High schoolers, runners and agents

The following is fairly rare for northern California basketball (but yes, there certainly are exceptions). What happens more in these parts are kids jumping from one club team to another upon the receipt of a pair of shoes or some athletic wear.

Agents Creeping into College Hoops
Bob Zagoria
July 22, 2009

NEPTUNE, N.J. – A little while back, a Division 1 coach from an East Coast school received a telephone call that caused him to perk up just a little bit more than usual.

“I received a call asking if I was interested in a player and the call did not come from his high school coach or AAU coach, but rather from an agent,” the coach recalled.

The coach says he ultimately turned the player down, but the call reveals an inside glimpse into how college basketball really works.

More and more, elite high school prospects, or those who are especially tall, are “handled” not by high school or AAU coaches, but by NBA agents or “runners,” people who work for agents in return for something else.

If a high school or college student-athlete has a written or verbal agreement with an NBA agent, they automatically lose their eligibility. An agent can serve as a prospect’s “advisor,” but the advisors can’t speak on their behalf to other professional entities.

Yet how prevalent is this?

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