LeBron James speaks out at the NCAA over the “Rich Paul” rule!

LeBron James spoke out about the new rule implemented by the NCAA involving his friend and agent, Rich Paul.

Well for one Tuesday this summer, it was not about the menu in the LeBron James household.

For the past several weeks, LeBron James has taken to Twitter and Instagram to announce “Taco Tuesday” with his family and friends. It got so popular that this past week, he created T-shirts to wear along with members of the cooking staff.

But for this week it seems that the NCAA has something cooking of their own that directly affects his agent Rich Paul.

This week, the NCAA implemented new rules for agents representing players considering making a jump to the NBA Draft. This story was broken by CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein.

The NCAA issued the rules out to various media outlets such as ESPN explaining what they wanted to accomplish going forward.

"“Men’s basketball student-athletes who are considering careers in professional basketball but who may want to return to school are only permitted to accept permissible agent services from NCAA-certified agents with a signed agent agreement,” the memo stated. “It is important to remember that a men’s basketball student-athlete cannot enter into an agent agreement until after his team’s season has concluded, and the student-athlete has requested an evaluation from the NBA undergrad advisory committee.”"

Well, it seems that the Bachelor’s Degree is the requirement that has a lot of people’s attention with their eyes raised. Why? Because coincidentally one of the most decorated NBA agents in history, Rich Paul, does not qualify with that rule in the new criteria.

I guess that honorary degree at Cleveland State doesn’t count. This rule was so controversial it already has its own hashtag on Twitter. LeBron James did the honors of letting the sports world know the unofficial name of the rule.

There will be plenty of theories floating around until November 6th, the day the exam is scheduled. That date is around the start of the college basketball season and coincidentally a couple of weeks after the NBA season starts.

The criteria had plenty of facets here which includes race. But if one automatically assumes that this is about the NCAA “Trying to keep a black man down”, you are already off base.

Race always plays a role in anything pertaining to business in America, but this is about something way bigger than race.

This is about power and influence and a ton of it. It also affects the financial spreadsheets of some very powerful people. Rich Paul and LeBron James have enough for these people to take notice. LeBron James took to Twitter to voice his displeasure over the NCAA’s criteria.

https://twitter.com/KingJames/status/1158883926640697345?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1158883926640697345&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.espn.com%2F

Just because these new criteria have been released this week doesn’t mean this fight won’t last for a while. It is going to be very difficult for the NCAA to justify the qualifications of a guy that founded his own successful sports agency in Klutch Sports.

Furthermore, with Rich Paul sporting a cache of NBA stars that include Draymond Green, Ben Simmons, Eric Bledsoe and Anthony Davis with plenty of others. Then there’s this dude named LeBron James who happens to be the face of the NBA. Couple that with the recent negotiations to have the Klutch Sports Group to work with the United Talent Agency in Beverly Hills, California shows us that maybe Rich Paul might be qualified to represent a college player or two in the future.

Lake Show Life delves into this multi-faceted drama that will almost definitely lead to a Federal Courtroom near you.

Let’s take a look at the power players that would have J.R. Ewing and Cliff Barnes of the old Dallas drama in the 80’s watching.

Say hello to Rich Paul. A super agent who did it his way!

There will be plenty of people who will say that the only reason Rich Paul is successful is that he is LeBron James’ agent and they are friends. If you believe that you have no business acumen whatsoever. It doesn’t hurt that his first client was LeBron James, who Rich Paul started helping after he left for the NBA for Cleveland back in 2003.

But even then, no one knew that an 18-year-old kid from Akron would turn himself into an all-time NBA great. I’m sure nobody envisioned LeBron keeping himself busy in the offseason building a media empire and opening a school in his hometown state. Let’s look at it this way. Rich Paul has helped LeBron James become a global brand called “LeBron”.

But there were moves that Rich Paul made that weren’t mistakes, but put the spotlight (Aka target to some) on himself.

First, there was the Anthony Davis trade saga around the trade deadline that ruffled the feathers of owners around the NBA with the attempt to force Davis out of New Orleans.

Things got so bad that there were reports that Jeanie Buss was angered over the process to the point that she allegedly thought about trading LeBron James. Then it was reported that a meeting was had between Ms. Buss and Paul to smooth things over. Stephen A. Smith went over that in detail on his radio show at the time.

Then that Sports Illustrated article that put Paul on the cover further added to Rich Paul’s shine.

The headline at the top says it all. “The King Maker: Why Rich Paul will own the summer”. At this point, it has been made clear that Paul has just as much influence over the NBA in 2019 as LeBron did in 2010 and 2014.

The era of player empowerment in the NBA is in full effect and with the cache of the NBA’s brightest stars, Rich Paul is now a power broker to be reckoned with.

I mentioned LeBron James having a “corporate takeover” at the trade deadline trying to bring Anthony Davis in a Laker uniform. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was Rich Paul with the big plans for his clients throughout the NBA. I mean LeBron James wasn’t the one that got fined $50,000 by the NBA.

The NBA commissioner has already been quoted having concerns about the free agency process of last year. An issue I believe will definitely be at the top of the list when the Collective Bargaining Agreement come renegotiation time.

But the NBA is not the only organization that is watching Rich Paul. One groundbreaking move with a blue-chip high school recruit kicked up dust within the NCAA.

Rich Paul finds a loophole when Darius Bazley snubs Syracuse for an internship with New Balance 

Ask anyone in the media and they all say the same thing. Rich Paul is not just a lap dog for LeBron James. Rich is about his money and he finds inventive, outside the box methods of keeping his clients in positions to succeed.

When Darius Bazley decided to forego playing college ball for Syracuse, Rich Paul came up with a groundbreaking business opportunity for him.

He worked with New Balance to set up a million-dollar paid internship for Bazley to train throughout the year while working for the company. Months prior, ESPN’s The Jump invited Paul on the show to give further explanation.

So to the people following along here, Darius Bazley has a guaranteed minimum of $1 million dollars in the contract that can balloon to $14 million if he meets all of his incentives.

No wonder Darius Bazley chimed in on Twitter when the criteria was made public.

https://twitter.com/BazleyDarius/status/1158922421203808256

But when a blue-chip recruit backs out of the commitment to a major university like Syracuse, people are not going to be happy. Check out the quote from head coach, Jim Boeheim when the decision was made via CBS Sports.

"“I mean, he made a mistake. It doesn’t do any good to talk about it,” he said. “Everybody thinks I’m criticizing him. I’m not. I’m just telling it like it is. He made a mistake. He should own it. He’s just not ready. He’s just not physical. They’re not letting him play in the G League because he’d get killed.”"

Needless to say, LeBron James decided to make his presence felt on Twitter. Then Boeheim answered.

LeBron James and Chris Paul have encouraged NBA players for years to command as much money as possible during their respective careers.

It’s one thing to dig in the pockets of the NBA owners who will be pushing back at the next Collective Bargaining negotiations. It’s a whole new ball game setting a trend that will affect the NCAA’s bottom line which others will be certain to follow.

This could turn out to be a very bad look for the NCAA.

Whether the so-called “Rich Paul Rule” is set up for the man itself really does not matter at this point. In the age of social media, LeBron James will have some influence in the court of social media opinion.

Let’s put this in perspective. LeBron James has more Twitter followers at 45.3 million than the number one sports network in the world, ESPN. His Instagram followers pretty much blow things out of the water.

The one thing LeBron James does better than any athlete in history, besides possibly the late great Muhammad Ali, is to be able to control the narrative of the message he wants to get across.

I mean we all saw it up close and personal right? Last week, David Griffin has a couple of quotes about James in an article one day. Then the very next day he’s on ESPN explaining himself.

Did you hear LeBron James demand this action? Or did you hear that LeBron James’ people were shocked over the comments?

As for the NCAA, the organization will be painted in a horrible light that will have them trying to justify that college degree requirement well past that November 6 date for the agent exam. There are already comparisons tearing down the NCAA’s point of view.

It’s not like the NCAA can afford more public relations hits here. The debates of student-athletes not getting paid while Universities and the NCAA pocketing billions are starting to get old with quite a few parties.

It’s just that Rich Paul found a viable option for top high school players to avoid the hassle. Here are other issues the NCAA is dealing with these days.

• The number of lawsuits against the NCAA by former football players alleging damage from mistreated concussions is on the rise.
• The FBI put a serious crackdown on a college basketball scandal involving sneaker companies, coaches and others involved with wire fraud and conspiracy. This is an investigation that is ongoing that could spell prison time for coaches along with huge fines.
• College athletes are continuing to speak out about the Ed O’Bannon rule which prevents them from profiting from the NCAA using their name, image and likeness to produce revenue only for the organization. When the NCAA announced it was appointing a “working group” to “examine” the issues, people took that statement with a grain of salt and that’s being kind.
• Then there’s the NCAA’s move to restrict the ability of college football and basketball players to play immediately after they transfer. The problem with that is coaches can easily  move from college to college for huge bucks without facing penalties.

The prerequisites were controversial enough. Just look at the application process.

• Register Online in the NCAA Agent Certification System (ACS)
• Submit Application to NCAA: This includes a successful background check and paying a nonrefundable application fee of $250. According to the site, the fee is required annually.
• NCAA Review of Application
• Notification of Eligibility to Take the In-Person Exam
• In-Person Exam (or continuing education requirement)
• Pay Certification Fee of $1250 (annually)
• Reapply the following year using the same ACS user account

Pay attention to the annual fees in the application process. If you are the NCAA, how do you cut down on people who are unwanted? Price them out. Sure Rich Paul can afford those fees. But it’s a calculated effort to stop the next Rich Paul from coming in.

Of course not, if there are cracks in the NCAA’s case, LeBron’s team will find them easily!

These criteria may not hold up as well as the NCAA hopes. Rich Paul can easily bring an Anti-Trust lawsuit against the NCAA and have a strong case. I mean Sports Illustrated already laid out plenty of scenarios Paul could use after the criteria were released.

The glaring example of the NHL being able to draft college players while giving the student-athletes the option of returning to school will reek of racism in some eyes of some people. It looks like the NCAA realizes that Rich Paul and LeBron James found a legal and viable option for top high school players to get to the NBA without going through the process of playing in college which will cost them billions of dollars in the coming years.

Ed O’Bannon‘s case went on for years and this potential case will as well. So when the sun went down on LeBron James’ household after all of the tweets and social media back and forth banter. He sat down at his table with his brand new invented shirts and continued the family tradition.

https://twitter.com/espn/status/1158935087137927168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1158935087137927168&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Flakeshowlife.com%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost.php%3Fpost%3D102218%26action%3Dedit

Just another Taco Tuesday.