Vaccaro Ends Idea Of Reebok-Sponsored Barnstorming Tour

Vaccaro Tables Idea Of Basketball Barnstorming Tour

Reebok Senior Dir of Grassroots Basketball Sonny Vaccaro indicated that he “backed off the idea” of taking top high school basketball players on a barnstorming tour of Europe after NBA Commissioner David Stern “criticized the culture of exploitation in youth basketball” last month, according to Thamel & Evans of the N.Y. TIMES. Vaccaro said that he contacted seven high school players about the idea, but added that he “did not want to hurt Stern’s nascent efforts to develop an NBA academy.” During his state of the league address at the NBA Finals in June, Stern said elite high school players “get exploited and exposed all the way up the system” (N.Y. TIMES, 7/9).

PROBLEM WITH AGE LIMIT: In New Jersey, Adam Zagoria notes Vaccaro thinks the NBA minimum age is “un-American, especially when non-American players can join the NBA assuming they turn 19 by the end of the calendar year.” Vaccaro “believes there are loopholes in the NBA rules.” One is for the American players to establish dual citizenship, as an American with dual citizenship “could theoretically become eligible before the end of the year.” Vaccaro: “On a legal matter with a few kids it could’ve been done. ... All I’m trying to do is show the inequity of foreign kids being allowed to do it, and our kids aren’t” (North Jersey HERALD NEWS, 7/10).

MUSCLE MAN: ESPN.com’s Pat Forde wrote Vaccaro “is flexing more muscle than ever,” as players from his “Reebok stable could be flocking to [his] Los Angeles backyard, apparently for star-making purposes.” O.J. Mayo, a rising senior at North College Hill High in Cincinnati, reportedly has made an oral commitment to USC. Also, Renardo Sidney, a rising sophomore, has moved from Mississippi to L.A. after his father, a former school security guard, become a “paid Reebok ‘consultant’” (ESPN.com, 7/7).