Sports fans are still feeling the shockwaves from Jay-Z's announcement earlier this year that he would enter the world of player representation for basketball as well as baseball. Recently, Abraham D. Madkour of Sports Business Journal spoke with longtime Jay-Z business partner Steve Stoute, who believes that its high time that someone new got in the game. “His reputation as a businessman has obviously been well-documented, so I don’t need to get into that. I think that there needs to be a new sheriff…David Falk had a long run in basketball and that had to change. Scott Boras had a long run in baseball and that has to change. Those things have to change," Stoute said. Here's more from around the Association..
- The free agent class of 2014 is unbelievably stacked, writes Joel Brigham of HoopsWorld. Cap room for July 2014 will be tremendously important as John Wall (restricted), Dwyane Wade (early termination option), Kobe Bryant, LeBron James (ETO), Carmelo Anthony (ETO), Paul Pierce, Luol Deng, Rudy Gay (player option), Danny Granger, and many many more will be on the open market.
- The NBA players' union, who is still without a chief executive, will have its next meeting pushed back from June to August or September, according to Liz Mullen of the Sports Business Journal (via Twitter). The union has also yet to hire a firm to lead the search for the next chief.
- The ESPN Insider staff (sub. req'd) held a roundtable discussion on the 2013 draft and opinions are extremely split on who the best player in this class will be. Two of the five scribes like Otto Porter over everyone else but Ben McLemore, Nerlens Noel, and Anthony Bennett also received votes.