And-Ones: ASM, Free Agency, Leonard, G. Smith

A Thursday report from Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical isn’t exactly a traditional “Woj bomb,” but it’s one of the more unusual stories to find its way onto the pages of The Vertical so far this year. According to Wojnarowski, Christian Dawkins – an employee at prominent player agency ASM Sports – has been fired for repeated use of an unknown NBA player’s credit card.

As Wojnarowski reports, between July 2015 and May 2016, Dawkins racked up approximately $42K in charges on the player’s personal credit card via an Uber account — a probe by the National Basketball Players Association determined that worked out to 1,865 Uber rides, and “all but a small number” of those charges were made without the player’s permission.

The player wasn’t an ASM client, and after investigating the matter, the NBPA found “no evidence that any ASM employee knew about Mr. Dawkins’ conduct until after it was discovered in May 2016,” Wojnarowski writes. The player was reimbursed at the conclusion of the probe.

Here are a few more odds and ends from around the NBA:

• It has been a busy week for Bobby Marks of The Vertical, who has ranked and taken a closer look at the pending free agent point guards, shooting guards, small forwards, and power forwards. We’ll have our own rankings of free agents by position a little closer to July 1.
• With free agency less than two months away, Eric Pincus of Baskeball Insiders takes stock of salary cap situations around the NBA. Based on Pincus’ calculations, seven teams already project to have no cap room, and many more clubs will join that list if they re-sign one or two of their own players. The Kings could create the most cap space of any team, at $60MM+.
• Is Spurs star Kawhi Leonard the best non-lottery draft pick of all-time? Kevin Pelton of ESPN.com examines that question and others in his latest mailbag feature.
• Former Rockets big man Greg Smith isn’t just playing basketball in the Philippines these days — he may also represent the country’s national team as a naturalized player, as Rey Joble of BusinessWorld Online details (hat tip to Orazio Cauchi of Sportando).