Life Is Not an Accident (17 page)

In the middle of my last game, I felt something snap in my left leg, as though someone had just shot me in the hamstring with a BB gun. The pain was absolutely excruciating, and I knew immediately that I had popped my hammy. Later that night, I once again found myself in a hospital.

And once again I had a coach at my bedside. Coach Johnson
wanted more than anything for me to prove people wrong. We had made such an intimate connection as a coach and player in such a short time. He was a fierce competitor; he played and coached with extreme passion, because he'd always had to outwork people his entire life to achieve his dream.

As he sat on the hospital bed with me, he spoke about how people aren't defined by what they have, but rather by how they use what they have for a greater good.

“No more crying and feeling sorry for yourself, Jason. This is when you attack more than ever. Let all of this pain you feel accumulate and use it as fuel to add to the already amazing fire you have within. You just have to continue to fight to achieve your dream. It wouldn't be worth earning if you didn't have to go through adversity. You have a chance to inspire people, and I refuse to let you quit.”

We spoke about everything that evening. I divulged all of the hardships I had gone through in order to get to this point. We talked for hours, and he promised me that once I got healthy, he would bring me back to Austin and we would achieve my dream together. He stayed with me in the hospital until I was released at around two in the morning.

The official diagnosis was that I had a small partial tear in my hamstring and had also severely pulled my groin. I would have to sit out for a long stretch, so the Toros decided to waive me to make room for another guard. Dennis once again assured me that he still believed in me and would welcome me back when I'd healed.

Another mission failed.

It was midafternoon on a Friday two months later when I saw a missed call from a 512 area code. I thought it could be Coach Johnson, since he and I spoke on an almost daily basis. He would
send me game tapes and give me pointers on things I could do when I came back. We also talked a lot about my injury, and I always kept him updated on my progress.

When I called back, to my surprise, I didn't hear the voice of my head coach but rather that of one of my teammates. The first words out of his mouth were:

“J-Will . . . are you sitting down?”

I already knew that meant something bad was coming. The next words out of his mouth were that Coach Johnson had just passed away after practice from a massive heart attack. My heart sank into my stomach. I became lightheaded and dizzy. We had just had a conversation the day before about manhood and not accepting failure. This couldn't be happening; D.J. was only 52 years old and had so much passion, not only for the game but for his family and for life in general. He was a fighter whose spirit transcended basketball. But the reality was that his family had lost a loved one, the game lost a great ambassador, and I lost a friend.

I also lost one of the last people who truly believed I could still play in the NBA. I walked over to my back porch and sat on the stairs, head between my legs, sobbing.

What the hell am I doing? What is this life really about?

All the pain I had endured from training for my comeback attempts, from people staring at me, from the countless surgeries, from all the physical therapy, from the friends I never saw again after my accident, from losing my fiancée, and from the estrangement with my dad—all that combined didn't feel close to the pain I felt from D.J.'s passing. My father had told me years before that the number 22 would be a significant number in my life. The loss of Dennis Johnson on February 22, 2007, made it the day I finally decided to stop playing the sport that had defined me.

It was no longer my safe haven but more like my prison. The past four years had been so exhausting; I was obsessed with fighting my way back, but in the process I never took a second to see what I was fighting for. Something clicked that day, and I suddenly knew that I needed to stop trying to get back to who I used to be and start focusing on the rest of my life. When D.J. told me to fight for my dream, I always thought he was talking about basketball. But I realized now that what he meant was to live a meaningful life. And I wanted to get started right away. I was on a quest to find out who I was, only this time I was going to do it without playing the game I loved.

W
hat agent doesn't cheat in order to get clients? They all do in some way, but the real question is how you define the word “cheating.” Giving a young player a duffel bag of money for the rights to his future services might be shady, but it's not cheating, especially if the player or his family is in dire need of the funds.

It's called a competitive advantage, and Fortune 500 companies do it all the time. If you were coming out of high school and were considered one of the top individuals in your field, people wouldn't think twice about companies bidding for your services. Moreover, they would tell you to get the most money possible.

Why is it different for any of these kids who are trying to play a sport on a level that fewer than .001 percent of the world gets a chance to participate in? Because a committee called
the NCAA says it's not right? Nothing is better than an entity preaching one thing while using a collegiate player's image and likeness to turn a profit.

These are the conversations I had on a daily basis with a mentor of mine named Charlie Grantham. I had met Charlie through my accountant, Donald Brodeur, in my attempt to start writing a new chapter in my life. Charlie had been a principal negotiator for a series of NBA collective bargaining agreements starting in 1978. He then became the executive director of the National Basketball Players Association from 1988 to 1995 and understood the league in ways that few executives even did.

The business of basketball had fascinated me since I was in high school. While I enjoyed the attention that came from my AAU play, I wondered who, exactly, was benefiting from my play? And how did they benefit?

The reality is that there are agents who take care of AAU teams. And though Amateur Athletic Union teams are 501(c)3s—technically charitable organizations—the kind of philanthropy they're involved in is questionable, to say the least. The AAU teams with the really good players are the ones most likely to be taken care of by shoe and apparel companies and other sports merchandisers.

Sporting goods being provided in exchange for a team's “allegiance” to a certain brand is really only a cover. Players and coaches receive benefits that go way beyond shoes and warm-up suits. And if one kid is exceedingly good in high school and does end up making it to the NBA, the “charitable donations” that a company made to his AAU team or coach usually give them the inside track on signing him to an endorsement deal.

As a teenager, I played for two teams—the New Jersey All-Stars and Rising Stars, both of which were sponsored by Nike. We
also wore Nike at Duke. Given my track record with the brand, I think it's fair to say that I surprised the executives in Beaverton, Oregon, when I signed with Adidas over Nike after turning pro. I hadn't worn Adidas much up to that point, but I'd never had any say in the matter before. Other people were making the decision about what I'd wear, and they were the ones profiting from it.

This tangled web of relationships became the topic of my thesis during my final year at Duke. My research found that a large percentage of the players drafted by the NBA were raised by single mothers. Psychologically, this increased the chances for AAU coaches to become de facto father figures to these players; those relationships may have enriched the players' lives, but it would be a mistake to think it didn't enrich the coaches financially and in turn help athletic apparel companies build a pipeline to the players. I was fortunate enough to have my mom and dad around, but if I hadn't, maybe my coach would have been a bigger influence and I would've signed with Nike out of loyalty to him, whether it was best for me or not.

I discussed a lot of these issues with Charlie, and I never got tired of the topic. He would assign me 45 pages of the Collective Bargaining Agreement or a couple of articles to read, and we'd talk about them the next day. He pointed out that the rookie salary scale guarantees that a first-round draft pick will receive at least 80 percent of the set amount for his slot; his agent and the team are negotiating only over the remaining 20 percent (and a possible 20 percent more). That's why marketing is where the real money is, which is why an agent negotiates for 20 percent of marketing revenue. I found it all fascinating.

Say you have a player projected to be a top-ten pick, but he decides to stay in college another year and takes out an insurance
policy in case of major injury, thinking it will serve as ironclad protection. Charlie showed me how the insurance-policy payout pales in comparison with the guaranteed NBA money the player would have made by leaving college earlier, to say nothing of the endorsement income they're losing. That's what I did, and at the time, I thought it was the right move. Playing for a legendary coach and receiving a top education were priceless experiences.

Players receive scholarships, and with the cost of a college education these days, that's no small thing. They also get expert coaching, great living conditions, and excellent medical care. College athletes aren't traveling seven hours in a Greyhound bus, either; they have private charters to and from games. It's very difficult to put an exact value on what all of that is worth, but we do know the value of the television rights to the NCAA tournament for the years 2011 through 2024: It's a staggering $10.8
billion
, which is what the NCAA got for the rights from CBS/Turner. When I played in the Final Four in Minneapolis in 2001, the attendance each day was about 46,000; in 2015, at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, the attendance was 72,000 each day. And the average ticket price: $250.

When policy prohibits players from participating in the astronomical profits their school receives, the system is broken. I wasn't even allowed to take my own shoes—shoes that the university gave me—and sell them to somebody, because that would've been an NCAA violation. They're worn in, with my sweat, but they're not my shoes to do with as I please? Even worse, my school and the NCAA could sell a jersey with my likeness, but I wasn't permitted to see any of the revenue generated for the sale? It's not right.

There has to be some way of compensating players beyond the college experience. And I know that question gets the most attention, but I don't think it's even the biggest issue. I'm much more concerned about the kind of education athletes get in exchange for their performance on the court or on the field.

At some schools, athletic departments aren't focused on the kids getting a first-rate education, but rather on keeping them eligible to play. An athlete will get a lot of help if he needs it to keep his grades up, and often that includes putting him in fluff courses to improve his GPA. The workout-and-practice schedule doesn't leave a lot of time for homework and learning; some of us want to be actual students and take the process seriously, but a lot of others are in school only because that's the surest route to becoming a pro athlete. And what happens when the dream of turning pro doesn't pan out?

There ought to be a curriculum tailored to an athlete's needs—one with an emphasis on economics, on communications, on business. I often talk to kids at basketball camps, and I ask them, “Who in here wants to be an NBA draft pick?” Every kid in the gym raises his hand. But, realistically, the chance that any of them will be is minuscule at best. If college basketball represents less than 1 percent of kids who play, then the NBA is less than 10 percent of that 1 percent.

With those hands still in the air, I continue: “Who in here loves math?” And the majority of the hands go down. I then ask, “Who here wants to be a millionaire?” All the hands are up again.

“How do you not love math if you want to be a millionaire? Let's break it down so you see why math is important. What money do you get paid if you're the first pick in the draft?” I
single out the kid who looks like the most confident. “Um, uh . . . two and a half million?”

The answer is irrelevant, because none of the kids there—or anywhere else I visit—know the correct answer offhand. But I want them to think about
preparation
, about getting themselves ready for the life they want to have and the thing they want to achieve the most. So they
should
know what a top pick makes, and they should pay attention to the details.

“Okay, the first pick makes exactly $4.592 million in his rookie year. The salary is set by the rookie scale in the Collective Bargaining Agreement.” If the kids learn the meaning of those words—“scale” and “collective bargaining”—they're already ahead of the game. But I keep going.

“So say you're the first pick. What are you going to buy first?” The kid's face lights up and he says, “Oh, man, I'm going to get . . .” and I immediately cut him off. “Your mom and dad have been there for you from day one. So you're obviously going to get them a house. And how much money are you going to spend on your mom's house?” “A million dollars!” he yells enthusiastically. “Great! That's a good son! But remember, you don't live with Mom anymore. So if you get your mom a million-dollar home, how big a home are you going to get yourself?” So then the kid's like “Oh, I'm gonna . . . I'll get myself a million-dollar house.”

“Cool. You got yourself a million-dollar home. You got your mom a million-dollar home. How are you going to get around?”

“I'm gonna get a Bentley!”

“Okay. Nice. You just spent $350,000 on a Bentley. How about jewelry? How much are you going to spend on that?”

“A hundred thousand dollars.”

“So between the Bentley and the jewelry and the two houses, you've spent two and a half million dollars already. And you haven't even gotten your first paycheck yet! And what about taxes? You're in the highest tax bracket.”

“What's that mean?”

“That means the government is going to take about 40 percent of your paycheck, between federal and state taxes.
And
you're going to have to pay taxes in every city you visit in the league, and you're going to have to pay an accountant to take care of all that, and a manager to handle your business, and a marketing agent, and . . .”

They look at me like I'm speaking a foreign language—and it probably wouldn't be much different if I had this conversation with most college players. But soon they begin to understand that it might be a good idea to pay more attention in math class, to learn a little about business and economics, and to know something about the world outside their neighborhoods.

Whether it's a radical idea or a more modest proposal—like implementing escrow accounts for college athletes so they may receive a small percentage of what their school generates off their performance if they graduate within four years' time and maintain a certain GPA—something has to be done to make college sports work better for the kids who play them.

B
ECAUSE OF MY
interest in the business behind basketball, working as an agent seemed like the next logical step. My own agent, Bill Duffy, discouraged me, but Charlie not only supported my decision but brought me into a start-up agency he was involved
in called Ceruzzi Sports and Entertainment Group. I jumped at the chance to learn more about the business under his tutelage.

The front money for Ceruzzi Sports came from one guy, Lou Ceruzzi, a billionaire client of a successful ticket-brokering operation run by Dean Kapnick, who was Lou's partner on the new venture. Before the Internet made ticket buying easier, Dean was one of the go-to guys for people on Wall Street who wanted last-minute tickets to any event in the city.

Ceruzzi's main business was real estate in the New York area. We thought we could get players to look at the bigger picture of business by showing them that after they signed a $40 million deal, they could take a small percentage of that money and invest it in a shopping plaza or something that would give them recurring revenue for the next ten years. We had the opportunity to bring players into massive skyscraper deals in New York that weren't accessible to everybody. Plus, they'd have the advantage of working with the guy who ran the player's union for over seven years because Grantham would be negotiating their contract.

The problem for Ceruzzi Sports was that the business of ticket brokering was very different from that of a sports agency, where it takes time and integrity to build trusting relationships with athletes, their families, and even AAU coaches. You can't buy your client's loyalty, at least not easily and reliably. And in the case of agents, unlike with tickets, the customer can always go elsewhere.

Charlie and I knew this, but Lou and Dean appeared not to. They already had an established and profitable business relationship and listened to each other more than they listened to us. I could understand them ignoring my advice, since I was a kid trying to figure out what to do with his life, but how could they
not listen to a man who had been neck-deep in this business since the 1970s?

Because of my admiration for Charlie, I thought Ceruzzi Sports still looked like a good bet, even though I could see things were far from perfect. I wasn't playing basketball anymore, and, while I had saved my money, I didn't have any steady income at this point. I needed, and wanted, the job.

Our offices were right next to Madison Square Garden, and everyone was on salary. The overhead was ridiculous, and there was intense pressure to produce revenue at the same rate for a return on investment. Dean's solution was to toss large sums of money around to try to build quickly, which only made us look desperate. We showered money on “runners,” guys who served as the go-betweens with players and their AAU coaches. They would pocket our dough, only to turn around and tell us that they had already promised to deliver that player to someone else, someone they'd been working with for years. We never should've been giving money to runners in the first place, but we had little choice, since no one knew who we were. We lacked the clout to quietly buy an athlete's allegiance under the table ourselves.