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NBPA will examine seldom enforced rule that prevents agents from repping players and coaches

The National Basketball Players Association plans to announce a revised set of agent regulations soon, including whether it will keep and enforce or discard a conflict-of-interest rule that prevents player agents from also representing coaches and others in management.

NBPA Executive Director Michele Roberts said she hopes to roll out proposed revisions to agents at the annual meetings that the union holds with contract advisers on both the West Coast and the East Coast in June. Gary Kohlman, who was appointed the union’s general counsel in October, has been examining all the regulations for months.

The NBPA’s player executive committee is the body that ultimately will vote on whether to approve the changes, and that is not likely to happen until the union’s annual meeting in July.

“As any new administration would do, we’ve been reviewing all of the existing policies of the organization,” Kohlman said in a statement to SportsBusiness Journal. “Our legal department is currently conducting a comprehensive review of agent regulations in collaboration with the players. We’re also collecting insights from agents.”

Roberts, in a telephone interview last week, said she had been talking to both players and agents for months about potential changes, including changes to the regulation that prevents player agents from representing coaches.

Though the rule has been on the books for decades, the union, in practice, has not enforced it.

“What I have said is, ‘If we have the rule — if we don’t change it — we have to enforce it,” Roberts said. “One thing I asked Gary to do, with respect to that very rule, is to come up with some assessments about its value.”

There are some NBA player agents who represent coaches, including coaches who had been longtime clients as players before pursing a coaching career when their playing days ended. Some large agencies have player representation and coaching representation divisions, although it’s not always clear how truly separate those divisions are.

Although Roberts would not say what she would do, she indicated that anything — from enforcing what is on the books to revising the rule, to scrapping it altogether — was possible.

Veteran agent David Falk has been a vocal proponent for the NBPA to enforce the rule as it stands. Falk said he would have liked to have represented some of his many former NBA player clients who went into management — including John Paxson, former vice president of the Chicago Bulls; Patrick Ewing, associate head coach of the Charlotte Hornets; and Michael Jordan, owner of the Hornets — but hasn’t because of the rule.

“If I had negotiated Patrick Ewing’s coaching contract with Michael Jordan, who am I working for?” Falk said. “They pass conflict-of-interest rules in business, because even if you can’t prove that the conflict is debilitating, the appearance of a conflict is an issue.”

Falk said he has talked to Roberts about the rule and added that the problem, if it is not being enforced, is one she inherited from past executive directors.

Roberts said that she has talked to both supporters and critics of the rule. “I feel for the coaches that want to keep their agents, but they are not members of my union,” she said. Ultimately, the decision will come down to what the current player members of the union want, Roberts said.

In other sports:
The NFL Players Association allows player agents to represent coaches.
The NHL Players’ Association forbids player agents to represent coaches or anyone in management.
MLB Players Association regulations prohibit certified agents from representing managers or coaches unless the agent has been granted permission to do so on a case-by-case basis.

Roberts said Kohlman would talk with the other unions about their rules on the issue before making recommendations.

The NBPA’s agent administration had been handled by its longtime director of security, Robert Gadson, who retired in the last year. The union hired Kevin Tucker, former director of security at the Portland Trail Blazers, to replace him. Roberts said that the union’s legal department, not its security department, would now oversee administration of agents.

In addition to the prohibition on agents representing coaches, Roberts said she wants to enforce all rules dealing with agent conduct and misconduct in the future.

“I am interested in making sure that we don’t have a list of rules that can be ignored,” she said. “I want people to actually believe that there is a reason to report misconduct to the union, because something will happen.”

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