College recruiting is an ugly, dirty business. One most basketball fans just try to ignore it because, well, we love the game and don’t like to see its reputation sullied.
But a lawsuit filed by Timberwolves forward brings it all out in the open, as reported by the Washington Post.
In September Joel Bell, Beasley’s former agent, sued him for wrongful termination. Beasley has countersued and made some strong — but believable — allegations, throwing a number of people under the bus including former Kansas State (and current West Virginia coach) Bob Huggins.A Maryland-based sports agent and a youth basketball power broker conspired to foster a relationship with NBA player Michael Beasley from the time Beasley was 14 years old with the intent of securing the rights to represent him professionally, according to a civil suit filed by Beasley in Montgomery County Circuit Court.
Beasley asserts in his suit that Bell Sports Incorporated President Joel Bell bankrolled Curtis Malone’s nationally recognized DC Assault summer basketball program and that in return Malone felt obliged to steer Beasley, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2008 NBA draft, to Bell for professional representation. Beasley’s suit contends that, along the way, Bell and Malone violated NCAA rules and federal laws governing agent conduct.
Beasley’s countersuit says that Huggins gave another Beasley AAU coach a job as a K-State assistant to make sure he landed Beasley. He accuses Malone of being a “runner” for Bell — a guy who develops relationships with players to steer them to agents, then gets kickbacks. The suit claims a man Malone introduced his mother to paid for her to live near her son at K-State, covering her rent.
Beasley also admits he got illegal benefits. By the way, all of this is still within the NCAA’s statute of limitations on violations.
I have no idea who is in the right in this particular case. But what is proposed here is not out of the question at all. It happens all the time. Not every elite recruit, but a lot of them. More than you want to know.
By the time elite players like Beasley are teenagers people know who they are and that there is potential there. And that is when people start trying to get a piece of what is seen as a commodity. Sometimes it’s family members. Sometimes its AAU coaches. Sometimes it’s agents. Sometimes different groups of them work together.
But the end result is people guiding a teenager to what is best for those around him and not what is best for him.
It’s an ugly, ugly mess. This lawsuit just shined a light on it.
