Judge orders Zion Williamson to answer questions on whether he took improper benefits while at Duke
HAHAHAHAHA! St. Mike allowing for something like that, PLEEEAAAASSSEEE!!! If you believe Duke is been totally clean under St. Mike, give me a call about my ocean front condo in Reno NV.
You forgot to post your phone number.
/s
But what would be "improper" at Duke? If everyone was doing it there...
Zion's reaction on the stand:
This is actually a great time to confess if he did take anything. Not only is it not a big secret these college superstars are likely collecting some type of program-to-player benefits but the world has so many other problems to worry about. I'd also like to see Mike Shachefski (phonetically correct) squirm like a worm while we have zero sports.
If he confesses, then his legal basis for terminating his contract with his former agent dissolves and it costs him money. I am predicting that he does not confess.
That would be Mike Curzizooskee.
... and nothing comes of it.
North Dakota St will get punished.
Hammered. The Death Penalty. The Bison are dirty. Make an example of them. We can't be having this.
Rut Roh
One vision of heaven would be seeing Coach K be Lance Armstrong'd
Dude, I don’t wish ball cancer on anyone. That’s just mean
It's ok, you can't get ball cancer when your entire mind and body is already cancer like Coach K.
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who’s never liked coach k. And to be clear: coaching team USA doesn’t make you the goat. Lawrence frank could coach those teams and have the same results.
Lawrence Welk, too
I didn't realize the general dislike for Coach K until I got to UM in 1995. I was so glad when I found out I wasn't the only one.
is there anyone who isn't duke alumni or outside of North Carolina that like Coach K?
Nike really likes him. That's gonna be a problem here. I think.
Parents are West Pointers. A lottt of those types love them some Coack K.
The non region specific Laker Yankee Patriot types
Don't lump those great teams in with Duke/K. No evidence they cheated to reach the pinnacle of success. (Except, maybe, the Patriots. But just a little.)
I don't think that's his point.
Remember the "Red Sox Nation" dipshits from a few years ago? People from all over the country that decided they'd be Red Sox fans? Some people just like identifying with a winning brand (Lakers / Yankees), geography be damned.
Also: Fox News wasn't around when Coach K was having early success with teams headlined by Laettner, Bilas, and other pale guys, but its fans would've loved those teams.
Stan Van Gundy would’ve won the Gold, but only in overtime.
This ruling, by a local state (not federal) judge will certainly be appealed, where success is no guarantee for Gina Ford (the agent suing Zion) -- her legal counsel seems less than stellar, having glanced at the briefs. Further, Zion already has a federal suit going in North Carolina, it's highly likely these actions will get consolidated in NC and this ruling will have no impact.
TL;DR : Nothing here yet.
LOL, all he has to do is say he didn't take money, yet he hesitates hard. The truth is obvious.
I mean, nobody disputes the underlying truth here, but people (on principle!) should resist irrelevant / harassing discovery & interrogatory practice. (For what it's worth, Ford's theory of the case makes this stuff relevant and seems reasonable, but we'll see what happens in court.)
State and federal cases do not get consolidated with each other. They will run on separate tracks.
What? There's obvious diversity jurisdiction, so Zion will just remove the case to whatever Florida federal district and then get a 1404(a) transfer to North Carolina, and that court will obviously consolidate the actions because the core issue (does the UAAA apply to this contract?) is the same in both.
Can't wait for all of this damning evidence to come out against Duke to have the NCAA allow player compensation immediately afterward and watch everybody completely skate on it
- Fletcher Reede: Oh, come on! Your honor, how can it be proved that the male voice on that tape is not Mr. Cole himself?
- Samantha Cole: [voice on tape] You are such a better lover than my husband!
- Fletcher Reede: Your honor, I object!
- Judge Marshall Stevens: And why is that, Mr. Reede?
- Fletcher Reede: It's devastating to my case!
He’ll plead the 5th
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+1 for Dave Chappell doing an R Kelley impersonation reference.
....or every answer will be I do not recall?
I've given up all hope the NCAA will ever do anything to stand behind the 'principles' of amateurism. They are more concerned with nailing Michigan for excessive stretching than open, blatant cash grabs from their moneymakers. UNC, Duke, OSU,Kansas, Kentucky, bama, clemson, etc are untouchable
As I recall, he didn't win anything at Duke. Seeing no consequences for the program will make us salty, but let's be real: the times have changed.
Zion
Meh, everybody knows he took money, everybody knows nothing will happen to Duke. Just get the NIL stuff figured out already.
Mike Krzyzewski is the Jim Tressel of basketball. What a piece of shit.
He'll answer honestly, Coach K will somehow be able to claim plausible deniability because he'll have had some assistant coach or other lackey do the actual communication, and the Dickie V-types will wring their hands for a couple of days before moving on.
“This could be the greatest night of our lives, but you’re gonna let it be the worst. ‘Oh we’re afraid to give you cash Zion we might get in trouble.’ Well just kiss my ass from now on!!”
-Zion
What does he have to lose by telling the truth? The NCAA can’t touch him, he’s still going to make a boatload off endorsements and his NBA salary, and he’s still going to be adored by the Duke faithful.
No one can do shit to him at this point.
If Zion wasn't an eligible student athlete, he loses this lawsuit and is in the hole for a lot of money.
(TL;DR oversimplified version of the case to follow.)
Before Zion declared for the draft, he signed a contract with Gina Ford to be his exclusive "marketing agent." After the draft, Zion signed a full agency deal with CAA, including marketing stuff. Ford is suing Zion for damages related to this breach of contract; I'm not familiar with the terms of the agreement but multi-million dollar damages seem facially plausible to me. Zion's arguing that his contract with Gina Ford is null and void.
Specifically, Zion is relying on something called the UAAA (Uniform Athlete Agents Act) which places certain requirements on agent contracts with eligible student-athletes. If an agency contract with an eligible student athlete is inconsistent with the UAAA, the student athlete can void it without consequences. It's undisputed that the contract didn't meet those requirements. If, however, the contract was not with an eligible student athlete, those extra requirements are irrelevant and the contract is enforceable (so Zion would owe damages).
Ford's position is that Zion was never an eligible student athlete on the underlying facts (he was obviously compensated) and is trying to conduct discovery to prove it. (Zion's position is that the NCAA's opinion about eligibility at the time the contract was signed is the relevant question for this law, not his "true" eligibility. The NCAA never disqualified him, so the UAAA applies, so the contract is void, the end.)
If the court agrees with Ford's theory of the law, Zion will have to answer these questions and will lose the lawsuit.
----
LEGAL PROGNOSTICATING WITH MINIMAL BACKGROUND
The legal theories both carry some merit.
Ford's point is pretty simple: the UAAA is designed to protect student-athletes from accidentally losing their eligibility or being preyed upon. (The big UAAA rule that Ford's contract broke? It didn't have a BOLDED, ALL CAPS NOTICE THAT THIS CONTRACT WILL END YOUR ELIGIBILITY). Zion was obviously a one-and-done from the jump -- he wasn't remotely harmed by the lack of notice, as demonstrated by the fact that he declared for the NBA draft! Since Zion wasn't harmed by the contract in the way that the UAAA cares about, it shouldn't apply.
Zion's team will obviously take a different tack. First, they can say that this kind of ticky-tack investigation will hollow out the UAAA to the point of meaninglessness: how many athletes did not receive any compensation, ever? (Recall, e.g., the bagel spread NCAA violation a while ago.) You can always find something minor to bust people "out" of eligibility if you look hard enough, which would render the law toothless. Second, the relevant eligibility determination is if the NCAA thinks you can play; nobody cares if somebody on a message board found your slush fund or whatever. The point of this statute is to protect people's NCAA eligibility, to that point it doesn't matter if you were "factually" ineligible but the NCAA considered you eligible. Third, they'll say that the point of the UAAA is broader than just protecting eligibility: it's protecting young athletes from predatory agents. Even if Zion was a true one-and-done (duh), the UAAA still should void this contract because that's consistent with its purpose: protecting Zion from some exploitative "agent."
Zion's case could open up the NCAA to lawsuits if they treated him differently than they treat other athletes who took money (Brian Bowen).
Thanks for the thorough explanation.
Will it / should it matter if Zion could have “reasonably” assumed he was eligible? If his actual violations are nonexistent or minor (“bagel spread”), then he could have believed he was well and truly eligible, not just “NCAA says I’m eligible because I haven’t been caught yet”. But if he was getting straight up paid thousands of dollars, he would certainly know that he was ineligible.
Will it / should it matter if Zion took any steps to maintain his eligibility after signing the contract with Ford? Did he keep his grades up? Did he talk to anybody and say he was seriously considering staying? How long did he wait to declare for the draft? Etc. To my mind, it shouldn’t matter if Ford properly warned him his eligibility was terminated if terminating his eligibility was his intent (or, at the very least, had no intention to maintain his eligibility).
Either way, from your description, it seems pretty obvious that Zion bounced on a contract when he got a better deal, and is now trying to get out of paying for that on a technicality. Which may be legal, but seems shady.
Caveat here: I'm not a North Carolina lawyer, I'm not a sports lawyer. This is me reading the briefs and the statutory language, nothing more.
My sense, from reading the statute, is that Zion's opinion on his own eligibility is irrelevant. Here's the relevant language:
Student-athlete. – An individual who engages in, is eligible to engage in, or may be eligible in the future to engage in any intercollegiate sport. If an individual is permanently ineligible to participate in a particular intercollegiate sport, the individual is not a student-athlete for purposes of that sport.
Nothing there talks about Zion's understanding of his eligibility; none of the briefs have mentioned it either.
As to maintaining eligibility, again, the statutory language doesn't seem to discuss that at all. You're either eligible at a moment in time or you aren't. (Ford also argues that he was ineligible because, before he signed his contract with her, he posted something saying he was leaving Duke. Zion says no, that didn't impact his eligibility -- only filing the paperwork formally declaring for the draft did, and that happened after he signed with her.)
Similarly, re: warning, the statute is very clear on this point. There's a paragraph-long disclosure, that must be bolded, in all caps, on the first page for an agency contract with an eligible student-athlete to be enforceable. For what it's worth, that's right -- both to avoid expensive litigation / create a bright-line rule and because there are lots of scuzzy ways of "sort of" saying that you'll lose your eligibility while not really conveying that impression. Though I agree with you, Ford's lawyers will very likely hammer the point that Zion wasn't injured by the UAAA violation because he didn't care about remaining eligible.
I think that you can make a case that both sides weren't great:
Zion will say that Ford was hugely scuzzy, lied heavily about her experience, harassed his family, wrote a very inequitable contract (5 years with no termination right? After that, Zion can only terminate for cause?) -- in short, she was a predatory "agent" who exploited him (at 18-19!) when he couldn't have formal representation due to NCAA rules.
Ford will say that Zion was hardly a babe in the woods: he's at Duke, surely he's advised by smart people on this front, he knew he was going to be drafted highly for forever and was very thoughtful about the business side of things. She'd say that Zion used Ford's services (it's undisputed that she had negotiations with several companies on Zion's behalf) to push his value up; then he signed with CAA and wants to use the UAAA as a technicality to get her work for free.
Zion Williamson deserved every penny he was given, and he probably should have been given more. Duke should have paid him. Good for them.
Agreed.