From the outside, Willie Reed looked like a host of other NBA players — particularly big men — caught off guard by how fast the free agent market got tight this summer. Reed was coming off a solid season backing up Hassan Whiteside in Miami, and having seen the money thrown at big men in the summer of 2016 ($72 million for Bismack Biyambo, $64 million for Timofey Mozgov) he thought he would get paid.
Reed ended up signing a one-year minimum contract with the Clippers.
However, the NCAA recruiting and bribery scandal has brought more to light of what happened, and Reed has filed a $13.5 million arbitration claim with the union claiming he was defrauded. Reed was represented by prominent NBA agent Andy Miller, whose offices were raided by the FBI as part of the probe because he employed one of the 10 people arrested so far in the case.
Jeff Goodman and Chris Haynes of ESPN have the details.Los Angeles Clippers center Willie Reed filed the claim in part because of Christian Dawkins, one of the 10 people arrested on federal corruption charges on Tuesday. Dawkins was reportedly terminated by Miller and his company, ASM, in early May following a National Basketball Players Association probe into the unauthorized use of a player’s personal credit card.
Dawkins, sources say, advised Reed to turn down a preliminary three-year, $15 million deal by the Miami Heat early in the free-agency juncture with the promise of a larger market opening up for his services. That never occurred.
Reed terminated his contract with Miller on the evening of July 11, sources say.
Miller reportedly fired Dawkins in May. However, this report says he continued to represent certain people for the company, including Reed. Dawkins was not certified as an agent by the players’ union and worked under the ASM banner in another role. Dawkins was tied to efforts to offer money ($100,000) to a recruit to get him to Louisville, according to the federal charges.
Whether Reed’s case was fraud or just bad advice will be up to the arbitrator. Plenty of players represented by a number of people turned down bigger deals and found there wasn’t more out there, with Nerlens Noel in Dallas at the top of the list (he had been represented by Happy Walters, and switched to Rich Paul during free agency when things went poorly).
Miller has a lengthy NBA client list headed by guys such as Kristaps Porzingis, Kyle Lowry, and Myles Turner. According to the report, a number of his clients are looking around at their representation options in the wake of these arrests.
The NBA players’ union is also looking into the allegations.