Is Klutch Sports Group ruining the NBA? In case you don’t know Klutch Sports Group is run by agent Rich Paul who just happens to be a long time friend of LeBron James and is headquartered in Cleveland Ohio.
Let’s take a look at some of the things that have been associated with Klutch Sports and it’s clients.
Anthony Davis
This off season Davis of the New Orleans Pelicans switched his representation to Klutch Sports. Then soon after a dinner meeting with James, Davis came out and said that he’d like to be traded with his preferred destination being the Los Angeles Lakers. It was quite clear that there was tampering involved here. However to no one’s surprise, the only thing the NBA found when they investigated was that Davis broke a rule by announcing to the media that he was seeking a trade. Davis was find $50,000 but don’t feel to bad for him as he’s scheduled to make $25 million dollars this season.
The NBA trade deadline came and went without Davis being dealt to the Lakers. I believe that the Lakers claimed the Pelicans didn’t negotiate in good faith. There were some other reports that the Pelicans were never going to trade Davis to the Lakers at this point in time as their could be some other teams that would like to have a chance to trade for him and could make better offers this coming off season. There was also a report that the Pelicans where just trolling the Lakers as a way of getting even with them.
Davis was injured at the trade deadline and the Pelicans actually considered just shutting him down for the season. This is were the NBA stepped in and informed them that the team would be fined if they made that move. Instead the Pelicans tried to manage Davis’ minutes and with the exception of one game against the Memphis Grizzlies where ha played 34 minutes Davis hadn’t played more than 25 minutes.
Then on Thursday as the Pelicans where facing the Oklahoma City Thunder Davis got injured. After an MRI Davis was diagnosed with a muscle contusion in his shoulder. It’s unclear if or how long this injury would keep Davis out. It has been reported that he plans on being at the All-Star game this weekend, but it wasn’t made clear if he would play in the game.
Now after Davis was injured things got a little interesting. Now it’s pretty common place for an injured player to stay in the locker room until the game is over or return to the bench to support his team unless there’s a trip to the hospital needed. In this case Davis just left the arena. To even add to the intrigue he was led out of the building by Rich Paul.
Ben Simmons
Simmons is the 76ers point guard and was interested in learning more about playing the position. This led to someone in the Philadelphia front office reaching out to the Lakers and Magic Johnson who was one of the best point guards to ever play the game and like Simmons, did it as a taller point guard.
Of course the problem here is that Johnson is the President of Basketball Operations for the Lakers, while Simmons is under contract with the 76ers for a couple of more seasons. Once this story came out, Philadelphia’s General Manager Elton Brand said that Simmons wouldn’t be meeting Johnson for any workouts.
Simmons will become a restricted free agent after the 2020-21 season. As a restricted free agent the 76ers would have the right of first refusal and can match any offer a team could make to Simmons. I guess we’ll have to wait and see if the Lakers make an offer to Simmons when he becomes a restricted free agent.
College Basketball
With James having a day off from his NBA schedule he and his agent, or partner depending on how you look at it, Paul decided to take in a college basketball game. They traveled to Pittsburgh to see the Panthers play the Duke Blue Devils. Of course Duke has multiple players on their team that could possibly be #1 draft picks in the next NBA draft and rumors started that this was a recruiting trip for Klutch Sports.
This report seemed to upset James. Is it at all possible that he and Paul attended the game to put a bug in the ear of Duke players Zion Williamson and R.J. Barrett. Of course it would be against NCAA rules for Williamson or Barrett to sign with any agency now. As soon as the Blue Devils season is over they’ll be looking for representation.
Now to be fair a lot of NBA players attended college basketball games, but I’m not sure how many of them go to them with their agent and are partnered in a sports management company.
Those are the three most interesting Klutch Sports stories that I think could affect the way the NBA is shaped.
Well we’ve already seen Davis try to force his way to the Lakers and join James. Is it at all possible that Simmons could try to pull the same type of power play and end up with the Lakers? Then if Williamson, Barrett or both sign with Klutch Sports there’s a chance that they could come out and say they’d only play for the Lakers. I don’t think both of them could do this, but it could be possible for one of them to try and force that move if they sign with Klutch Sports.
Imagine a Lakers starting line up of James, Davis, Williamson or Barrett along with any other Klutch Sports clients you want to add to this line up.
Maybe I’m on the wrong side of this and I’d like to know if you think something like this would be good for the NBA? It’s always been said that the league is better when the Lakers and the Celtics are good. Well the Celtics seem to be good, but so far the Lakers even with James haven’t really been good. If something like this happens through Klutch Sports we might see the Lakers be not good, but great.
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