In March, college basketball’s biggest star, Ben Simmons, announced he would leave LSU after just one year and enter the NBA draft — surprising no one.
His next proclamation was also no bombshell: He would be represented by Klutch Sports Group, the same agency that reps LeBron James, to whom Simmons has been compared many times.
Said Simmons in a video on BleacherReport.com: “I believe [Klutch] is another family for me.”
He didn’t mention just how much of a family they had already become.
Klutch has employed his sister Emily Bush in a marketing role for the past two years, meaning she was on the agency’s payroll when they started recruiting Simmons as a high schooler in Florida.
While technically not illegal, the cozy situation raised some eyebrows, and shed light on how sharp-elbowed hoops agents gain the inside track on top talent.
“No doubt they are buying [Simmons’] loyalty,” says an NBA agent from another firm. “But if you’ve got the ability to get your foot in the door, the kid could make $10 to $15 million for the agency if he turns out to be the player they expect him to be. [Emily’s] marketing salary is a drop in the bucket.” (Klutch did not return a request for comment.)
When the NBA draft kicks off at Barclays Center on Thursday, Simmons — expected to be the top pick — won’t be the only aspiring pro who has been hunted like big game by agents. The process of recruiting is as competitive and gritty as Game 7 of an NBA final, and the prize is a lottery pick who has the potential to earn millions in endorsements, bring in lucrative commissions and bolster an agent’s rep.
The mad, moneyed sports business has been dramatized by “Jerry Maguire” and “Ballers,” but many say that Hollywood’s version is sanitized. In the real world, agents have been known to offer such enticements as paying off mortgages for players’ parents, offering prospects’ relatives jobs and even bedding their mothers.
“It’s a wild business,” says a basketball scout who is routinely offered money from agents to set up meetings with young talent. “I always tell stories to my friends who aren’t in the business, and those stories blow their minds.”
‘I have heard a lot about agents sleeping with [players’] mothers, to get them on board.’
While there are many respectable agents and parents, the underbelly of sports representation can be pretty scabby.
“There are so many bottom feeders — people who would sell the kid to the worst situation if there is a high bidder. This can include AAU [Amateur Athletic Union] coaches, parents, [other] relatives or family friends,” says the agent.
Under National Collegiate Athlete Association (NCAA) bylaws, players — and their families — aren’t allowed to accept payments, including money, gifts or travel, while maintaining college eligibility. But multiple sources tell The Post that such rules are little deterrent.
“There are situations where parents are taking money from agencies [with the expectation that agents will be paid back when they land the client] and don’t tell them that they are taking money from other agents, too,” says a former college athlete who now runs a marketing agency. “There isn’t much legal recourse if they can’t pay it back. It’s just like an illegal poker game. If somebody robs it, you aren’t going to call the cops.”
Agents start their courtship of the talent when kids are still at the AAU level. Some agents actually finance these extracurricular club teams.
“I was at a tournament in Las Vegas with a [high school student],” says the scout. “I was driving him to get something to eat when he asked to stop off at a Western Union. He got $1,000 wired to him from an agent and told me, ‘Yeah, when I need money, there are multiple agents who I can ask and they will give me money.’
“The irony is that his AAU team was financed by an agent. The whole time the agent was probably thinking he would keep his best players as clients when they were older. [Meanwhile,] the kid is taking money from four other agents.”
In the end, that player hardly ended up delivering a big payday.
“He is a borderline NBA player, in and out of the league,” adds the scout.
Often, agents use their biggest clients to develop relationships with youngsters. One rep says some of his signees have received Nike sneakers from Kobe Bryant since they were youngsters. (Bryant, who is represented by Landmark Sports Agency, did not respond to requests for comment.)
“It’s a [message of] ‘I just want you to know I am following your career.’ The kids are flattered because it’s one of their idols,” says the rep. “As you get further on in the process, the player will call and say, ‘We have that friendship, let’s talk about [my agent] representing you.’ ”
Sly tactics exist in other sports as well. Former agent Josh Luchs, who co-wrote the book “Illegal Procedure: A Sports Agent Comes Clean on the Dirty Business of College Football,” illuminates the similarities between NFL and NBA draft-graft.
“I’d find the injured guys and use their relationships in the locker room,” says Luchs. “If I knew [someone] was friends with the guy I was recruiting, then I would put [him] on my payroll, so he could baby-sit the guy [I wanted to sign] and get him to me. I would give him a stipend to entertain the guy, maybe $500 a month.”
Social media has also made the wooing process easier.
Adds the athlete-turned-agency exec: “If I see a hot prospect is always communicating [over social media] with some guy who could be his cousin, and this guy only has 300 followers, he is probably happy to give me information because he wants the attention.”
Some agents get even more creative with their lure.
“I have heard a lot about agents sleeping with [players’] mothers, to get them on board,” says the scout.
And then there are the respectable agents who say a family member’s greedy requests can send them running the other way. Take the father of a 2015 top-10 draft pick.
“He was demanding 20 grand just to get a meeting with his son,” says an agency exec. “You can weed that kid out. Who wants to deal with those shenanigans?”
Once agents do sign their targets, they’re put up in high-profile training facilities to prepare for the NBA combine — a dog-and-pony show in which players run through various athletic tests in front of league coaches, managers and scouts — and, eventually, the draft. Many players are given car allowances and luxe housing.
‘I was at a tournament with a [high school student.] He got $1,000 wired to him from an agent and told me, “Yeah, when I need money, there are multiple agents who I can ask and they will give me money.”‘
“An agent calls teams on the player’s behalf, puts workouts together, manages the pre-draft process and educates them on everything they need to know,” adds the NBA agent. They secure merchandise deals and help with contracts. Many NBA agents don’t take a piece of their clients’ rookie contract, while others take between 3 and 4 percent. The trick is to hold onto the client for a second contract, which is when the big commissions roll in.
Right now, one player is bucking the system altogether: Jaylen Brown, a 19-year-old out of the University of California, Berkeley, who is projected to go in the top six.
He met with five powerful reps but decided to do something unheard of for a lottery pick — go into the draft without an agent. Instead he is using the National Basketball Players Association to help him negotiate his rookie contract, with Pistons great Isiah Thomas as an adviser.
“I wanted to be able to advocate for myself,” Brown tells The Post of his decision. “It’s a learning experience.”
(He did use an agent to work out his sneaker deal with Adidas, reportedly worth more than $1 million annually.)
Instead of training at a state-of-the-art facility with a fancy rental car, Brown is living in his dorm, driving the Dodge Challenger he’s had since high school, eating cafeteria meals and training on campus.
Ultimately, Brown says he will save between $100,000 and $200,000 a year.
Though he insists he’s not against agents, Brown, who wore a suit and tie to every team interview and carried a notebook, is surely doing it on his own terms.
As he says: “The NBA is a business.”