A Hollywood Ending, page 5
Parker went with Wasserman. That June, the Milwaukee Bucks drafted him with the No. 2 pick.
* * *
• • •
Things for Klutch were looking bleak, but there was no time to wallow. LeBron was set to become a free agent. So was another Klutch client, Eric Bledsoe. For the first time since going out on his own, Paul was on the clock. These next few months, he knew, would be the most important of his professional life.
On June 24, after four seasons with the Heat, LeBron opted out of his contract. He was a free agent again, and five teams sent contingents to the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Cleveland to pitch their cases. This included the Lakers, who were represented by Kupchak and Tim Harris, the team’s senior vice president of business operations. The meat of their pitch was simple: They were willing to hand LeBron the keys to the NBA’s preeminent franchise.
LeBron’s representatives were impressed with Kupchak and Harris’s presentation. But, just like four years earlier, LeBron was looking for something the Lakers couldn’t provide. For one, the Lakers were coming off a 27–55 season, and the previous year had given Kobe an enormous extension, limiting their financial flexibility. More than that, though, LeBron and his group wanted to remove the stain of The Decision. The only way to do so, they thought, would be by making amends with Cleveland.
On July 10, after talking it over with his family and inner circle, LeBron made his choice official. He announced the decision—no capitalization this time around—with a 942-word, first-person essay in Sports Illustrated written with Lee Jenkins, the magazine’s top NBA feature writer, who had profiled LeBron numerous times.
“I’m ready to accept the challenge,” LeBron wrote. “I’m coming home.”
The essay was widely praised. Deadspin, the typically irreverent sports and culture website, called it “an immaculately executed public relations coup.” The letter, and the well-executed PR campaign, also helped conceal part of the reason LeBron was returning to Cleveland. Sure, the homecoming was nice, but what he really wanted was to run the show. He was never going to have that power in Miami, where Pat Riley was in charge. In Cleveland, though, things were different. LeBron could control everything, and he and his team recognized that the best way to do so would be by tweaking the structure of the typical star contract.
For this, the group turned to Mark Termini, a veteran agent enlisted by Paul to run Klutch’s negotiations. A Cleveland native and the son of a high school and college basketball coach, Termini had starred on Case Western Reserve University’s basketball team before getting a law degree from Cleveland State University in 1984. Two years later, at the urging of Flip Saunders, his close friend from Cleveland’s basketball scene who was working as an assistant coach at the University of Minnesota, Termini set up his own agency. Soon after, he orchestrated successful holdouts for two of his first clients—Ron Harper and Rod Strickland—which put himself on the NBA map.
In 1992, Termini signed Jim Jackson, a star guard from Ohio State who would be drafted fourth by the Dallas Mavericks. Because his general manager had whiffed on a couple recent picks, the team’s owner, Donald Carter, decided to take the reins and run the contract negotiations. He offered four years and $10.8 million, which was two years and nearly $10 million less than the Minnesota Timberwolves had handed Christian Laettner, that year’s No. 3 pick.
“I said, ‘Mr. Carter, no disrespect, but that’s not my fault that they didn’t work out,’ ” Jackson recalled, referring to the Mavericks’ previous picks. “ ‘I’m not going to take less than what my market value is.’ ”
The Mavericks pushed hard, offering Jackson a $1 million signing bonus to take the deal. Jackson rejected the offer and declined to report to the team. Both he and Termini were crushed in the press. “Take the Money and Run” was the headline of a column about Jackson in the December 15, 1992, edition of USA Today. The piece was penned by Peter Vecsey, one of the country’s most prominent and influential NBA voices. Two weeks later, Vecsey wrote a follow-up; the headline read, “This Guy’s an Agent of Doom.”
Despite all the noise, Jackson and Termini refused to back down. Deep into the holdout, Termini discovered that then–NBA commissioner David Stern had instructed teams to stop handing out lavish contracts to rookies. It was, to Termini, the textbook definition of collusion, and he made clear to the NBA that he was willing to take legal action.
“Finally, the Mavericks came in and signed me,” Jackson said. “You know, they’re hugging and kissing, and ‘Hey, we’re so glad,’ but it was because of the [threat of the] lawsuit.” Jackson received a six-year, $20 million contract. He was also paid for his entire rookie season, despite missing the first 54 games.
The win solidified Termini’s reputation. Operating out of Cleveland limited his profile, but, within NBA circles, he became known as a fierce negotiator, someone who fought for every word on every page. He went to war over pay schedules. He insisted that contracts contain full death benefits for the families of his clients. He created a twenty-three-word clause that affirmed his players’ freedom to engage in athletic activities—like pickup basketball—away from the team and without liability, which, despite frequent pushback from owners, was almost always inserted into contracts he negotiated. Executives and owners didn’t love dealing with him, and behind closed doors some rolled their eyes. But Termini didn’t care.
“In the NBA,” he wrote in a book years later, “friends are good. Leverage is better.”
All of which made him the perfect partner for Paul. After Paul had left CAA, a bunch of agents had reached out—working with him meant working with LeBron—but each had insisted on being the face of the operation. Termini was different. He wasn’t trying to cozy up to LeBron. He wasn’t interested in fame. All he insisted on was running point on contract negotiations. That meant he’d be the one devising negotiating strategies and discussing dollar amounts with NBA teams.
Paul was fine with all that. He recognized that, if Klutch was going to succeed, he needed help. “I knew what I didn’t know,” Paul said, “and I went and got someone who was able to fill that gap.” He also figured that he could control the narrative and keep it so he’d be the one getting credit for his clients’ deals. In December 2012, the two agreed to terms. Termini came on as an independent contractor in charge of contract negotiations. Klutch would pay him 25 percent of its gross fees on NBA contracts and marketing deals. And now, with LeBron a free agent for the first time in Klutch’s existence, Termini had the chance to flex his muscles.
Unlike in 2010, when LeBron had taken a pay cut to help the Heat fill out the roster, this time around Termini told all suitors that LeBron would be signing for the max. On this, he said, there’d be no negotiations. The plan was also for LeBron to sign a “one-plus-one” deal: a one-year contract, with a second season tacked on in the form of a player option.
There were two reasons for this structure.
One was that it would give LeBron power over the Cavs. The threat of his leaving would force them to fully commit to winning, regardless of the cost.
The other was that the NBA was in the midst of negotiating new TV deals, which would kick in before the 2016–17 season and were projected to be worth at least double the previous ones, which would raise the league’s salary cap.[*6] LeBron could sign with Cleveland for four years and $88 million, or he could make $21 million in his first season, opt out and re-sign again on another one-plus-one in the summer of 2015 (the player option served as insurance against the potential of a catastrophic injury), then opt out again before the 2016 season and sign a new, even more lucrative contract, taking advantage of the projected cap spike.
After Sports Illustrated published LeBron’s essay, Termini informed the Cavs of the particulars. The Cavs were annoyed that they were getting only a single guaranteed season, but, unless they planned on rejecting LeBron, they had no choice but to agree to those terms.
That October, the NBA announced its new media rights deals, which amounted to a total of $2.6 billion per season, nearly $2 billion more than the previous figure. Two years later, after that rights deal went into effect, LeBron re-signed with the Cavs on a two-plus-one with a starting salary of $31 million. The plan ended up earning LeBron an extra $20 million over four years.
“I’m not the beautiful mind over here,” Termini said years later. “It was just math. I use my calculator and you talk to people that know that the cap’s going up, so why would I want to tie up my player?”
With the LeBron negotiations done and most free agents off the board, the attention of the NBA world turned to the free agency of Bledsoe. A 6-foot-1 former first-round pick, Bledsoe was coming off a career year for the Phoenix Suns, one in which he had helped them win 48 games, nearly doubling their 2012–13 win total. The Suns wanted him back but didn’t want to pay him like a top-flight point guard. He’d missed 39 games the previous season with shin and knee injuries, including a torn meniscus that required surgery. He was also a restricted free agent, meaning the Suns had the right to match any offer sheet he signed, a prospect that often scared away potential suitors.
The Suns had opened negotiations the previous year with a four-year, $32 million offer. Bledsoe turned that down. In July, the Suns upped their proposal to four years and $48 million, a contract similar to those recently signed by Jrue Holiday, Kyle Lowry, and Ty Lawson, all of whom were point guards seen to be in the same tier. Bledsoe rejected that offer, too.
Most people around the NBA were shocked. The Suns appeared to hold all the leverage. Sure, Bledsoe could roll the dice and sign a “qualifying offer” for one year and $3.7 million, which would allow him to become an unrestricted free agent the following summer, but doing so would mean leaving almost $45 million on the table and risk having an injury or a down season deflate his value.
Termini didn’t see things that way. He believed there was a different way to frame the conversation around the qualifying offer; it didn’t just represent a risk for Bledsoe, it also meant that, one year later, the Suns could lose their starting point guard and get nothing back in return.
Was that a risk they were willing to take?
“As long as I kept my client strong, I knew the team also had no place to go. I told them, ‘If you can sign another All-Star point guard, go get him,’ ” Termini said years later. “That was my strategy, to turn the system against the teams when I had an indispensable player…and I took pride in proving that the right player with the right contract negotiator could pull it off.”
By mid-July, the sides had reached a stalemate. “Bled felt antsy,” Paul recalled. “When you grow up not knowing where your next meal is coming from, it’s hard to turn down $48 million.” Other players told him to take the Suns’ offer. Rival executives and agents used the media to broadcast their disbelief in Klutch’s stance.
“Eric Bledsoe and His Camp Need a Reality Check” was the headline of a July 18 Arizona Republic story by columnist Dan Bickley. “Nothing supports the notion that Bledsoe is worth that kind of money,” Bickley wrote. A few weeks later, John Gambadoro, another Phoenix-area sports personality and someone known to be close to the Suns, published an open letter to Eric Bledsoe, which included the following line: “Memo to Eric Bledsoe—you need new representation. This Rich Paul is a joke and he is steering you down a slippery slope.”
Yet throughout it all, Termini remained confident. So did Paul.
Sensing that confidence, Bledsoe held the line.
On September 19, with just eleven days until training camp and twelve until the deadline for Bledsoe to sign the qualifying offer, ESPN reported that the Timberwolves, a team run by Flip Saunders, Termini’s close friend and client, were offering Bledsoe a four-year, $63 million max contract. That Minnesota couldn’t actually sign him to such a deal (unless the Suns agreed to take back a bunch of overpaid players in a sign-and-trade) was irrelevant. All Termini needed was to boost the perception of Bledsoe’s value, which, he believed, would spook Suns owner Robert Sarver.
That this leaked the week before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, was no coincidence, either. Sarver “doesn’t do any work, not even pick up a telephone, and we knew [he] didn’t want us to get an offer from another team during the holidays when he wouldn’t be able to match it,” Paul wrote. The holiday started at sundown on September 24. On his way into the office that day, Sarver, without notifying his front office, called Termini and upped the offer to five years and $70 million. Bledsoe accepted the deal. When Sarver arrived at work and shared the news, his executives were furious.
Two years after leaving CAA, Paul and his new agency had announced their arrival. “That was the first real money Klutch ever made,” Paul wrote. “It sent a message to the entire NBA.” When Paul first left CAA, LeBron had promised a takeover. Two years later, it was now underway.
Skip Notes
*1 Rich Sr.’s brother, who worked for the post office, took out loans from his credit union and Rich Sr. made the payments.
*2 In October 2000, Paul was arrested on the corner outside the family store for possession of marijuana.
*3 How’d CAA take it? “Paul is a good guy who’s starting a little four-person business,” a “CAA insider” told Nikki Finke, the founder and editor in chief of Deadline, that week. “We wish him well.”
*4 Mostly thanks to his advising his top client, star running back Ricky Williams, to sign an incentive-laden deal so bad that it caused the defection of Master P’s other clients and the collapse of the agency, and became known as one of the worst contracts in the history of professional sports.
*5 Paul later accused CAA of playing a role in the opening of the investigation. “A previous agency I was at, they leaked some stuff to the media,” he said during an August 2022 appearance on former NFL tight end Darren Waller’s podcast. After finding this quote, I reached out to CAA for comment. A CAA representative said the following: “Rich is a revisionist historian, who crafts tall tales to fit whatever narrative he is selling at the moment. He knows that CAA didn’t leak this information. It just didn’t happen.”
*6 Which would boost the max salary number, which is based off the cap, which is based off league revenue…Isn’t NBA math fun?
- 3 -
The Mother of Dragons
In the summer of 2013, the Buss children gathered in a boardroom at the team’s El Segundo facility for their yearly family meeting. It was their first since Dr. Buss’s death, and the siblings—specifically Jeanie—wanted to hear how Jim planned to turn things around.
The Lakers were coming off a first-round playoff sweep and the roster was a mess. Dwight Howard, the player who was supposed to carry them into the future, was gone. Kobe was rehabbing from Achilles surgery. Steve Nash had never fully recovered from his leg injury.
Dr. Buss had been gone for only a few months and the fan base had already lost faith in his heir. Jeanie was losing patience, too.
When will we be back in the playoffs? she asked Jim that day. It was more of a challenge than a query, one she said she was issuing not as Jim’s sister but as the team’s president and governor.
Jim saw it differently. His younger sister had spent years second-guessing him, soaking up praise while the public dismissed him as the family fool. “Nobody understands the pressure I was under,” he’d say years later. The job was more complex and demanding than any of his siblings could imagine, and the fact that Jeanie had dared to even ask this question was proof. When would they be back in the playoffs? It would take a week to break down all the various permutations and possibilities and come up with a reasonable target. So instead, Jim told his sister what he believed she wanted to hear.
“A year,” he replied.
Everyone in the room was stunned. Why would you say that? Mitch Kupchak thought. Jesse Buss, the youngest sibling and then the team’s director of scouting, laughed.
Jeanie, shocked, repeated Jim’s answer as a matter of clarification.
“One year?” she asked.
“One year,” Jim confirmed.
“There’s no way that’s going to happen,” Jesse said.
Maybe, Jim conceded, his answer was a bit bold. But he still believed in himself and his abilities.
“Okay,” he said. “Three years.”
“Just so you know,” Jeanie said, “if we’re not back in the playoffs by then, I might have to make a change.”
“If we’re not back in the playoffs in three years,” Jim replied, “I’ll fire myself.”
The two shook hands.
* * *
• • •
When Jim took over decision-making power around the start of the 2012–13 season, his goal was to follow in his father’s footsteps. “You have to have a real superstar to have a credible franchise,” Dr. Buss had once said, “especially in a city like Los Angeles.” Jim and Kupchak’s plan was to pounce in the summer of 2014. “Basically we put everything [into] that,” Jim told The Orange County Register. LeBron and other A-listers like Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade were set to hit free agency. Kobe’s contract would also be expiring, and he’d previously hinted to reporters that he was considering retirement, which would free up even more cap space.
The summer of 2013 derailed those plans. Kobe wasn’t going to let his final on-court image be one of him limping to the locker room, and took retirement off the table. Instead, he wanted a contract extension, and he told reporters he had no interest in taking a pay cut, either.
From a basketball standpoint, there was no way to justify giving Kobe another mega-deal. He was turning thirty-five in August—ancient in basketball years—and trying to come back from a devastating injury. But to Jeanie, on-court performance wasn’t the only factor worth considering. “We never got an opportunity to do the farewell tour for Magic Johnson,” she would later say in a television interview. “To have Kobe retire as a Laker, that to me is really important.” Kobe also remained a box office draw, and, unlike many of the NBA’s new owners—wealthy executives backed by multibillion-dollar corporations—the Buss family had no secondary source of income. Their business was the Lakers, meaning basketball decisions were often made for business reasons. “My God, we don’t have Carnival Cruises behind us or Kohl’s Department Stores…and Microsoft up in good, old Portland,” Jim Buss once told a reporter. “This is it. If we lose money, we lose money.”
* * *
• • •
Things for Klutch were looking bleak, but there was no time to wallow. LeBron was set to become a free agent. So was another Klutch client, Eric Bledsoe. For the first time since going out on his own, Paul was on the clock. These next few months, he knew, would be the most important of his professional life.
On June 24, after four seasons with the Heat, LeBron opted out of his contract. He was a free agent again, and five teams sent contingents to the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Cleveland to pitch their cases. This included the Lakers, who were represented by Kupchak and Tim Harris, the team’s senior vice president of business operations. The meat of their pitch was simple: They were willing to hand LeBron the keys to the NBA’s preeminent franchise.
LeBron’s representatives were impressed with Kupchak and Harris’s presentation. But, just like four years earlier, LeBron was looking for something the Lakers couldn’t provide. For one, the Lakers were coming off a 27–55 season, and the previous year had given Kobe an enormous extension, limiting their financial flexibility. More than that, though, LeBron and his group wanted to remove the stain of The Decision. The only way to do so, they thought, would be by making amends with Cleveland.
On July 10, after talking it over with his family and inner circle, LeBron made his choice official. He announced the decision—no capitalization this time around—with a 942-word, first-person essay in Sports Illustrated written with Lee Jenkins, the magazine’s top NBA feature writer, who had profiled LeBron numerous times.
“I’m ready to accept the challenge,” LeBron wrote. “I’m coming home.”
The essay was widely praised. Deadspin, the typically irreverent sports and culture website, called it “an immaculately executed public relations coup.” The letter, and the well-executed PR campaign, also helped conceal part of the reason LeBron was returning to Cleveland. Sure, the homecoming was nice, but what he really wanted was to run the show. He was never going to have that power in Miami, where Pat Riley was in charge. In Cleveland, though, things were different. LeBron could control everything, and he and his team recognized that the best way to do so would be by tweaking the structure of the typical star contract.
For this, the group turned to Mark Termini, a veteran agent enlisted by Paul to run Klutch’s negotiations. A Cleveland native and the son of a high school and college basketball coach, Termini had starred on Case Western Reserve University’s basketball team before getting a law degree from Cleveland State University in 1984. Two years later, at the urging of Flip Saunders, his close friend from Cleveland’s basketball scene who was working as an assistant coach at the University of Minnesota, Termini set up his own agency. Soon after, he orchestrated successful holdouts for two of his first clients—Ron Harper and Rod Strickland—which put himself on the NBA map.
In 1992, Termini signed Jim Jackson, a star guard from Ohio State who would be drafted fourth by the Dallas Mavericks. Because his general manager had whiffed on a couple recent picks, the team’s owner, Donald Carter, decided to take the reins and run the contract negotiations. He offered four years and $10.8 million, which was two years and nearly $10 million less than the Minnesota Timberwolves had handed Christian Laettner, that year’s No. 3 pick.
“I said, ‘Mr. Carter, no disrespect, but that’s not my fault that they didn’t work out,’ ” Jackson recalled, referring to the Mavericks’ previous picks. “ ‘I’m not going to take less than what my market value is.’ ”
The Mavericks pushed hard, offering Jackson a $1 million signing bonus to take the deal. Jackson rejected the offer and declined to report to the team. Both he and Termini were crushed in the press. “Take the Money and Run” was the headline of a column about Jackson in the December 15, 1992, edition of USA Today. The piece was penned by Peter Vecsey, one of the country’s most prominent and influential NBA voices. Two weeks later, Vecsey wrote a follow-up; the headline read, “This Guy’s an Agent of Doom.”
Despite all the noise, Jackson and Termini refused to back down. Deep into the holdout, Termini discovered that then–NBA commissioner David Stern had instructed teams to stop handing out lavish contracts to rookies. It was, to Termini, the textbook definition of collusion, and he made clear to the NBA that he was willing to take legal action.
“Finally, the Mavericks came in and signed me,” Jackson said. “You know, they’re hugging and kissing, and ‘Hey, we’re so glad,’ but it was because of the [threat of the] lawsuit.” Jackson received a six-year, $20 million contract. He was also paid for his entire rookie season, despite missing the first 54 games.
The win solidified Termini’s reputation. Operating out of Cleveland limited his profile, but, within NBA circles, he became known as a fierce negotiator, someone who fought for every word on every page. He went to war over pay schedules. He insisted that contracts contain full death benefits for the families of his clients. He created a twenty-three-word clause that affirmed his players’ freedom to engage in athletic activities—like pickup basketball—away from the team and without liability, which, despite frequent pushback from owners, was almost always inserted into contracts he negotiated. Executives and owners didn’t love dealing with him, and behind closed doors some rolled their eyes. But Termini didn’t care.
“In the NBA,” he wrote in a book years later, “friends are good. Leverage is better.”
All of which made him the perfect partner for Paul. After Paul had left CAA, a bunch of agents had reached out—working with him meant working with LeBron—but each had insisted on being the face of the operation. Termini was different. He wasn’t trying to cozy up to LeBron. He wasn’t interested in fame. All he insisted on was running point on contract negotiations. That meant he’d be the one devising negotiating strategies and discussing dollar amounts with NBA teams.
Paul was fine with all that. He recognized that, if Klutch was going to succeed, he needed help. “I knew what I didn’t know,” Paul said, “and I went and got someone who was able to fill that gap.” He also figured that he could control the narrative and keep it so he’d be the one getting credit for his clients’ deals. In December 2012, the two agreed to terms. Termini came on as an independent contractor in charge of contract negotiations. Klutch would pay him 25 percent of its gross fees on NBA contracts and marketing deals. And now, with LeBron a free agent for the first time in Klutch’s existence, Termini had the chance to flex his muscles.
Unlike in 2010, when LeBron had taken a pay cut to help the Heat fill out the roster, this time around Termini told all suitors that LeBron would be signing for the max. On this, he said, there’d be no negotiations. The plan was also for LeBron to sign a “one-plus-one” deal: a one-year contract, with a second season tacked on in the form of a player option.
There were two reasons for this structure.
One was that it would give LeBron power over the Cavs. The threat of his leaving would force them to fully commit to winning, regardless of the cost.
The other was that the NBA was in the midst of negotiating new TV deals, which would kick in before the 2016–17 season and were projected to be worth at least double the previous ones, which would raise the league’s salary cap.[*6] LeBron could sign with Cleveland for four years and $88 million, or he could make $21 million in his first season, opt out and re-sign again on another one-plus-one in the summer of 2015 (the player option served as insurance against the potential of a catastrophic injury), then opt out again before the 2016 season and sign a new, even more lucrative contract, taking advantage of the projected cap spike.
After Sports Illustrated published LeBron’s essay, Termini informed the Cavs of the particulars. The Cavs were annoyed that they were getting only a single guaranteed season, but, unless they planned on rejecting LeBron, they had no choice but to agree to those terms.
That October, the NBA announced its new media rights deals, which amounted to a total of $2.6 billion per season, nearly $2 billion more than the previous figure. Two years later, after that rights deal went into effect, LeBron re-signed with the Cavs on a two-plus-one with a starting salary of $31 million. The plan ended up earning LeBron an extra $20 million over four years.
“I’m not the beautiful mind over here,” Termini said years later. “It was just math. I use my calculator and you talk to people that know that the cap’s going up, so why would I want to tie up my player?”
With the LeBron negotiations done and most free agents off the board, the attention of the NBA world turned to the free agency of Bledsoe. A 6-foot-1 former first-round pick, Bledsoe was coming off a career year for the Phoenix Suns, one in which he had helped them win 48 games, nearly doubling their 2012–13 win total. The Suns wanted him back but didn’t want to pay him like a top-flight point guard. He’d missed 39 games the previous season with shin and knee injuries, including a torn meniscus that required surgery. He was also a restricted free agent, meaning the Suns had the right to match any offer sheet he signed, a prospect that often scared away potential suitors.
The Suns had opened negotiations the previous year with a four-year, $32 million offer. Bledsoe turned that down. In July, the Suns upped their proposal to four years and $48 million, a contract similar to those recently signed by Jrue Holiday, Kyle Lowry, and Ty Lawson, all of whom were point guards seen to be in the same tier. Bledsoe rejected that offer, too.
Most people around the NBA were shocked. The Suns appeared to hold all the leverage. Sure, Bledsoe could roll the dice and sign a “qualifying offer” for one year and $3.7 million, which would allow him to become an unrestricted free agent the following summer, but doing so would mean leaving almost $45 million on the table and risk having an injury or a down season deflate his value.
Termini didn’t see things that way. He believed there was a different way to frame the conversation around the qualifying offer; it didn’t just represent a risk for Bledsoe, it also meant that, one year later, the Suns could lose their starting point guard and get nothing back in return.
Was that a risk they were willing to take?
“As long as I kept my client strong, I knew the team also had no place to go. I told them, ‘If you can sign another All-Star point guard, go get him,’ ” Termini said years later. “That was my strategy, to turn the system against the teams when I had an indispensable player…and I took pride in proving that the right player with the right contract negotiator could pull it off.”
By mid-July, the sides had reached a stalemate. “Bled felt antsy,” Paul recalled. “When you grow up not knowing where your next meal is coming from, it’s hard to turn down $48 million.” Other players told him to take the Suns’ offer. Rival executives and agents used the media to broadcast their disbelief in Klutch’s stance.
“Eric Bledsoe and His Camp Need a Reality Check” was the headline of a July 18 Arizona Republic story by columnist Dan Bickley. “Nothing supports the notion that Bledsoe is worth that kind of money,” Bickley wrote. A few weeks later, John Gambadoro, another Phoenix-area sports personality and someone known to be close to the Suns, published an open letter to Eric Bledsoe, which included the following line: “Memo to Eric Bledsoe—you need new representation. This Rich Paul is a joke and he is steering you down a slippery slope.”
Yet throughout it all, Termini remained confident. So did Paul.
Sensing that confidence, Bledsoe held the line.
On September 19, with just eleven days until training camp and twelve until the deadline for Bledsoe to sign the qualifying offer, ESPN reported that the Timberwolves, a team run by Flip Saunders, Termini’s close friend and client, were offering Bledsoe a four-year, $63 million max contract. That Minnesota couldn’t actually sign him to such a deal (unless the Suns agreed to take back a bunch of overpaid players in a sign-and-trade) was irrelevant. All Termini needed was to boost the perception of Bledsoe’s value, which, he believed, would spook Suns owner Robert Sarver.
That this leaked the week before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, was no coincidence, either. Sarver “doesn’t do any work, not even pick up a telephone, and we knew [he] didn’t want us to get an offer from another team during the holidays when he wouldn’t be able to match it,” Paul wrote. The holiday started at sundown on September 24. On his way into the office that day, Sarver, without notifying his front office, called Termini and upped the offer to five years and $70 million. Bledsoe accepted the deal. When Sarver arrived at work and shared the news, his executives were furious.
Two years after leaving CAA, Paul and his new agency had announced their arrival. “That was the first real money Klutch ever made,” Paul wrote. “It sent a message to the entire NBA.” When Paul first left CAA, LeBron had promised a takeover. Two years later, it was now underway.
Skip Notes
*1 Rich Sr.’s brother, who worked for the post office, took out loans from his credit union and Rich Sr. made the payments.
*2 In October 2000, Paul was arrested on the corner outside the family store for possession of marijuana.
*3 How’d CAA take it? “Paul is a good guy who’s starting a little four-person business,” a “CAA insider” told Nikki Finke, the founder and editor in chief of Deadline, that week. “We wish him well.”
*4 Mostly thanks to his advising his top client, star running back Ricky Williams, to sign an incentive-laden deal so bad that it caused the defection of Master P’s other clients and the collapse of the agency, and became known as one of the worst contracts in the history of professional sports.
*5 Paul later accused CAA of playing a role in the opening of the investigation. “A previous agency I was at, they leaked some stuff to the media,” he said during an August 2022 appearance on former NFL tight end Darren Waller’s podcast. After finding this quote, I reached out to CAA for comment. A CAA representative said the following: “Rich is a revisionist historian, who crafts tall tales to fit whatever narrative he is selling at the moment. He knows that CAA didn’t leak this information. It just didn’t happen.”
*6 Which would boost the max salary number, which is based off the cap, which is based off league revenue…Isn’t NBA math fun?
- 3 -
The Mother of Dragons
In the summer of 2013, the Buss children gathered in a boardroom at the team’s El Segundo facility for their yearly family meeting. It was their first since Dr. Buss’s death, and the siblings—specifically Jeanie—wanted to hear how Jim planned to turn things around.
The Lakers were coming off a first-round playoff sweep and the roster was a mess. Dwight Howard, the player who was supposed to carry them into the future, was gone. Kobe was rehabbing from Achilles surgery. Steve Nash had never fully recovered from his leg injury.
Dr. Buss had been gone for only a few months and the fan base had already lost faith in his heir. Jeanie was losing patience, too.
When will we be back in the playoffs? she asked Jim that day. It was more of a challenge than a query, one she said she was issuing not as Jim’s sister but as the team’s president and governor.
Jim saw it differently. His younger sister had spent years second-guessing him, soaking up praise while the public dismissed him as the family fool. “Nobody understands the pressure I was under,” he’d say years later. The job was more complex and demanding than any of his siblings could imagine, and the fact that Jeanie had dared to even ask this question was proof. When would they be back in the playoffs? It would take a week to break down all the various permutations and possibilities and come up with a reasonable target. So instead, Jim told his sister what he believed she wanted to hear.
“A year,” he replied.
Everyone in the room was stunned. Why would you say that? Mitch Kupchak thought. Jesse Buss, the youngest sibling and then the team’s director of scouting, laughed.
Jeanie, shocked, repeated Jim’s answer as a matter of clarification.
“One year?” she asked.
“One year,” Jim confirmed.
“There’s no way that’s going to happen,” Jesse said.
Maybe, Jim conceded, his answer was a bit bold. But he still believed in himself and his abilities.
“Okay,” he said. “Three years.”
“Just so you know,” Jeanie said, “if we’re not back in the playoffs by then, I might have to make a change.”
“If we’re not back in the playoffs in three years,” Jim replied, “I’ll fire myself.”
The two shook hands.
* * *
• • •
When Jim took over decision-making power around the start of the 2012–13 season, his goal was to follow in his father’s footsteps. “You have to have a real superstar to have a credible franchise,” Dr. Buss had once said, “especially in a city like Los Angeles.” Jim and Kupchak’s plan was to pounce in the summer of 2014. “Basically we put everything [into] that,” Jim told The Orange County Register. LeBron and other A-listers like Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade were set to hit free agency. Kobe’s contract would also be expiring, and he’d previously hinted to reporters that he was considering retirement, which would free up even more cap space.
The summer of 2013 derailed those plans. Kobe wasn’t going to let his final on-court image be one of him limping to the locker room, and took retirement off the table. Instead, he wanted a contract extension, and he told reporters he had no interest in taking a pay cut, either.
From a basketball standpoint, there was no way to justify giving Kobe another mega-deal. He was turning thirty-five in August—ancient in basketball years—and trying to come back from a devastating injury. But to Jeanie, on-court performance wasn’t the only factor worth considering. “We never got an opportunity to do the farewell tour for Magic Johnson,” she would later say in a television interview. “To have Kobe retire as a Laker, that to me is really important.” Kobe also remained a box office draw, and, unlike many of the NBA’s new owners—wealthy executives backed by multibillion-dollar corporations—the Buss family had no secondary source of income. Their business was the Lakers, meaning basketball decisions were often made for business reasons. “My God, we don’t have Carnival Cruises behind us or Kohl’s Department Stores…and Microsoft up in good, old Portland,” Jim Buss once told a reporter. “This is it. If we lose money, we lose money.”
