Agent Feeling Pain From Plethora Of NBA Coach Firings
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CS&E's Cooper Repped
All Six Fired NBA Coaches |
Atlanta-based Career Sports & Entertainment CEO LONNIE COOPER represents all six of the NBA coaches who have been fired this season, according to the N.Y. TIMES' Howard Beck, who wrote under the subhead, "Agents Feel The Pain When Coaches Are Fired." At the start of the NBA season, Cooper repped nine of the NBA's 30 coaches, a "staggering percentage in a niche business with a limited client pool." Cooper: "If you’re firing six guys at the beginning of the season, but you’re replacing them with an interim coach, what’s the message you’re sending right there? Did you make a change because the interim coach is a better coach? I haven’t figured that one out, that logic.” Cooper, referring to former Cavaliers Owner GORDON GUND and Pistons Owner BILL DAVIDSON, said, "The owners are different; it's not the Gordon Gunds of the past, it's not the Davidsons of the past. ... This new breed of ownership are big fans. They’re not just businessmen, they’re fans of the NBA. And they’re hands-on and they’re real involved and their expectations are very high. I think it starts there. There’s a lot of pressure on general managers and coaches by the new breed of ownership.” Cooper added NBA GMs "will tell you today that they’re getting more calls about minutes and about touches than they ever have before from the agents." The average NBA coach earns about $3.5M annually, and agents are "not universally used, but dozens of coaches now employ them."
FRIENDLY COMPETITION? Beck noted Cooper for the first time has a "serious rival in the business" -- S.F.-based agent WARREN LEGARIE, who reps "seven current head coaches, two dozen assistants and several" front office execs. Aside from Cooper and LeGarie, agent JOE GLASS is the only other person to rep multiple NBA head coaches. The field is "mostly divided between LeGarie and Cooper, who are engaged in a sort of silent rivalry," and the two said that they have "never met and have no interest in each other's business" (N.Y. TIMES, 12/28).
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