Former UCLA standout Kevin Love is the focus of a Yahoo! Sports story detailing the extremes agencies will go to try to secure top-flight players. Love was greeted outside Pauley Pavilion last winter by Pat Barrett, head of one of the top Amateur Athletic Union programs in the country. Love had known Barrett since the fifth grade and played two years for Barrett's traveling team.
The two agreed to go to dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Beverly Hills. When Love arrived, he was introduced to Jay Williams, the former national player of the year at Duke.
Williams was there to represent Ceruzzi Sports and Entertainment, a New York sports agency that had donated $250,000 to Barrett’s team under the premise Barrett could deliver players such as Kevin Love — to dinner first, then as a client.
"I was like, excuse my French, what the [expletive] is this all about?" Love said.
While NCAA rules prohibit college players from accepting anything of value from sports agents, no rule explicitly prohibits AAU coaches such as Barrett from accepting a $250,000 donation from an agency such as Ceruzzi Sports, and then playing semantics by paying for dinner when the agency’s front man is there to recruit a player such as Love.
While these relationships have always been problematic, the NBA's four-year-old rule essentially ending the practice of drafting high school players has made the problem worse.
"It’s standard operating procedure that every agent knows AAU coaches and deals with AAU coaches," said Charles Grantham, CEO of Ceruzzi Sports.
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