It's not a terribly huge surprise that the NBA will be welcoming it's next big thing, lock job first round pick Derrick Rose, who has already stated he will "test the waters" (read: figure out what agent is going to offer me the best deal) and now, according to Darren Rovell vis a vis sources within Memphis, Rose is going to name his agent today, making him "our" (NBA junkies) property. No, instead, Derrick Rose -- who took his Memphis Tigers all the way to the National Championship Game and could be the No. 1 overall pick -- is going to pick Arn Tellem of the Wasserman Media Group to represent him in the NBA Draft in June.All of this is important for two reasons. First, Rose is not going to be playing in college anymore (duuuuh). Second, as Rovell points out, if he is picked first overall, he will get a three year deal worth 15 million dollars. Since that's some fairly serious cheddar -- and so is the supposed 1.5 million/10% for the agent -- you have to wonder if that will be the full amount coming Tellem's way.Tellem, who is already representing the Lopez brothers from Stanford as well as Anthony Randolph from LSU, didn't return a call seeking comment.
This was a shock because Derrick Rose was so connected to William Wesley, who had steered clients towards Leon Rose, agent of LeBron James and Allen Iverson.
Obviously, Rose had his choice of agents to pick from, and Tellem, as noted, already has a few clients that could make him some money in June. Which means that there's a pretty decent chance that he offered up to take seven percent or something like, or guaranteed a bigger shoe deal from Reebok/Adidas perhaps. Or, maybe Leon made the same assumption -- that Derrick would sign with him because of the Wesley connection -- and refused to budge off of his initial offer, only to see it backfire on him. Pat Riley could not be reached for comment on which agent he preferred; apparently there was a big Lil' Ballers championship game at the greater Tampa area YMCA.
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Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 1)
1. It will be interesting see who Rose finally ends up with. I don't know why Rose is letting his brother handle all his business for him. Unless he has too much on his plate right now, he should take the lead in deciding his representation.
Posted at 2:37PM on Apr 14th 2008 by Ryne Nelson