's There is no leadership that's capable of it.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
The NCAA wants to be the leadership.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
But everything they try to do is illegal, and the
course decides so they can't. They can't be them, and
we don't really have a solution. It's going to be
constant chaos for quite a bit longer, which, again, which
is why I always tell my clients, this landscape is
ever changing, and that's why you need good representation who
understands that the changing landscape and how it implicates you,
(11:50):
how it affects you.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Okay, what do you think the biggest.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Walking point on Twitter right now?
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Yes, well, I saw Brandon Goebel, our mutual friend, arguing
with somebody. There's this guy on Twitter who's like he said,
like n lai nil. I think he's a pay I
think he's a paid a propagandist by like a lobbyist
or something. I don't know why some civilian would care
so much about railing against the players' rights.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
And spend so much time on unless they're paid to
do it.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
But yeah, basically Brandon was saying everybody's crying out that
the game is so.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
Bad and Nile's ruining college basketball.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Look at the ratings from you know, I think it
was like from two thousand and two to two thousand
and eighteen, the college basketball ratings were steadily declining, and
now since like twenty twenty to now, the ratings keep
going up.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
I think last year I saw a statistic that the ten.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Most washed basketball games in the world last year, five
who were NBA finals, and five were college basketball games,
and some are regular season like college His point was,
you can't say nil is ruining college basketball when it's
never been more popular, More people have never been watching,
There's never been more conversation around it, and players are staying.
We're getting better player small receias, players are staying in
(13:01):
college longer because they don't need to go to the
draft to get paid.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
The product is better.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
I think the fallout of it is, which is a
fair point, is that there's less Cinderellas, because when they
have so much talent at the high end ten million
dollars rosters, it's a lot harder to upset than in
the tournament. This year, we saw less Cinderella's. That is
a fair point, but like the game has never been healthier,
normople have never been watching more, people have never been
going to games. The counterpoint this guy made was, well,
(13:25):
that's just because of gambling. People are just watching more
because of legalized sports betting. I'm sure that has something
to do with it. I'm sure my players get death
bets all the time and they lose people to parlays. Okay,
I'm sure gambling plays a role. But whether it's gambling
or not, the viewership numbers in a world where almost
every other live broadcast or network television is going down
(13:50):
in ratings and college basketball is going up, it's undeniable
that it's never been more popular. Whether it's because of
the quality of the product or because of gambling, it's
undeniable that NIL is not severely harming the product when
it's walked by more people than ever before. But Brandon
and this dude, I've never engaged with that guy to
nil NL I guy, he always gets in my comments
(14:13):
and never respond because when someone is clearly so entrenched
in their viewpoint, you're just going to spin in circles
and you're going to talk at each other. My mother
just texted me today about a political thing. I could
have texted her back, I said, Mom, I love you.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
I'm not going to.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Engage because I know where it's going to go. That's
why I don't argue with trolls. I had one troll
I almost responded to yesterday. He was very creative in
his combination of anti agent sentiment and anti semitism. It
was like a really creative tweet where he pulled an
interview I did with Kyrie Irving in two thousand and
nine on my YouTube channel and referenced it to be
anti Semitic.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
But I didn't respond. You can't respond to trolls.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I know you are for it, and no, no, I've
really done a better job.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
In recent years of not doing.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
It every once in a while now only do it
to defend and my players for the most part, like
I don't you know, I don't care about anything else,
or just you know, when people were just outright blatant
lies like I don't I don't like that stuff most guys,
I just block or mute whatever I gotta.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Send you this tweet, he was so creative as anti semitism.
I was actually like.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
But I knew if I responded to him then it
would just tell my audience, Hey, if you say anti
Semitic things, then damn will respond and it's just going
to invite more of it.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
So I decided not to. I'll send it to you
on the side. That was very funny.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
I look forward to I look forward to seeing it.
What was your Did you take issue with friend for
Shilla's tweet?
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Well, actually it's funny.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
The anti semitic, anti agent comment was was in response
to friends tweet. I responded, people don't know me in
front or friendly, so they think, oh, these guys are battling. No,
we're just having light banter me in front of a pool.
And then this guy went in on me. But you know,
frans tweet essentially was all the ways you know friends,
(16:00):
the old cranky guy.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
We know friend, we love friends. He's old and cranky, right,
he's not not that old. I'm sorry friend, but you know.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Franz tweet was, here's all the things that are ruining
the game, but here's no solutions to it.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
That's everyone's favorite thing to do.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Now, here's all the things wrong with it, but here's
there's no actual solution that I can propose. But one
of the things he said, was you know agents are
ruining the game. They're that best and clueless at worst
or something. And I said, Fran, don't say we're all sisters.
Like you know, there are some good college coaches and
some bad college coaches. There are some really good college
(16:33):
coaches who are you know, raising good young men?
Speaker 4 (16:36):
And there are some crooks. We know that.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
And in the agent world maybe there's more crooks than
shysters and really unqualified agents than there are good ones.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
But they're not only at my company.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I know some other really good agents like I mentioned before,
you know, like often Walton Hory, Markham, Drew Calso are
some of the guys you know in the US. You know,
I don't even know these guys at PNW Sports Group.
I've never met these guys, but they seem to be
getting their guys really good jobs, and they say to
be succeeding. I could recognize which agencies are actually guiding
their players really well and which ones are completely ruining
(17:08):
careers in our shysters and manipulators. I've seen so many
screenshots my clients send me from guys claiming to be
the best annile agent in the world, and they have
no no track record, no no training whatsoever. But so
I told Fran I was like, hey, frand give me
some credit. We're not shysters. And he responded, you, actually,
I know a lot of the guys in their staff.
You do a great job. I said, most, not all,
but one thing I'll bring up to that specific point.
(17:30):
This is the point I'm going to bring up to
day a little self promotion for myself.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
And good agents out there. When people talk about.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
The problem at the game right now, people talk about
it like everything's a bidding more. Everybody just goes to
the highest bidder. Everybody just wants the most money, and
agents just want to push guys into the portal to
make more money. And I think that's true with a
lot of agents. A lot of these shysters do just
want to push guys in the portal to make money.
But what seven rates good agents from bad agents is
guys who agencies that prioritize only profit, Guys who prioritize
(18:01):
fit overprofit. That is our mantra in our company, fit overprofit.
We want our guys to succeed where they go. And
if you look at our track record, we just did
a study the other last week of like a midseason
study of our placements, we had nineteen guys that went
from either D two low major or mid major to
high major schools. In this portum okay, nineteen jump level
(18:22):
jumps to the high major. Everybody knows that's the risky
as jump. Right, If you go lower mid major to
high major, maybe you have a thirty percent chance of succeeding, right,
maybe you get paid.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
But most of these guys don't succeed making that jump.
Of our nineteen guys who went low in mid major
to high major, sixteen are full time starters.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
The seventeenth is the sixth man on the ACC team,
and the only two who aren't starting. One is a
rotation big for a top ten team and the other
got surgery this summer and he's working his way back.
So we effectively went in nineteen for nineteen succeeding in
lower mid major to high major transfers.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Well, how do we do that fit over profit?
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Right?
Speaker 4 (19:00):
We didn't just go for the biggest bat.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Who went for the best fit, and we have a
second grouping of guys below them that could have gone
high major, but they would have been backups, So instead
we sent it a mid major plus and those guys
are stars. Terrence Kinner Dukuine, Jamel Jones at New Mexico State,
Laobif at UCSD, Jamiir Simpson at UTSA, Gavin Walsh at UNC.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Wilmington, Chandler Confort of the Elon.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
We have a number of mid major plus guys who
are going to be All Conference or Conference Players of
the Year. Those guys could have gone high major, they
took a little bit less money and instead of being
a high major backup, there mid major plus stars. So
like our agency has expertise, just like you would go
to a doctor for the best medals of advice.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
You go to the best agents for the best portal
advice or the best advice.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
And to say agents are shysters is like saying all
doctors will kill you. Yeah, there are some doctors who
will kill you and some who will save you. So
let's separate the good from the bad.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Our.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Data shows that guys are much more successful and having
transferring and finding success when they use us versus when
they use their mom or their their AAU coach or
a bad agent. So by putting all agents in the
bad category, you are guiding players towards entering that portal
boy by themself and setting them up to fail.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
You're you're right.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
I mean it's it's there's good agents, there's bad agents.
There's guys that ask for under the table payments, there's
guys that send them to just the highest bidder, there's
guys that put guys.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
In the portal that should not.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
And you know, for a player, it's really hard because
they don't know who to listen to, right because everybody's
telling them there's great things out there for you, but
not where you are. And so you get to this
time of year and you see a lack of buying
an investment from some of these guys, whereas at the.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Start of the year they were kind of all about it.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
And that's the really, really challenging thing, is finding a
way to get those guys tricking back to the level
of hunger. If you ever, if you ever can, I
was going to ask you about some of the promotion
you guys do, okay, And I bring it up because
I actually understand it from this side when I was
(21:10):
at ESPN.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Even since I've left ESPN.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
You know, there's lots of people who are critical of
ESPN promoting their own stuff, and my point was always, well,
if they're not going to promote it, who is, right, Like, I,
how could you blame ESPN for promoting that next week?
You know, Duke plays Syracuse. When do you think NBC, Peacock, CBS, Fox,
(21:38):
And of course they're not going to promote it. So
the only chance to promote it is on your own network.
And so yeah, you got to be a little bit
cheerleader for yourself. So I do understand the self promotional aspect.
And you guys have some players that are having outstanding
seasons and you want to promote the fact that not
only are they having great years, but you represent them,
(21:58):
which essentially is telling everybody in the in the sport, Hey,
if you want to get a hold of this guy,
go through us, right. That's doing your job. On the
other hand, I do wonder about the optics because we
had a player last year whose father win or lose,
and sometimes after bad losses would always put out the
(22:19):
stats of his son, and we just thought, like, God,
it's a bad look. It's not that you can't promote
your kid, but right after the game, and it also
signifies to everyone, hey, this kid wants to move at
the nearest possible date. Otherwise, what's the point of promoting
that he had fourteen points in a loss against Wright State.
(22:41):
So when I open up my social media and I
see you guys promoting underclassmen for what they're doing, doesn't
that say the same thing? Doesn't it say, Hey, this
kid's on the market and that's what we're selling. Again,
I'm telling you optics from my seat. Now you tell
me how I should feel about a premier seat.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
It's interesting that you have that take.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Is it makes sense from your college coach perspective, where yeah,
when you have players or underclassmen or promoting their statss
and losses, so you think that's what we're doing.
Speaker 4 (23:12):
Potentially that never crossed my mind.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Like, we have basically for all of our players, whether
they're seniors, whether they're underclassmen, whether they have eligibility or not.
We have standards for what constitutes a promotional post. Right,
if you're the high score in a game, if you
get a double double, if you get a career high.
We democratize it so that players can.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
Never be like, well, you promoted his game and not
my game.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Where like, these are our standards, and if you pass this,
you're going to get a daily staff post.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
Part of it is self promotion for our brand.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
We know that players will then share that graphic on
their social media and other players will say, wow, my
agency doesn't do that.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
That agency's posting highlights and all this cool stuff for
their guys.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
They're proud of their guys, right, So self promotion for
the brand be self promotion for the brand, and that,
like I said, if we're promoting fit over profit, we're
not posting look how much money.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
This guy has.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Where saying look we have Cam Fletcher at high point
seems like an obscure flip fit, but he's gonna be
Conference Player of the Year because we are wicked good
at finding the right fit for our guys. And when
you keep seeing how big Cam Fletcher's doing, you're gonna think, wow,
we did a really good job placing players.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
Right.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
And the reality is we don't need need Socialpedia to
promote our guys because the entire transfer portal runs through
our office. Right, I've got a sick team of agents
who are all killers in the most beautiful, sensitive way
that every college coach. This morning, I had a high
major assistant in my office. Actually, I had to have
a high major assistant in my office. We don't need
(24:36):
social media to promote our guys. But it's funny. I
saw one agent I'm not gonna say who you know
who he is, I'll tell you offline last portal was
tweeting about his guys and he's like, this player is
available a mid major plus steel. And like, first off,
if you're an agent, all of your players are high
major plus.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
I don't hear their D two. They're high major plus, right, Like,
you can't understan tell your guy is a mid major
of plus.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
You can say that on the phone if you want
to find the right fit. Second off, what message does
that send your clients if you need Twitter to promote
your portal clients. The whole point of having an agents
that we have real relationships. I can get coaches on
the phone and find me the right fit. The only
time I go to Twitter to promote a client is
if I'm using the media to promote somebody who really
(25:22):
doesn't have anything. Maybe they hit a roadblock in their
career and I need to just like conjure up a
little bit more interest for him. Like we had a
guy this year who left the team and his transferring
midyear you know who he is. It's kind of an
obscure situation, so we need media to get the word out.
But if I have an underclassman who's dominating, I don't
need to post his Twitter stats every day. People are
(25:42):
going to know about him and we're gonna to have
conversations about it. And to the next point about our ethics.
I always have a schools calling me and saying, who
do you have in this year's portal, And I say,
you can see on social media who our current clients are, right,
the guys who replaced at those schools, and the new
guys were signing this year. I'll let you know when
they're season's over. I do not start promoting guys until
after the season's over and after they've had a conversation
(26:03):
with their coach, letting them know their intention, whether it's
a staying to stay at school or role in the portal.
Second off, just because we're signing an under flass but
at a mid major, it's not a four Garne conclusion
that they're entering the portal. I tell every guy that
signs to this midyear, I say, before you enter the portal,
I'm going to get data for you, right I'm going
to talk to ten schools at a higher level than
yours and get evals, and I'm going to show you
(26:25):
those evals.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
And if seven of those ten schools.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
So you're not ready to make the jump, I'm going
to make sure you stay where you're at.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Now, if eight of those ten say yeah, you'd be
a high major starter. All right, let's rock and roll.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Now, we're getting real data from high majors letting us
know that you're ready.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
It's not me.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Guessing or me saying I really believe in you, or
your dad saying he's the best player since sliced bread.
It's high major saying you're ready to make the jump.
Part of the reason why we've had so many success
with guys making the jump. Everybody who made the jump
before they jumped in the portal, we had ten evais
saying this guy's ready to make the jump. Right, So,
we don't need to promote guys. But I understand why
the optics would be that in reality, we're just promoting
(27:01):
a that we do a kick ass job for our
clients and being we're proud of our clients. The guys
that we post on social media are only guys who
weeded the placement. If I signed you when you're already
at the school, weave is not promoting your stats because
I can't take credit for those stats.
Speaker 4 (27:14):
Because I didn't put you at that school.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
If we post something on social media, it means we
did the placement and we're proud of that guy succeeded.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
All right, here's the question.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
There is an assumption from a lot of college coaches
that when agents connect with a player, if he's had
a good start to the season, he has good tape,
that there's like a shut it down mentality, right, which
is like, hey, if you're not perfect, don't play, don't
worry about it.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
All all that can do is be bad film and
bad stats. Right, things aren't going your way. Just shut
it down. You're hurt or whatever.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Talk me through what that's like with you working with clients,
potential clients or current climate clients. When you know, first
ten games of the year, they they nail it and
they see the big dollar signs, and that's when all
of a sudden, now college coaches think this kid may
shut it down.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
You're absolutely right that that is happening a lot, and
that players are asking their agents and their advisors, Hey,
I'm a little nick and Bruce, should I just shut
it down for the rest of the year. Now, what
I'm going to say now is going to sound like
total bs. It's going to sound like I'm just, you know,
thinking I'm.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
Holier than now.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
But the reality is the reason our company has been
so successful is that we operate athlete and that we
have good relationshs with college coaches, and that we hold
our players accountable. So there are multiple times to see
where players came to me and they're like, you know,
I'm not starting like I thought I was going to
and my wrist hurts.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
Should I just read shirt for the rest of the year?
And every time I say, if.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
You are genuinely too hurt to play, I will support
a red shirt. If you are healthy enough to play
and they're paying you X amount of dollars, you're going
to play, and if you decide not to play, you
cannot accept.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
The money for the rest of the year. You have
to get that money back.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
You can't take someone's money, pretend to be hurt and
red shirt and move on. That's called stealing. And like,
you have to have ethics. At a certain point, you've
got to draw a line. I have a player right now.
A few games ago he's getting paid uppers are half
million dollars. And you had like a nagging injury, and
we talked about it and I said, look, man, if
(29:30):
this injury is really so bad that you think you're
going to like tear an acl, then we have to
shut it down. But you know your body better than me.
And if you can go out there and play and
you're healthy enough to play, you got to do it.
They're paying a lot of money and they're counting on you.
Then the day that there has to be. Like I'm
a deeply religious person. I fear consequence from God more
than I fear consequence from man. So if I'm going
to cut a corner and help a guy cheat and
(29:52):
steal for his own personal benefit, I'm dealing with that
harmic retribution, and so is he. I'm saving that player
from paying that karmic debt later. And if you do
the right thing and you're paid to play, and you
play and you're healthy enough to play, God will reward
you for doing the right thing. Like I my job
is not only to help players make decisions, but to
(30:12):
help teach them how to make decisions. If you have
an agent that's telling you all that matters is money
and it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
Who you step on along the way.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
You're teaching a young man to go about life that way,
and he's going to have a really tough life.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
If you teach a player.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Yeah, money matters, but also matters it's treated people right,
doing the ethnicity right thing, following your heart, following God,
treating the people around you well, and people who invested
you in you and people who are betting their season
on you to give them what you agree to right,
because they could have signed somebody else who would have
been loyal to them. If you teach them that framework
of thinking, maybe they lose a little money because they
(30:46):
don't get the red shirt year, but they're going to
go about life in a more successful way and at
the end of their life, they're going to look back
and a life will have treated them better. It's not
always thinking one step ahead, it's thinking two, three, four,
or five, ten, A million steps ahead. Steps ahead is
the after life right? And I all my agents at
my company. That's my job with them too. It's not
(31:07):
just to teach them how to negotiate each economics of basketball.
It's season about how to die young men and help
mold young men and show them how to go about
life in a way that's going to be conducive to
a successful, happy, healthy life. And I'm so proud of
my stafford doing that. Again, why did we have so
much success with our transfers this year because so many
guys were willing to turn down more money to go
(31:28):
to a place that's suited them better. And very few
agencies will advise guys to do that, but we will,
and that's why we succeed, and that's why we keep growing.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Last year there was that run on contracts right before
but July first, right right before the new ruling kind
of came into effect. What do you think the market
looks like this year?
Speaker 3 (31:53):
That's going to be another hour we got to talk about.
I mean basically football January second. I believe that when
the football portal opens, that's going to model what ours
is going to look like, right, because this year it's
been this whole thing of oh, well, it's just revenue
sharing money.
Speaker 4 (32:07):
Everyone's only gonna.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Have you the power for level, Like at your level,
it won't be as effected, right because you guys aren't
hitting the reds share cap anyway, right, But at the
powerboard level, they're like, well, they're gonna hit the rev
share cap, so they're gonna have to lower their budgets
and only spend within reb share.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
And then it's like, well, they're gonna spend within redshare,
but then they're gonna.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Have quote unquote true nil outside of the rev share
that they're gonna do through brands, but the CSC has
to clear it, right, So you're able to spend outside
the red share but not be collectives, and it's gonna
be limited. Now we see with football, LSU promised playing
kid them thirty million dollars budget. Well, their repshare is
gonna be like twelve or fifteen. Okay, they're gonna spend
(32:43):
a lot of money more at Penn State, Michigan, some
of these other new coaches, they're stepping in expecting thirty
forty million in spending, which is way above.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
The red share cap. So we're gonna have to see
how football does it.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
And if football just throws calls from the win and says,
screw it, we're spending with our collectives or spending with
our boosters.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
We're not even clearing with the CSC. We're saying, screw you.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
You're not making lsu A Bowl in eligible.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
You're not telling Penn State the bowl and eligible. We're
gonna spend out we want.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
You're not going to do anything about it, and if
you try to go to the ports, that might happen.
Or they're going to try to bundle these true NIL
packages through brands and supplement that way.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
It's really tricky.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Because as an agent, if they say, hey, we're giving
your client your quarterback five million dollars, but four million
is going through these brands that have to get cleared
by the College Sports Commission, that's a really risky proposition.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Right.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
So my guess is that somebody these football schools.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Throw caution of the win, start giving big contracts, don't
clear it through the College Sports Commission, and tell the
NCAA come get us.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
The reality is, how many players.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Have missed a single game of college football or basketball
due to an NIL violation. The answer is zero. There's
no teeth to these rules. So I think football Portal's
going to throw caution of the wain. We're going to
see another spending frenzy, and that's going to model what
basketball is going to do. We just have to watch
closely and see what they do and then what the
repercussions are, which is might be.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
None last thing, and we will have that hour long
on what the market looks like. The Big East in
this year that was supposed to be, you know, the
big REB share year. They had the biggest rev share,
Yet they've struggled the most in the non conference.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Why do you think that is?
Speaker 3 (34:18):
I really think next year would have been that. Okay,
So to explain to the listeners who don't understand what
we're talking about, football schools, So every school has a
twenty point five million dollar rep share cap. Football schools
have to split down between football, basketball, other sports. So
if you're LSU and you have twenty point five million,
you assume fifteen million goes to football, you know, four
million goes to basketball and the rest of host dollar sport.
(34:39):
Big East has a twenty point five million dollar cap.
No other sports is split and no football to split
it with. So Saint Johns and Creighton can spend ten million,
eleven million dollars repshare. So what we said is when
we go to a true if we ever went to
a true REP share world, the Big East would be
these big spenders at the Atlantic ten with no football
be these big spenders, and the SEC and the Big
ten would really get hurt because they didn't care about football. Okay,
(35:00):
but because this past year, as you described, we had
the pre July first spending frenzy where we had players
getting million dollars wires in May to beat that deadline. Right,
you have this spending frenzy, and then you have the
revs share world. So we still are in a world
where the Big East didn't have a competitive advantage because
true revshare hadn't hit yet. Right, This upcoming year would
(35:25):
be the first year where the SEC, Big Ten, Big twelve,
what's the other league acc schools are limited by revshare
and the eight ten and the Big East get free spending.
And we'll see if that does give them a competitive advantage,
or if the other schools find enough workarounds that they
spend how they want. Anyway, I mean, that was the
(35:46):
big argument that I've always made as to why this
rev share capital never stick, because if it really stuck
to the letter of the law, to see a world.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
Where Alabama and Georgia.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
And LSU are have a three to four million dollar
basketball budget, and George Washington and George Mason and Richmond
and Dayton have a four to five million dollar budget,
and Creighton in Providence in Saint John's of a ten
million dollar budget. I'm like, we're not going to see
a world where Alabama's getting outbid by Ducaine.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
It's the coaches made Oaks would lose his mind.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
He's like, I worked my whole life to get beat
by Ducaine for a star recruit. No, we're going to
spend in the NCAY got to come do something about it,
and they're not going to do it. So I predicted
that the Big East and a ten competitive advantage would
be the catalyst for that dam breaking, but I actually
think it's going to happen before that. The catalyst was
college football coaches getting new jobs with spending promises in
(36:41):
the football portal being before our portal, and then breaking
down the dam and us you know, kind of following
their need. But but but that Big East competitive vantage
I thought would be the catalyst because it was just
it was too much of an oversight when putting together,
which is so funny.
Speaker 4 (36:56):
They put together this Core Act and the House Settlement,
this and that. Did they ever asked Dan p. No
one asked me for my insight.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
With anybody, just like wait, hold on, wait wait wait
wait wait what about the Big East? What about the
A ten? How does that actually work? No, it's it's
it's fasting. But they have not yet found a way
to manage their money. And it's still an art finding,
you know, finding the right guys, keeping the right guys,
trying to build a culture.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Well to that point, the last thing I'll say on
this note you mentioned before guys getting checked out mid
season or feeling like they have one foot.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
Out the door.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Even in a spending free spending world, the key is
still culture. This key is still picking the right guys.
I've always respected. One name I'll get a shout out
to is Eric Ollen, New Mexico. Last year he had
his team at UCSD and I didn't know Eric, and
I went to see him play and I asked him
how you have so many guys who bought it, were
like playing their role and happy to be there. He said,
In the recruiting process, I filter for character, I filter
(37:51):
for humility, I filter for guys who really didn't buy
into their role. And now you get a lot more
with a lot less, and even in a world where
guys the schools can spend all as much, it still
comes down to character, culture, commitment. And don't think that
the highest that the highest spending teams are alway gonna win.
Speaker 4 (38:08):
I can tell you a number of teams right now
it's spend over ten million dollars walking to make the tournament.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
You no, No, I get it. And I think Eric
does do a great job.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
I do wonder how hard that becomes at New Mexico.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
That that's been different, right? Can you carry that over?
Speaker 2 (38:21):
It's it's the same thing people want to see with
Ben McCullum at Iowa. In the meantime, happy the holidays,
Happy New Year. And I love that you're worried about
karma with every basketball decision you make.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Every single decision. If I make a bad placement, it
keeps me up at night. I want every player to succeed.
I want them all to be happy.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
Last Compa'll make on the Ben McCullum note, Bennett starts
George hemingson, I think of a D two coach.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
Put him all my.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
Staff, all American contributor, all American producer.
Speaker 4 (38:57):
That's what we're trying to do.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
What we find that Bennett starts as the world, where
we finded the Jeremy Densiss, we finded the two guys.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
With high major hearts.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Hey, that was a great, great discussion with Dan Ponaman,
you know, because he joined us off off the rip.
I didn't get a chance to do a little bit
of an intro and an update. As we creep closer
and closer to New Year. My team plays our next
game January first, and yeah, I don't I wish I
had an answer for what happened when we lost to Campbell,
(39:29):
but there just was not the energy, uh and tenacity
there and a team for them that was tired and
traveled and hadn't shot the ball well at all.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
The night before two.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
And a half nights night and a half before shot
incredibly well. But we felt like we helped, that we
gave them energy and confidence and they played great. And
so what have we done? Kind of back to square one,
right back to the square run. And it's frustrating because
you don't know whether it's because they were mentally already
right for the break, whether it was some of the
(40:03):
guys who hadn't been playing as much, I don't know,
but it was very noticeable in the first couple of
possessions of the game, and yet we were still at
a five point lead in the first half, made some mistakes,
fell behind Foult a three point shooter on an horrendous call,
and we're never able to get back control at all
of the game. So what I what I continue to
(40:25):
learn is things on a daily basis, and this one
is an interesting one, is that it doesn't matter how
much rest them, how hard you practice, how they look
in practice.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Sometimes you just never know.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
And I think the frustration for a lot of us
as coaches with this new system is we don't know
if some guys aren't playing as hard because well, they
think I'm gonna be elsewhere next year. I have good
tape some of these, Alrea, somebody's already interested. I'm good,
you know, when all we're trying to get is committed
connected guys to play together.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
And play hard.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
I'll say this about the Barreler situation. You know, we've
talked about it on the pods. We brought it over
Jonatan Levy last year. Part of it was a mistaken
that I played him too soon. I've heard people say
it screws up your culture, it's not easy to bring
a guy over and to play him.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
You have to find just the right player. He has
to have just the right mentality.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
You have to insert him at just the right time,
and you have to have the need for that player.
It can't just be because when guys lose minutes to
somebody who hasn't kind of earned it in terms of
their respect and going through the tough times and going
through the tough practices. It can be hard on the
chemical makeup of a team. But you know, Scott has
such a void there in the middle that I'm sure
he felt like I can go out and get a
(41:38):
grand man.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
I don't blame Scott Drew. I don't.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
I don't think there's I've seen people on social media
credit question the ethics of the decision, like what what ethics?
Speaker 1 (41:53):
All you can do is have the guy.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
If he wants to play in college, he has to
go through the elgibility process. If he becomes clear to play,
he gets into school, you can play them. If you
have a problem, you have the problem with the rules,
not with the coaches. Our job is to win basketball games.
And oh yeah, by the way, you gotta have good
people as well. I haven't heard anything bad about the
kid and his job is win basket and the coaches
jobs win basketball games. The player is eligible, then you
(42:18):
recruit them. Does it feel good to be recruiting pros
to play in college now? But as I as I
told you, there's this slippery slope where we're going to
allow guys that play professionally overseas to come over here.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Why can't we allow guys that play domestically professionally.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
If they want to play in college play in college.
Do I think it's a good look?
Speaker 1 (42:37):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
The problem is if you shut it down, we say, hey,
we're not going to Once you decide to play professional basketball,
you're out in college, which is a fair rule has
to work.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
For international players as well, has to.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
And I don't know how you navigate that without without
going back to not taking nearly as many guys. You know,
we're lost in this proliferation of J League guys and
you know a couple of guys that have gotten you know,
been around NBA teams whatever. The biggest change is the
(43:15):
higher level foreign players. More and more foreign players have
infilstrated the game. And I think it's a good thing
because I think they're well coached, and they add a
lot to it, and they're bringing in more professional kind
of way of approaching the game. All those things are great.
All those things are great, But what's not great is
(43:37):
that we have our arrows directed at coaches who aren't
violating any ethical, moral or written in SA rules. I
believe that if you don't like the rule, attack the rule.
I'm totally okay with that. And by the way, to
people including Dan Potaman, who are like, well, why why
(43:57):
didn't you, you know, do a little bit of something
back in the day. This is why this is Pandora's box.
Once it becomes opened, it becomes really really hard to
close unless you get anti trust legislation, which is why
they hired Charlie Baker to be the head of the NCAA.
And now he's got to get Congress to agree on something,
and once he does, this will be more stable. Hey listen,
(44:21):
if you like the podcast. If you don't like the podcast,
feel free to comment on it. You can also retweet it.
You can set it to a friend. You can hop
into the comment section as well. Remember this is the
Doug out Leab Show All Ball podcast. Passing on to
a friend and until next time, Happy New Year, happy holidays,
(44:42):
thanks for listening, and go Phoenix.
Hey wan to buo. Come in. I'm Doug Gottlieb.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
This is All Ball part of the new Doug Gottlieb
Show podcast where every every week, in addition to talking
about other issues in basketball and as we expand back
to others issues in sports, we welcome in the biggest
name in UH management for current college athletes.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
That would be Dan Paneman. Of course he started the
weave or is it the weave Dan? Or is just weave?
I've actually always one of that just weave. Yeah, how'd
you get to you? Why'd you name it We've?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I mean, I know We've is like a basketball analogy,
But how'd you come upon weave?
Speaker 1 (00:46):
You know?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Actually I was in the jumbles of Costa Rica on
a retreat and I kind of knew I had to
rename the company. It was called Ponham and Data's Representation.
I'm Dan Pohman and my partners Mike Nats. When we
started this company, we did not ten for it to
become a large company. We thought we'd have a small
little bootique agency, two guys, a couple of clients.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
We called it Pondament and Native and it.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Started grow and grow, and I knew I needed to
name that encompass our mission more with all the different
agents and clients we have, and you know, naming things
is hard. So I was in the jungles of Costa
Rica on a retreat. Actually a woman, a Costa Rican woman,
I know, it was like, you know, it came up
to me. She said, you know, my husband always asked
about you. She says, he says, your friend who works
(01:29):
in basket? And another woman walks up and she's like,
you work in basket? I said, yeah, Like so you
weave baskets. I said, no, no, I don't weave baskets.
And then I had a friend who was with me
on that retreat and we thought about it, and he said.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Well, you know, Dan, you do we've. You weave people together.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
You we've we've players, careers, you weave communities, you have
spirituality supports, you do we've You should call your company
that weave my friend Jack Dreyfus, and I said, that's
a great name. And I went and served the trademark
who was available. And obviously it's the three men weave
in the woven basket. But for me, it's more the
symbology of like weaving people together and weaving a career.
(02:06):
Uh and and and uh weaving our communities and uh
and then actually our flying Telo Larson, who plays for
the Heat, drew our logo. If you can see our logo,
I know some people are listening on audio. It actually
makes a weave in a circle.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
W it's w E A V E. It makes a weave.
So so that's where we've for good. Now we we've
there's no high and weave as I say, no, I.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
And we've Okay, there's a bunch of I mean, this
one's served up on a platter for you because a
lot of Twitter, Warriors and some college basketball people have
been obviously discussing, maybe not you personally, but people in
your field a great deal. Plus, Baylor signs a kid
(02:49):
who played summer league ball with the Knicks.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
That one's interesting.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
So let's start with the biggest current agent narrative that
social media has presented this week.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
What do you what? I have my thoughts.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
What do you think the biggest maybe misconception that is
currently circling in the world social media?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
The question is are we talking biggest misconception and biggest story?
I mean, the biggest story is obviously the kid that
Baylor signed and then.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
The two let's let's start there. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
I love the sport of college basketball as much as
everybody else. If someone played in the NBA, I aim,
and I, as a player first advocate, have a hard
time stomaching a guy who previously has the NBA experience
playing in the NBA. Similarly, I have a hard time
stomaching these mid season editions now to be as an
agency participating in some of those midseason editions.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Yes, we don't make the rules, we buy by them.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
If we have players in Europe who want to come over,
then we'll come over, bring them over.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
But I do have a hard.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Time feeling like it's good for the game when guys
teams are adding mid season now. As far as the
NBA thing, yes, if someone played in the NBA, I think,
just like my gut says, it's probably not best for
the sport of college basketball for a former NBA players
going to play now the guy was like drafted and
never played in the NBA or went through the draft
(04:19):
process and.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Didn't get picked.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
I do think if they're within the age bracket, they
should have an opportunity to play.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
I've always felt that, like if a guy goes through
the draft process and doesn't get picked.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
The prior rules said you can't return and play college basketball,
so they're stuck in the G League. If you go
through the draft process, you get bad advice, you don't
get picked. I don't see a reason why you shouldn't
be able to play college basketball. I think the former
G League Ignite guys who kind of got duped into
joining G League and Nite to get paid rather than.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Playing college basketball, and then they folded G League Ignite.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Yeah, they should have an opportunity to play college basketball,
but ultimately talk to a bigger thing. It's like, is
it Scott Drew's Is he the villain for adding someone
within the rules? As the ends AAA the villain for
allowing it. Well, the NACA is not allowing it. The
courts are allowing it.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
Right. The NCAA has tried to doesn't want any of
this stuff to happen.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
NCAA wants it to go back to the old days
where players are effectively slaves, right, whether they're working and
making money for everybody but themselves. Right, the nca doesn't
want any of this. They will have been forced into
all this by the courts. So because you have a
system where the NCAA tries to block everything, the court's
rule that pretty much everything may do is illegal, and
that becomes the battleground, then all these things get allowed
(05:29):
and people are like, who's to blame, Well, who is
to blame is the coaches for working within the system,
the agents are working within the system, the players are
working within the system. The NCAA for being so incompetent
that they can't stop any of it for happening. I mean,
ultimately it speaks to what I've said all along is
that we're not going to like patchwork fix this thing.
It's gonna be teared down, rebuild built. It's going to
be players as employees having a union collectively bargaining. It's
(05:50):
going to be potentially power five, power four breaking off
and having you know, multiple divisions as they do in
the NBA with the GVUE, as they do in Europe
with multiple divisions. Like, there's going to have to be
to tear it down, rebuild, and we're just appointing it
and it's going to be messy and it's going to
be complicated. But within the current system, there's nobody to
stop what's happening, and we just have to work within
the rules.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Well I have, I have some different thoughts.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Let's start with the bringing up here, here's the issue,
and I want to get to the ignite issue in
a second. You know, for years, I don't know if
you felt this way, I felt like the European guy was.
It was harder to get Europeans in school into play
because like en it's Canter. They've basically been pros overseas.
But that's all there is, right, there's the junior system
(06:38):
and then and then you get signed by a protein.
You may stay junior ball, you may get least out whatever.
And so technically I actually understand that once you allow that,
because last year at semester we added Jonatan Levy, who
was a pro right now, we were able he was
able to show that he didn't make any money, you
(07:01):
know that it simply covers his expenses or whatever. So
he was able, cleared, able to play as a freshman,
just part being in his mid twenties.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
And so.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Once you allowed foreign professionals to play, well why shouldn't
a domestic professional bio play like it does? Become a contradiction, right,
So I understand that's a hard one where I differentiate
with the g League ignite what guys is that despite
the fact that the system has changed a great deal,
(07:33):
the nil and collective era has been opened long enough
to where even when those guys originally went in, you
made the cognitive decision where you could be a college
player or be a pro, and you chose to be
a pro. Right and by the way, every other sport
has this, They just so people are aware.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
I don't think it's unfair.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
I don't because college baseball players is exactly same thing.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
You draft at a high school. You have a choice.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
You can go one year or you know, you can
go after one year, you go, you go right away,
or you go after year three. Right, football you don't
have that choice. Hey, you don't. But you know, my
daughter's an equestrian. They know they can be juniors up
until a time where they go to college or they
become a pro. That's a decision, that's a choice they make.
(08:24):
Tennis players, same thing, golfers, same thing. You can be
an am or you can be a pro. They all
chose to be pros. That's the choice.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
That's it.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with you on
that specific example, as you think.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
The problem is the problem is that you've now allowed
foreign players who didn't necessarily feel like they had that
choice right to now go. Well, I know you were
a pro there, but you can come back and play here,
whereas if you're in the States and you make essentially
what's what on paper could be seen as the same decision.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
You can't come back and play college.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
It's got to be really hard because the law doesn't work,
doesn't have it doesn't allow as much nuance as real
life has in terms of nuance. That's why I think
people get really stuck with it.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
And I think here one hundred percent right, I think
there's two issues here. One like you described, there's the
pre nil World rules in the post and now World
rules and Nile World. It's constantly changing. So you see
guys like James Nagy I believe his name is Juana Xavier.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
He maybe didn't think.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
That making money in college was an option, so he
went the pro route, and now things have changed, so
he gets to backtrack. And we're seeing a lot of
these older pros coming over who when they were eighteen seventeen,
college didn't seem like a viable financial option, So now
they're getting in to correct it. I think in a
few years we're not going to see it. Maybe in
two years we're not gonna see as many older pros
coming over because those same guys will go to college
(09:49):
when they're eighteen nineteen. Right now, he said the ignite thing,
and it is a different case.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
It's funny. Someone sent me the name of a player
yesterday who.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Played OTE right, who made money an over time than
did G League, then went overseas, and I was like,
I remember talking to this kid when he was choosing
OTE and telling him, don't go to OTE.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
You're much better off going to college.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
You're gonna lose your eligibility and there's a lot of
money coming in college.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
He made the choice to go to OT, and now
he wants to back from playing college. I completely agree
with you.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Once the dust settles in a year or two, where
like this wave of guys who missed their chance at eighteen,
went pro at eighteen and now want to play play
in college. Once that wave is gone, it's going to
stabilize a little bit because then it can actually be Hey,
if you choose to go pro, you're a pro, and
that's it. And if not, you go to college and
you have to make that choice. But a lot of
these guys didn't get that choice when they were eighteen
(10:38):
because NIO wasn't what it is now, right, So but
I agree, we have to get to a point where
you have.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
To pick your path and go with it, and we're.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Gonna see a lot more guys picking college. I can't
imagine why you would pick going to the G League
or going pro overseas as an eighteen year old. In
college was a viable often. I mean maybe because they
give you a little more money there than you would
at a lower bit major. Okay, fine, there's gonna be
some exceptions, But then the question becomes who enforces those rules.
The NCA doesn't have teeth to enforce it. The courts
(11:06):
are going to advocate for a free market, so kind
it goes back to collective bargaining setting rules that everyone
agrees to a bide by, and we're a long way
away from that. There's too much money at stake, and
the courts keep siding with the players. So I don't
know who's going to set those rules. But I think
everybody it's like everybody's crying out, we need guardrails. We
need rules, but okay, who's who's making the rules, who's
(11:26):
deciding there's There is no leadership that's capable of it.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
The NCAA wants to be the leadership.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
But everything they try to do is illegal, and the
course decides so they can't. They can't be them, and
we don't really have a solution. It's going to be
constant chaos for quite a bit longer, which, again, which
is why I always tell my clients, this landscape is
ever changing, and that's why you need good representation who
understands that the changing landscape and how it implicates you,
(11:50):
how it affects you.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Okay, what do you think the biggest.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Walking point on Twitter right now?
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Yes, well, I saw Brandon Goebel, our mutual friend, arguing
with somebody. There's this guy on Twitter who's like he said,
like n lai nil. I think he's a pay I
think he's a paid a propagandist by like a lobbyist
or something. I don't know why some civilian would care
so much about railing against the players' rights.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
And spend so much time on unless they're paid to
do it.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
But yeah, basically Brandon was saying everybody's crying out that
the game is so.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
Bad and Nile's ruining college basketball.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Look at the ratings from you know, I think it
was like from two thousand and two to two thousand
and eighteen, the college basketball ratings were steadily declining, and
now since like twenty twenty to now, the ratings keep
going up.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
I think last year I saw a statistic that the ten.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Most washed basketball games in the world last year, five
who were NBA finals, and five were college basketball games,
and some are regular season like college His point was,
you can't say nil is ruining college basketball when it's
never been more popular, More people have never been watching,
There's never been more conversation around it, and players are staying.
We're getting better player small receias, players are staying in
(13:01):
college longer because they don't need to go to the
draft to get paid.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
The product is better.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
I think the fallout of it is, which is a
fair point, is that there's less Cinderellas, because when they
have so much talent at the high end ten million
dollars rosters, it's a lot harder to upset than in
the tournament. This year, we saw less Cinderella's. That is
a fair point, but like the game has never been healthier,
normople have never been watching more, people have never been
going to games. The counterpoint this guy made was, well,
(13:25):
that's just because of gambling. People are just watching more
because of legalized sports betting. I'm sure that has something
to do with it. I'm sure my players get death
bets all the time and they lose people to parlays. Okay,
I'm sure gambling plays a role. But whether it's gambling
or not, the viewership numbers in a world where almost
every other live broadcast or network television is going down
(13:50):
in ratings and college basketball is going up, it's undeniable
that it's never been more popular. Whether it's because of
the quality of the product or because of gambling, it's
undeniable that NIL is not severely harming the product when
it's walked by more people than ever before. But Brandon
and this dude, I've never engaged with that guy to
nil NL I guy, he always gets in my comments
(14:13):
and never respond because when someone is clearly so entrenched
in their viewpoint, you're just going to spin in circles
and you're going to talk at each other. My mother
just texted me today about a political thing. I could
have texted her back, I said, Mom, I love you.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
I'm not going to.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Engage because I know where it's going to go. That's
why I don't argue with trolls. I had one troll
I almost responded to yesterday. He was very creative in
his combination of anti agent sentiment and anti semitism. It
was like a really creative tweet where he pulled an
interview I did with Kyrie Irving in two thousand and
nine on my YouTube channel and referenced it to be
anti Semitic.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
But I didn't respond. You can't respond to trolls.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I know you are for it, and no, no, I've
really done a better job.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
In recent years of not doing.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
It every once in a while now only do it
to defend and my players for the most part, like
I don't you know, I don't care about anything else,
or just you know, when people were just outright blatant
lies like I don't I don't like that stuff most guys,
I just block or mute whatever I gotta.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Send you this tweet, he was so creative as anti semitism.
I was actually like.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
But I knew if I responded to him then it
would just tell my audience, Hey, if you say anti
Semitic things, then damn will respond and it's just going
to invite more of it.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
So I decided not to. I'll send it to you
on the side. That was very funny.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
I look forward to I look forward to seeing it.
What was your Did you take issue with friend for
Shilla's tweet?
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Well, actually it's funny.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
The anti semitic, anti agent comment was was in response
to friends tweet. I responded, people don't know me in
front or friendly, so they think, oh, these guys are battling. No,
we're just having light banter me in front of a pool.
And then this guy went in on me. But you know,
frans tweet essentially was all the ways you know friends,
(16:00):
the old cranky guy.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
We know friend, we love friends. He's old and cranky, right,
he's not not that old. I'm sorry friend, but you know.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Franz tweet was, here's all the things that are ruining
the game, but here's no solutions to it.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
That's everyone's favorite thing to do.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Now, here's all the things wrong with it, but here's
there's no actual solution that I can propose. But one
of the things he said, was you know agents are
ruining the game. They're that best and clueless at worst
or something. And I said, Fran, don't say we're all sisters.
Like you know, there are some good college coaches and
some bad college coaches. There are some really good college
(16:33):
coaches who are you know, raising good young men?
Speaker 4 (16:36):
And there are some crooks. We know that.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
And in the agent world maybe there's more crooks than
shysters and really unqualified agents than there are good ones.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
But they're not only at my company.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I know some other really good agents like I mentioned before,
you know, like often Walton Hory, Markham, Drew Calso are
some of the guys you know in the US. You know,
I don't even know these guys at PNW Sports Group.
I've never met these guys, but they seem to be
getting their guys really good jobs, and they say to
be succeeding. I could recognize which agencies are actually guiding
their players really well and which ones are completely ruining
(17:08):
careers in our shysters and manipulators. I've seen so many
screenshots my clients send me from guys claiming to be
the best annile agent in the world, and they have
no no track record, no no training whatsoever. But so
I told Fran I was like, hey, frand give me
some credit. We're not shysters. And he responded, you, actually,
I know a lot of the guys in their staff.
You do a great job. I said, most, not all,
but one thing I'll bring up to that specific point.
(17:30):
This is the point I'm going to bring up to
day a little self promotion for myself.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
And good agents out there. When people talk about.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
The problem at the game right now, people talk about
it like everything's a bidding more. Everybody just goes to
the highest bidder. Everybody just wants the most money, and
agents just want to push guys into the portal to
make more money. And I think that's true with a
lot of agents. A lot of these shysters do just
want to push guys in the portal to make money.
But what seven rates good agents from bad agents is
guys who agencies that prioritize only profit, Guys who prioritize
(18:01):
fit overprofit. That is our mantra in our company, fit overprofit.
We want our guys to succeed where they go. And
if you look at our track record, we just did
a study the other last week of like a midseason
study of our placements, we had nineteen guys that went
from either D two low major or mid major to
high major schools. In this portum okay, nineteen jump level
(18:22):
jumps to the high major. Everybody knows that's the risky
as jump. Right, If you go lower mid major to
high major, maybe you have a thirty percent chance of succeeding, right,
maybe you get paid.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
But most of these guys don't succeed making that jump.
Of our nineteen guys who went low in mid major
to high major, sixteen are full time starters.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
The seventeenth is the sixth man on the ACC team,
and the only two who aren't starting. One is a
rotation big for a top ten team and the other
got surgery this summer and he's working his way back.
So we effectively went in nineteen for nineteen succeeding in
lower mid major to high major transfers.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Well, how do we do that fit over profit?
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Right?
Speaker 4 (19:00):
We didn't just go for the biggest bat.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Who went for the best fit, and we have a
second grouping of guys below them that could have gone
high major, but they would have been backups, So instead
we sent it a mid major plus and those guys
are stars. Terrence Kinner Dukuine, Jamel Jones at New Mexico State,
Laobif at UCSD, Jamiir Simpson at UTSA, Gavin Walsh at UNC.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Wilmington, Chandler Confort of the Elon.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
We have a number of mid major plus guys who
are going to be All Conference or Conference Players of
the Year. Those guys could have gone high major, they
took a little bit less money and instead of being
a high major backup, there mid major plus stars. So
like our agency has expertise, just like you would go
to a doctor for the best medals of advice.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
You go to the best agents for the best portal
advice or the best advice.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
And to say agents are shysters is like saying all
doctors will kill you. Yeah, there are some doctors who
will kill you and some who will save you. So
let's separate the good from the bad.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Our.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Data shows that guys are much more successful and having
transferring and finding success when they use us versus when
they use their mom or their their AAU coach or
a bad agent. So by putting all agents in the
bad category, you are guiding players towards entering that portal
boy by themself and setting them up to fail.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
You're you're right.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
I mean it's it's there's good agents, there's bad agents.
There's guys that ask for under the table payments, there's
guys that send them to just the highest bidder, there's
guys that put guys.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
In the portal that should not.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
And you know, for a player, it's really hard because
they don't know who to listen to, right because everybody's
telling them there's great things out there for you, but
not where you are. And so you get to this
time of year and you see a lack of buying
an investment from some of these guys, whereas at the.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Start of the year they were kind of all about it.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
And that's the really, really challenging thing, is finding a
way to get those guys tricking back to the level
of hunger. If you ever, if you ever can, I
was going to ask you about some of the promotion
you guys do, okay, And I bring it up because
I actually understand it from this side when I was
(21:10):
at ESPN.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Even since I've left ESPN.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
You know, there's lots of people who are critical of
ESPN promoting their own stuff, and my point was always, well,
if they're not going to promote it, who is, right, Like, I,
how could you blame ESPN for promoting that next week?
You know, Duke plays Syracuse. When do you think NBC, Peacock, CBS, Fox,
(21:38):
And of course they're not going to promote it. So
the only chance to promote it is on your own network.
And so yeah, you got to be a little bit
cheerleader for yourself. So I do understand the self promotional aspect.
And you guys have some players that are having outstanding
seasons and you want to promote the fact that not
only are they having great years, but you represent them,
(21:58):
which essentially is telling everybody in the in the sport, Hey,
if you want to get a hold of this guy,
go through us, right. That's doing your job. On the
other hand, I do wonder about the optics because we
had a player last year whose father win or lose,
and sometimes after bad losses would always put out the
(22:19):
stats of his son, and we just thought, like, God,
it's a bad look. It's not that you can't promote
your kid, but right after the game, and it also
signifies to everyone, hey, this kid wants to move at
the nearest possible date. Otherwise, what's the point of promoting
that he had fourteen points in a loss against Wright State.
(22:41):
So when I open up my social media and I
see you guys promoting underclassmen for what they're doing, doesn't
that say the same thing? Doesn't it say, Hey, this
kid's on the market and that's what we're selling. Again,
I'm telling you optics from my seat. Now you tell
me how I should feel about a premier seat.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
It's interesting that you have that take.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Is it makes sense from your college coach perspective, where yeah,
when you have players or underclassmen or promoting their statss
and losses, so you think that's what we're doing.
Speaker 4 (23:12):
Potentially that never crossed my mind.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Like, we have basically for all of our players, whether
they're seniors, whether they're underclassmen, whether they have eligibility or not.
We have standards for what constitutes a promotional post. Right,
if you're the high score in a game, if you
get a double double, if you get a career high.
We democratize it so that players can.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
Never be like, well, you promoted his game and not
my game.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Where like, these are our standards, and if you pass this,
you're going to get a daily staff post.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
Part of it is self promotion for our brand.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
We know that players will then share that graphic on
their social media and other players will say, wow, my
agency doesn't do that.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
That agency's posting highlights and all this cool stuff for
their guys.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
They're proud of their guys, right, So self promotion for
the brand be self promotion for the brand, and that,
like I said, if we're promoting fit over profit, we're
not posting look how much money.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
This guy has.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Where saying look we have Cam Fletcher at high point
seems like an obscure flip fit, but he's gonna be
Conference Player of the Year because we are wicked good
at finding the right fit for our guys. And when
you keep seeing how big Cam Fletcher's doing, you're gonna think, wow,
we did a really good job placing players.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
Right.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
And the reality is we don't need need Socialpedia to
promote our guys because the entire transfer portal runs through
our office. Right, I've got a sick team of agents
who are all killers in the most beautiful, sensitive way
that every college coach. This morning, I had a high
major assistant in my office. Actually, I had to have
a high major assistant in my office. We don't need
(24:36):
social media to promote our guys. But it's funny. I
saw one agent I'm not gonna say who you know
who he is, I'll tell you offline last portal was
tweeting about his guys and he's like, this player is
available a mid major plus steel. And like, first off,
if you're an agent, all of your players are high
major plus.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
I don't hear their D two. They're high major plus, right, Like,
you can't understan tell your guy is a mid major
of plus.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
You can say that on the phone if you want
to find the right fit. Second off, what message does
that send your clients if you need Twitter to promote
your portal clients. The whole point of having an agents
that we have real relationships. I can get coaches on
the phone and find me the right fit. The only
time I go to Twitter to promote a client is
if I'm using the media to promote somebody who really
(25:22):
doesn't have anything. Maybe they hit a roadblock in their
career and I need to just like conjure up a
little bit more interest for him. Like we had a
guy this year who left the team and his transferring
midyear you know who he is. It's kind of an
obscure situation, so we need media to get the word out.
But if I have an underclassman who's dominating, I don't
need to post his Twitter stats every day. People are
(25:42):
going to know about him and we're gonna to have
conversations about it. And to the next point about our ethics.
I always have a schools calling me and saying, who
do you have in this year's portal, And I say,
you can see on social media who our current clients are, right,
the guys who replaced at those schools, and the new
guys were signing this year. I'll let you know when
they're season's over. I do not start promoting guys until
after the season's over and after they've had a conversation
(26:03):
with their coach, letting them know their intention, whether it's
a staying to stay at school or role in the portal.
Second off, just because we're signing an under flass but
at a mid major, it's not a four Garne conclusion
that they're entering the portal. I tell every guy that
signs to this midyear, I say, before you enter the portal,
I'm going to get data for you, right I'm going
to talk to ten schools at a higher level than
yours and get evals, and I'm going to show you
(26:25):
those evals.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
And if seven of those ten schools.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
So you're not ready to make the jump, I'm going
to make sure you stay where you're at.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Now, if eight of those ten say yeah, you'd be
a high major starter. All right, let's rock and roll.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Now, we're getting real data from high majors letting us
know that you're ready.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
It's not me.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Guessing or me saying I really believe in you, or
your dad saying he's the best player since sliced bread.
It's high major saying you're ready to make the jump.
Part of the reason why we've had so many success
with guys making the jump. Everybody who made the jump
before they jumped in the portal, we had ten evais
saying this guy's ready to make the jump. Right, So,
we don't need to promote guys. But I understand why
the optics would be that in reality, we're just promoting
(27:01):
a that we do a kick ass job for our
clients and being we're proud of our clients. The guys
that we post on social media are only guys who
weeded the placement. If I signed you when you're already
at the school, weave is not promoting your stats because
I can't take credit for those stats.
Speaker 4 (27:14):
Because I didn't put you at that school.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
If we post something on social media, it means we
did the placement and we're proud of that guy succeeded.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
All right, here's the question.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
There is an assumption from a lot of college coaches
that when agents connect with a player, if he's had
a good start to the season, he has good tape,
that there's like a shut it down mentality, right, which
is like, hey, if you're not perfect, don't play, don't
worry about it.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
All all that can do is be bad film and
bad stats. Right, things aren't going your way. Just shut
it down. You're hurt or whatever.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Talk me through what that's like with you working with clients,
potential clients or current climate clients. When you know, first
ten games of the year, they they nail it and
they see the big dollar signs, and that's when all
of a sudden, now college coaches think this kid may
shut it down.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
You're absolutely right that that is happening a lot, and
that players are asking their agents and their advisors, Hey,
I'm a little nick and Bruce, should I just shut
it down for the rest of the year. Now, what
I'm going to say now is going to sound like
total bs. It's going to sound like I'm just, you know,
thinking I'm.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
Holier than now.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
But the reality is the reason our company has been
so successful is that we operate athlete and that we
have good relationshs with college coaches, and that we hold
our players accountable. So there are multiple times to see
where players came to me and they're like, you know,
I'm not starting like I thought I was going to
and my wrist hurts.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
Should I just read shirt for the rest of the year?
And every time I say, if.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
You are genuinely too hurt to play, I will support
a red shirt. If you are healthy enough to play
and they're paying you X amount of dollars, you're going
to play, and if you decide not to play, you
cannot accept.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
The money for the rest of the year. You have
to get that money back.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
You can't take someone's money, pretend to be hurt and
red shirt and move on. That's called stealing. And like,
you have to have ethics. At a certain point, you've
got to draw a line. I have a player right now.
A few games ago he's getting paid uppers are half
million dollars. And you had like a nagging injury, and
we talked about it and I said, look, man, if
(29:30):
this injury is really so bad that you think you're
going to like tear an acl, then we have to
shut it down. But you know your body better than me.
And if you can go out there and play and
you're healthy enough to play, you got to do it.
They're paying a lot of money and they're counting on you.
Then the day that there has to be. Like I'm
a deeply religious person. I fear consequence from God more
than I fear consequence from man. So if I'm going
to cut a corner and help a guy cheat and
(29:52):
steal for his own personal benefit, I'm dealing with that
harmic retribution, and so is he. I'm saving that player
from paying that karmic debt later. And if you do
the right thing and you're paid to play, and you
play and you're healthy enough to play, God will reward
you for doing the right thing. Like I my job
is not only to help players make decisions, but to
(30:12):
help teach them how to make decisions. If you have
an agent that's telling you all that matters is money
and it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
Who you step on along the way.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
You're teaching a young man to go about life that way,
and he's going to have a really tough life.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
If you teach a player.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Yeah, money matters, but also matters it's treated people right,
doing the ethnicity right thing, following your heart, following God,
treating the people around you well, and people who invested
you in you and people who are betting their season
on you to give them what you agree to right,
because they could have signed somebody else who would have
been loyal to them. If you teach them that framework
of thinking, maybe they lose a little money because they
(30:46):
don't get the red shirt year, but they're going to
go about life in a more successful way and at
the end of their life, they're going to look back
and a life will have treated them better. It's not
always thinking one step ahead, it's thinking two, three, four,
or five, ten, A million steps ahead. Steps ahead is
the after life right? And I all my agents at
my company. That's my job with them too. It's not
(31:07):
just to teach them how to negotiate each economics of basketball.
It's season about how to die young men and help
mold young men and show them how to go about
life in a way that's going to be conducive to
a successful, happy, healthy life. And I'm so proud of
my stafford doing that. Again, why did we have so
much success with our transfers this year because so many
guys were willing to turn down more money to go
(31:28):
to a place that's suited them better. And very few
agencies will advise guys to do that, but we will,
and that's why we succeed, and that's why we keep growing.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Last year there was that run on contracts right before
but July first, right right before the new ruling kind
of came into effect. What do you think the market
looks like this year?
Speaker 3 (31:53):
That's going to be another hour we got to talk about.
I mean basically football January second. I believe that when
the football portal opens, that's going to model what ours
is going to look like, right, because this year it's
been this whole thing of oh, well, it's just revenue
sharing money.
Speaker 4 (32:07):
Everyone's only gonna.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Have you the power for level, Like at your level,
it won't be as effected, right because you guys aren't
hitting the reds share cap anyway, right, But at the
powerboard level, they're like, well, they're gonna hit the rev
share cap, so they're gonna have to lower their budgets
and only spend within reb share.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
And then it's like, well, they're gonna spend within redshare,
but then they're gonna.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Have quote unquote true nil outside of the rev share
that they're gonna do through brands, but the CSC has
to clear it, right, So you're able to spend outside
the red share but not be collectives, and it's gonna
be limited. Now we see with football, LSU promised playing
kid them thirty million dollars budget. Well, their repshare is
gonna be like twelve or fifteen. Okay, they're gonna spend
(32:43):
a lot of money more at Penn State, Michigan, some
of these other new coaches, they're stepping in expecting thirty
forty million in spending, which is way above.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
The red share cap. So we're gonna have to see
how football does it.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
And if football just throws calls from the win and says,
screw it, we're spending with our collectives or spending with
our boosters.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
We're not even clearing with the CSC. We're saying, screw you.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
You're not making lsu A Bowl in eligible.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
You're not telling Penn State the bowl and eligible. We're
gonna spend out we want.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
You're not going to do anything about it, and if
you try to go to the ports, that might happen.
Or they're going to try to bundle these true NIL
packages through brands and supplement that way.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
It's really tricky.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Because as an agent, if they say, hey, we're giving
your client your quarterback five million dollars, but four million
is going through these brands that have to get cleared
by the College Sports Commission, that's a really risky proposition.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Right.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
So my guess is that somebody these football schools.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Throw caution of the win, start giving big contracts, don't
clear it through the College Sports Commission, and tell the
NCAA come get us.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
The reality is, how many players.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Have missed a single game of college football or basketball
due to an NIL violation. The answer is zero. There's
no teeth to these rules. So I think football Portal's
going to throw caution of the wain. We're going to
see another spending frenzy, and that's going to model what
basketball is going to do. We just have to watch
closely and see what they do and then what the
repercussions are, which is might be.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
None last thing, and we will have that hour long
on what the market looks like. The Big East in
this year that was supposed to be, you know, the
big REB share year. They had the biggest rev share,
Yet they've struggled the most in the non conference.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Why do you think that is?
Speaker 3 (34:18):
I really think next year would have been that. Okay,
So to explain to the listeners who don't understand what
we're talking about, football schools, So every school has a
twenty point five million dollar rep share cap. Football schools
have to split down between football, basketball, other sports. So
if you're LSU and you have twenty point five million,
you assume fifteen million goes to football, you know, four
million goes to basketball and the rest of host dollar sport.
(34:39):
Big East has a twenty point five million dollar cap.
No other sports is split and no football to split
it with. So Saint Johns and Creighton can spend ten million,
eleven million dollars repshare. So what we said is when
we go to a true if we ever went to
a true REP share world, the Big East would be
these big spenders at the Atlantic ten with no football
be these big spenders, and the SEC and the Big
ten would really get hurt because they didn't care about football. Okay,
(35:00):
but because this past year, as you described, we had
the pre July first spending frenzy where we had players
getting million dollars wires in May to beat that deadline. Right,
you have this spending frenzy, and then you have the
revs share world. So we still are in a world
where the Big East didn't have a competitive advantage because
true revshare hadn't hit yet. Right, This upcoming year would
(35:25):
be the first year where the SEC, Big Ten, Big twelve,
what's the other league acc schools are limited by revshare
and the eight ten and the Big East get free spending.
And we'll see if that does give them a competitive advantage,
or if the other schools find enough workarounds that they
spend how they want. Anyway, I mean, that was the
(35:46):
big argument that I've always made as to why this
rev share capital never stick, because if it really stuck
to the letter of the law, to see a world.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
Where Alabama and Georgia.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
And LSU are have a three to four million dollar
basketball budget, and George Washington and George Mason and Richmond
and Dayton have a four to five million dollar budget,
and Creighton in Providence in Saint John's of a ten
million dollar budget. I'm like, we're not going to see
a world where Alabama's getting outbid by Ducaine.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
It's the coaches made Oaks would lose his mind.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
He's like, I worked my whole life to get beat
by Ducaine for a star recruit. No, we're going to
spend in the NCAY got to come do something about it,
and they're not going to do it. So I predicted
that the Big East and a ten competitive advantage would
be the catalyst for that dam breaking, but I actually
think it's going to happen before that. The catalyst was
college football coaches getting new jobs with spending promises in
(36:41):
the football portal being before our portal, and then breaking
down the dam and us you know, kind of following
their need. But but but that Big East competitive vantage
I thought would be the catalyst because it was just
it was too much of an oversight when putting together,
which is so funny.
Speaker 4 (36:56):
They put together this Core Act and the House Settlement,
this and that. Did they ever asked Dan p. No
one asked me for my insight.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
With anybody, just like wait, hold on, wait wait wait
wait wait what about the Big East? What about the
A ten? How does that actually work? No, it's it's
it's fasting. But they have not yet found a way
to manage their money. And it's still an art finding,
you know, finding the right guys, keeping the right guys,
trying to build a culture.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Well to that point, the last thing I'll say on
this note you mentioned before guys getting checked out mid
season or feeling like they have one foot.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
Out the door.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Even in a spending free spending world, the key is
still culture. This key is still picking the right guys.
I've always respected. One name I'll get a shout out
to is Eric Ollen, New Mexico. Last year he had
his team at UCSD and I didn't know Eric, and
I went to see him play and I asked him
how you have so many guys who bought it, were
like playing their role and happy to be there. He said,
In the recruiting process, I filter for character, I filter
(37:51):
for humility, I filter for guys who really didn't buy
into their role. And now you get a lot more
with a lot less, and even in a world where
guys the schools can spend all as much, it still
comes down to character, culture, commitment. And don't think that
the highest that the highest spending teams are alway gonna win.
Speaker 4 (38:08):
I can tell you a number of teams right now
it's spend over ten million dollars walking to make the tournament.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
You no, No, I get it. And I think Eric
does do a great job.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
I do wonder how hard that becomes at New Mexico.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
That that's been different, right? Can you carry that over?
Speaker 2 (38:21):
It's it's the same thing people want to see with
Ben McCullum at Iowa. In the meantime, happy the holidays,
Happy New Year. And I love that you're worried about
karma with every basketball decision you make.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Every single decision. If I make a bad placement, it
keeps me up at night. I want every player to succeed.
I want them all to be happy.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
Last Compa'll make on the Ben McCullum note, Bennett starts
George hemingson, I think of a D two coach.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
Put him all my.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
Staff, all American contributor, all American producer.
Speaker 4 (38:57):
That's what we're trying to do.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
What we find that Bennett starts as the world, where
we finded the Jeremy Densiss, we finded the two guys.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
With high major hearts.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Hey, that was a great, great discussion with Dan Ponaman,
you know, because he joined us off off the rip.
I didn't get a chance to do a little bit
of an intro and an update. As we creep closer
and closer to New Year. My team plays our next
game January first, and yeah, I don't I wish I
had an answer for what happened when we lost to Campbell,
(39:29):
but there just was not the energy, uh and tenacity
there and a team for them that was tired and
traveled and hadn't shot the ball well at all.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
The night before two.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
And a half nights night and a half before shot
incredibly well. But we felt like we helped, that we
gave them energy and confidence and they played great. And
so what have we done? Kind of back to square one,
right back to the square run. And it's frustrating because
you don't know whether it's because they were mentally already
right for the break, whether it was some of the
(40:03):
guys who hadn't been playing as much, I don't know,
but it was very noticeable in the first couple of
possessions of the game, and yet we were still at
a five point lead in the first half, made some mistakes,
fell behind Foult a three point shooter on an horrendous call,
and we're never able to get back control at all
of the game. So what I what I continue to
(40:25):
learn is things on a daily basis, and this one
is an interesting one, is that it doesn't matter how
much rest them, how hard you practice, how they look
in practice.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Sometimes you just never know.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
And I think the frustration for a lot of us
as coaches with this new system is we don't know
if some guys aren't playing as hard because well, they
think I'm gonna be elsewhere next year. I have good
tape some of these, Alrea, somebody's already interested. I'm good,
you know, when all we're trying to get is committed
connected guys to play together.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
And play hard.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
I'll say this about the Barreler situation. You know, we've
talked about it on the pods. We brought it over
Jonatan Levy last year. Part of it was a mistaken
that I played him too soon. I've heard people say
it screws up your culture, it's not easy to bring
a guy over and to play him.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
You have to find just the right player. He has
to have just the right mentality.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
You have to insert him at just the right time,
and you have to have the need for that player.
It can't just be because when guys lose minutes to
somebody who hasn't kind of earned it in terms of
their respect and going through the tough times and going
through the tough practices. It can be hard on the
chemical makeup of a team. But you know, Scott has
such a void there in the middle that I'm sure
he felt like I can go out and get a
(41:38):
grand man.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
I don't blame Scott Drew. I don't.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
I don't think there's I've seen people on social media
credit question the ethics of the decision, like what what ethics?
Speaker 1 (41:53):
All you can do is have the guy.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
If he wants to play in college, he has to
go through the elgibility process. If he becomes clear to play,
he gets into school, you can play them. If you
have a problem, you have the problem with the rules,
not with the coaches. Our job is to win basketball games.
And oh yeah, by the way, you gotta have good
people as well. I haven't heard anything bad about the
kid and his job is win basket and the coaches
jobs win basketball games. The player is eligible, then you
(42:18):
recruit them. Does it feel good to be recruiting pros
to play in college now? But as I as I
told you, there's this slippery slope where we're going to
allow guys that play professionally overseas to come over here.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Why can't we allow guys that play domestically professionally.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
If they want to play in college play in college.
Do I think it's a good look?
Speaker 1 (42:37):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
The problem is if you shut it down, we say, hey,
we're not going to Once you decide to play professional basketball,
you're out in college, which is a fair rule has
to work.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
For international players as well, has to.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
And I don't know how you navigate that without without
going back to not taking nearly as many guys. You know,
we're lost in this proliferation of J League guys and
you know a couple of guys that have gotten you know,
been around NBA teams whatever. The biggest change is the
(43:15):
higher level foreign players. More and more foreign players have
infilstrated the game. And I think it's a good thing
because I think they're well coached, and they add a
lot to it, and they're bringing in more professional kind
of way of approaching the game. All those things are great.
All those things are great, But what's not great is
(43:37):
that we have our arrows directed at coaches who aren't
violating any ethical, moral or written in SA rules. I
believe that if you don't like the rule, attack the rule.
I'm totally okay with that. And by the way, to
people including Dan Potaman, who are like, well, why why
(43:57):
didn't you, you know, do a little bit of something
back in the day. This is why this is Pandora's box.
Once it becomes opened, it becomes really really hard to
close unless you get anti trust legislation, which is why
they hired Charlie Baker to be the head of the NCAA.
And now he's got to get Congress to agree on something,
and once he does, this will be more stable. Hey listen,
(44:21):
if you like the podcast. If you don't like the podcast,
feel free to comment on it. You can also retweet it.
You can set it to a friend. You can hop
into the comment section as well. Remember this is the
Doug out Leab Show All Ball podcast. Passing on to
a friend and until next time, Happy New Year, happy holidays,
(44:42):
thanks for listening, and go Phoenix.
Host
Doug Gottlieb
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