Super Agent Leigh Steinberg

Center Andrew Bynum played in the All-Star game this year and forward Pau Gasol has in the past. They are tall, strong and athletic, but not consistent. Bynum takes games and plays off. He should be unstoppable offensively and defensively, but his attitude is not conducive to team play. He draws multiple technical fouls and is difficult to coach. When he decides to play well, the Lakers are successful, but he can simply disappear in games. That’s a difficult thing to do at his height.

Gasol has a better attitude but is equally streaky. He is getting older and it shows. Both players are perfect examples to younger athletes of why talent can be outplayed by desire and heart.

The Lakers, who trail the Thunder, 3-1, following Saturday night’s 103-100 collapse, have not been able to find a point guard to run the offense since the heyday of Derek Fisher. Point guards can completely alter a team, as Derrick Rose does in Chicago and Chris Paul has done for the Clippers. Ramon Sessions simply can’t keep up with the younger OKC players.

And then there’s Kobe.

He has had one of the greatest careers in the history of the NBA. His shooting has won countless games in the clutch. In this series, he has not been able to score at dramatic junctures as he has in the past.. He is still brilliant, but is also aging. Oklahoma City, with Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant, has been fast and accurate. It is sad to watch the Lakers struggle with a younger, more athletic team, but OKC could well win the championship.

This has been the most exciting season for the Clippers since they arrived in Southern California. The trade for Paul brought a spectacular floor leader at point guard, who has a remarkable soft shooting touch and a hyper competitive mentality. Blake Griffinmakes crowd-pleasing dunks from every angle. But Griffin is nursing a sprained knee and has not been as effective, and Paul has not been his consistent brilliant self against a seasoned San Antonio Spursteam that has won multiple championships.

The Spurs, who hold a 3-0 edge against a Clippers going into Sunday’s elimination game, may be the best coached team in the playoffs. Tim Duncan has been rejuvenated and the Clippers need DeAndre Jordan to neutralize him. The Clippers lost veteran Chauncey Billups early in the season, who would have been critical to their success in this series. The playoff inexperience of this team is no match for the well-oiled Spur machine.

It looks like our hoop dreams for the two local NBA franchises are turning into hoop nightmares. Maybe next year.

LEIGH STEINBERG is a renowned sports agent, author, advocate, speaker and humanitarian. His column appears weekly. Follow Leigh on Twitter @steinbergsports or blog.steinbergsports.com.

by: Leigh Steinberg via The Huffington Post

The human race has shown a remarkable capacity throughout history to ignore physical reality and embrace demonstrably false facts. When Galileo was bold enough to assert that the sun rather than the earth was the center of the universe he was put under house arrest for the remainder of his life by religious authorities. Those unfortunate souls who claimed that the earth was round and not flat risked being put to death. Once again our species is in denial about the reality of climate change.

As polar ice caps melt, oceans are rising around the world wreaking havoc with worldwide weather patterns and threatening to overrun low lying areas. Mountain ice packs are melting and water supply is threatened, we will soon see water wars. Tornadoes, hurricanes and other dramatic storms are increasing. The ozone layer is dissolving with unprecedented greenhouse gases. The earth is one eco-system, pollution from China travels to Southern California. This is science — the only debate is how quickly the changes will impact human and animal life. The earth is not in danger, our species is. We don’t want to be the first parents in U.S. history to hand a degraded quality of life down to our children and grandchildren. The debt crisis is already threat enough.

Sports can lead the way in changing attitudes. I am resurrecting the Sporting Green Alliance to take sustainable technologies in water, solar, resurfacing and recycling and integrate them into professional, collegiate and high school stadia, arenas and practice facilities. Add in golf courses and that is a substantial amount of real estate. The purpose is to drop energy costs and carbon emissions and turn these venues into actual energy providers for the grid. These facilities can function as educational platforms enabling the hundreds of millions of fans who attend events to see a waterless urinal or a solar panel and think about how they can incorporate these energy saving practices into their own homes and businesses. If there is demand for these technologies, American industry will respond and start to make products the world wants to buy. This would force China to compete and modify there current toxic practices.

Sports can be a rich source of content supply to stimulate attitudinal change in the public.

Saturday morning cartoon shows with Superhero athletes fighting for the environment or comic books promoting these themes could start the educational process early. Owners could establish local forests and nature preserves. Green technologies can become the subject of naming rights and signage. Warren Moon and I were employed as spokesmen in sports-themed public service advertisements for the Sierra Club. I gave the keynote speech at the United Nations Convention on Sports and the Environment several years ago in Lausanne, Switzerland. Some of my clients participated in Laurie David’s virtual Million Person Environmental March on Washington.

Certain threats to our children seem so colossal and overwhelming that they create a sense of powerlessness and apathy in parents, My father used to say that “there is no ‘they’ when it comes to solving problems and taking action — the ‘they’ is you son, and me!”. The Sporting Green Alliance can be a helpful first step.

by: Leigh Steinberg via The Huffington Post

On Thursday night, the NFL and a massive television audience will be focused on the NFL Draft.

What was a private experience 30 years ago has become a four-day, sponsored and promoted Ramadan of the annual player selection. What you won’t see is the excruciating tension that the college players and their friends and families are experiencing in homes across the country. I have been fortunate to have represented over 60 first round draft picks — eight of whom were the very first pick in the first round. I have also spent almost 40 years sharing this penultimate moment of pressure followed by joy at player’s homes and in New York. In New York, team representatives sit at tables with team helmets. The teams have their brain trusts in their home cities so these are employees. National press gathers. The commissioner comes out and announces each choice.

It takes a village to create a potential professional football player. They represent the hopes and dreams of Pop Warner, high school and college coaches and family, friends and community that have been involved in a player’s evolution. This provides a large rooting section that descends on an athletes’ home to share the unique night. Those players judged to be high first round picks are invited to New York with family members. They take a boat trip around Manhattan, are treated to Broadway shows and parties and take part in the extraordinary pre-draft television and sponsor promotions.

The players in New York are forced to sit at tables in a room just offstage where cameras broadcast every emotion and detail. I spent weeks prior to the draft interacting with teams at the top of the draft attempting to discern which franchise was most likely to take a player. I would sit with the draft order and show a player the most likely scenarios. Each team in the first round has 10 minutes to make its’ selection (that drops to five minutes in later rounds). Virtually every team takes the whole time to announce its’ pick. They have spent weeks running mock drafts and have calculated every possible outcome for their selection. What are they doing as time ticks away? They are fielding trade offers from teams that want to move up or down in order to choose a special player they fear will be gone when their slot comes or aggregating lower draft picks from teams wanting to move up.

For players like Troy Aikman or Jeff George or Andrew Luck, the New York experience is a cakewalk. They have either signed a contract making them the first selection or the team has publicly announced they will be picked. RG3 knows that Washington will use the second pick in the first round to select him. For the remainder of the picks the time is torture. Draft time is not real time, it is Chinese Water Torture time. Each second feels like a minute, each minute like an hour — the wait is agonizing. If a player is not selected in the spot he anticipates, depression and uncertainty set in. Watching the other players being picked and go onstage to hold up a team jersey and be photographed with the commissioner is a bittersweet moment.

A plummeting draft pick may sit in that room for four or five hours. Former Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn expected to be picked at the top of the draft and kept being passed over. He removed his coat at one point, then his tie, then opened up his shirt — it was like watching a game of strip poker.

When I sat with Ben Roethlisberger in 2004 I had carefully prepared him to expect the Chargers to trade their pick to the New York Giants. I told him that the Giants would take QB Eli Manning, the Chargers QB Philip Rivers. The first two teams in draft order that I thought were likely to take Ben were Buffalo (which had the 13th pick) and Pittsburgh (which had the 11th pick). But the Giants had told Ben’s coach that if the Chargers took Eli Manning, they would take Ben as the fourth pick. The Chargers picked Manning which meant that scenario could come to fruition, but I still thought the trade would happen. The minutes passed oh so slowly which ratcheted tension to an excruciating level. No trade was announced until all but seven seconds remained on the clock, and then as they were about to lose the pick — the commissioner announced that the Giants had swapped picks with the Chargers, taken Manning and the Chargers had taken Rivers. A deflated darkness settled over our table and the drip, drip, drip of other selections took two hours. Finally Pittsburgh took Ben and the table erupted in exultation. All was forgotten, and Pittsburgh and Ben turned out to be a match made in heaven. But those two hours saw the sprouting of gray hairs, young men turning old and drip, drip, drip.

Notwithstanding how late a player is picked, that moment is the culmination of years of practice, sacrifice and yearning and pure joy ensues. Tears flow, emotional bear hugs break out, prayers of thanks are given, and all’s right in the world. It has always been my favorite day of the year.

Tornadoes, hurricanes and other dramatic storms are increasing. The ozone layer is dissolving with unprecedented greenhouse gases.

The earth is one eco-system, pollution from China travels to Southern California. This is science, the only debate is how quickly the changes will impact human and animal life. The earth is not in danger, our species is. We don’t want to be the first parents in U.S. history to hand a degraded quality of life down to our children and grandchildren. The debt crisis is already threat enough.

Sports can lead the way in changing attitudes. I am resurrecting the Sporting Green Alliance to take sustainable technologies in water, solar, resurfacing and recycling and integrate them into professional, collegiate and high school stadiums, arenas and practice facilities. Add in golf courses and that is a substantial amount of real estate. The purpose is to drop energy costs and carbon emissions and turn these venues into actual energy providers for the grid.

These facilities can function as educational platforms enabling the hundreds of millions of fans who attend events to see a waterless urinal or a solar panel and think about how they can incorporate these energy saving practices into their own homes and businesses.

If there is demand for these technologies, American industry will respond and start to make products the world wants to buy. This would force China to compete and modify its current toxic practices.

Notwithstanding what metaphor you are able to mangle, a better day is coming for Los Angeles Dodgers fans. The sad, twisted reign of Frank McCourt holding the Dodgers hostage is coming to an end.

New “magical” ownership has made a deal to purchase the team. McCourt never had enough real wealth or financing to buy the team in the first place. He heavily leveraged everything he owned to barely meet the purchase price.

There were no resources left to pay competitively for players or enhance the roster. He used the team like a piggy bank to pay for a lavish lifestyle. This resulted in one of the premiere franchises in all professional sports becoming dysfunctional on and off the field. And Dodger fans suffered for it.

Fans were so angry at McCourt that they stayed away from Dodger Stadium in droves last year, in-park attendance was at an all time low. The beating and near-death of a Giant fan in the parking lot destroyed the illusion of the ballpark as a family friendly environment. Flooding the parking lots with dozens of mounted police was not a comforting image for a night of fun.

There were multiple bidders to purchase the Dodgers. Owning a venerated franchise in the nation’s second largest media market, with 15 million people within 90 minutes of the stadium, is a license to mint money. The gross revenues of baseball have quintupled since the disastrous 1994 strike season.

Major League Baseball is rolling in revenue from fantasy leagues, marketing, signage and media. The next television contract with Fox will be so impressive that it will send all franchise values soaring.

What was critical in the process was to have a new ownership group with enough understanding of the Southern California market to rebuild the popularity of the team.

When the Dodgers came to Southern California in 1958, the O’Malleys marketed the region like it was a small Midwestern town. Their community outreach meant that Kiwanis night was followed by straight A student night and Little League night.

Their promotions with bobble-head and pennant and art giveaways enticed people to come. The commanding radio presence with the remarkable Vin Scully’s dulcet tones carrying from one transistor radio to another pulled the community together. And in their second year here they won the World Series with stars like Sandy Koufax, Maury Wills and Don Drysdale. And they kept winning, with multiple rookies of the year, a set lineup that played together for years only to be replaced by another homegrown generation.

The purchase of the team by Fox initiated the decline followed by the dispiriting and unsettling reign of the McCourts.

Enter the Guggenheim group with an unending cornucopia of resources. It is reported that they paid over $2.15 million to purchase the team. This represents an overpayment or premium of hundreds of millions of dollars. The reward for wholesale destruction of the Dodger franchise by Frank McCourt is that he may pocket hundreds of millions of dollars and potentially over a billion.

We don’t yet know how much of the parking lots that were built into a separate company has been retained by McCourt. That extra 500 million dollars could have been used to retain current stars and rebuild the roster in free agency. It could be used to keep Dodger Stadium competitive with the new generation of fan-friendly profit centers built into new stadia across the league. Hopefully Guggenheim has some funds left over to repair the damage done to the franchise over these past years.

Forbes Magazine has estimated the value of the Dodgers at $1.4 billion, with the Yankees at 1.8.

The most encouraging aspect of the ownership group is the involvement of former-Laker Magic Johnson. He is a unifying force in SoCal, who has built a financial empire which has helped reenergize the inner city. He is admired for his open battle with H.I.V. And oh that smile. He will know how to rebuild the bonds between the team and the area. Stan Kasten is an experienced and successful executive who helped turn the Atlanta Brave into perennial contenders.

My father brought my brothers and I up to love both the Angels and the Dodgers. It baffles me that fans choose one or the other. They both represent our region and can bring fun and joy. So with the amazing free agent signings that Arte Moreno made to revitalize the Angels and the new Dodger ownership, Happy Days are Here Again for local baseball fans.

LEIGH STEINBERG is a renowned sports agent, author, advocate, speaker and humanitarian. His column appears weekly. Follow Leigh on Twitter @steinbergsports or blog.steinbergsports.com.

Bounty-gate. The NFL discovered that assistant Greg Williams, who recently departed defensive coordinator duties at the New Orleans Saints to head to St. Louis, had instituted a program that financially rewarded any player who “knocked an offensive player out of the game.”

While NFL players frequently reward each other for hard hits, this was an actual coach and organization inciting its players for injuring an opponent.

Yes, the NFL is a contact game, and no we’re not advocating putting quarterbacks in a rocking chair or a dress, but the game is dangerous enough without paying players to injure others. This type of team sanction to the most excessive of behavior, a license to maim, sets a horrific model that would trickle down to collegiate and high school football.

Players are in denial anyway and will play until they break down every joint in the body long-term. The recent ESPNOutside the Lines interview with former Chicago Bear Super Bowl quarterback Jim McMahon, who has lost his short-term memory and is confused everyday, illustrates the danger.

Commissioner Roger Goodell needed to send a strong message, and to his credit he did. He fined the team $500,000, indefinitely suspended Williams, suspended head coach Sean Payton for a season, general manager Mickey Loomis for half a season, and took second-round draft picks away for the next two years. Also, Saints assistant head coach Joe Vitt was suspended without pay for the first six regular-season games of the 2012 season.

The Saints Pro Bowl quarterback Drew Brees, who the team could not come to terms with for a new contract and used its one franchise tag to lock him into unsatisfying one-year deal, has to be destabilized regarding his future.

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Tebow traded to the New York Jets. Local product quarterback Mark Sanchez must feel he is living a nightmare. He was hoping to rebound from a disappointing 2011 season and just signed a contract extension. And he wakes up to read that the most popular player in the NFL, who is beloved by millions for his faith and “everyman” status, is now his backup.

While the Jets justify the trade by discussing a “wildcat role” for Tebow on third downs, Sanchez knows what he is facing.

Some years ago a player with a similar national following, Doug Flutie, returned from Canada to the NFL. I represented three players — Jim Harbaugh, Tony Eason and Rob Johnson — that he backed up. Much of the public didn’t care what his actual level of talent was, they loved him. And each time the starting quarterback threw an interception or multiple incompletions, the chanting and controversy began.

“We want Flutie! We want Flutie!” echoed in the stands.

Teams need to have unity and confidence in their leader, and a quarterback needs the security of knowing that his franchise is behind him through thick and thin. The Denver public virtually lobbied Tebow into a starting job. And while last season was exciting and miraculous for him, I’m still not convinced he is a franchise starting quarterback.

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Peyton Manning to Denver. The Broncos decided to abandon the Tebow experiment and sign a legend at quarterback. There is no question that Manning is capable of taking a franchise to the Super Bowl. As I wrote in this space several weeks ago, Manning has had multiple neck surgeries and had to sit out last season. This is the neck that is in question, paralysis can follow with the wrong hit.

Does it really make sense to continue playing after 14 Hall of Fame-type seasons, having played in the Super Bowl, with lifetime financial security and multiple second career options as a father of young kids?

He hasn’t asked for my advice, but it illustrates why athletes find it so hard to walk away from a game and lifestyle that they love.

*

On a personal note, I celebrated my second Sober Birthday on Wednesday and my chronological birthday is this Tuesday. I remember the 1960s in Berkeley when we chanted “Don’t Trust Anyone Over 30” and now I have more than doubled that marker.

My daughter, Katie, finds it remarkable that I can walk and chew gum at the same time. But as we are the Baby Boomer generation with the largest population bulge in America, we can redefine age.

The best is yet to come.

LEIGH STEINBERG is a renowned sports agent, author, advocate, speaker and humanitarian. His column appears weekly. Follow Leigh on Twitter @steinbergsports or blog.steinbergsports.com.

Leigh Steinberg joins “Primetime Sports” to talk Tebowmania going to New York. Leigh talks client management problems, quarterbacks, Tebow and more.

Listen to the interview HERE.

By Daniel Brown via MercuryNews.com

Peyton Manning, the superstar quarterback who might sign with the 49ers this week, is represented by agent Tom Condon of CAA.

Alex Smith, a free agent whose starting role Manning would wrest away, also is represented by Condon.

In the words of former super agent Leigh Steinberg, this “represents a client-maintenance problem.”

The situation is so fraught with peril that Smith is considering a change in representation, according to a report. SFgate.com, citing a league source, reported Saturday that Smith is considering breaking away from Condon, who has been the quarterback’s agent since he was the No. 1 pick in the 2005 draft.

Steinberg, reached by phone Friday, said he knows just how tricky it can be to juggle high-profile clients. Once upon a time, his agency represented top NFL passers such as Troy Aikman, Warren Moon and Ben Roethlisberger.

Steinberg also was associated with the most awkward quarterback dynamic in football history: He was Steve Young’s agent during the Joe Montana era.

“Gut-wrenching for both of them,” the agent says.

Like other industry experts contacted for this story, Steinberg is watching closely to see how Condon navigates the tricky diplomatic terrain of having two quarterbacks vying for the reins of a Super Bowl contender.

Manning, who turns 36 this week, reportedly has whittled the finalists for his services to three teams: the 49ers, the Denver Broncos and the Tennessee Titans. The four-time MVP is expected to make a decision by Tuesday, according to multiple reports.

How Condon steers these talks are more than just a matter of professional etiquette. There are regulations for this kind of thing.

Eric Metz, president of LMM&P Management, said that “from a legal standpoint, full disclosure must be made in writing to both clients, and they decide what to do from there.”

Metz’s agency, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., touts itself as “the longest-running partnership in the NFL representation business.” Responding to a question about the Smith and Manning dynamics, Metz wrote in an email that agents are prohibited from exploiting the process.

“Tremendous conflict exists ‘if’ client ‘A’ was not made aware of what was taking place with client ‘P,’ ” he wrote. “It would be an actionable offense if client ‘A’ truly wanted to sign the last offer from San Francisco and was held off by representatives while talks were taking place with client ‘P.’ “

The 49ers had an offer on the table for Smith, reportedly a three-year, $24 million deal, and his return appeared to be a foregone conclusion after coach Jim Harbaugh endorsed the free agent as his “guy” during the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in February.

Now, with a future Hall of Famer on the 49ers’ radar, things are cloudy.

Steinberg has been through such delicate situations himself. Before his career was derailed by personal and financial trouble, he estimates that he represented more than 100 quarterbacks over the years — including a young passer out of Michigan named Jim Harbaugh. The agent is credited as the inspiration for the movie “Jerry Maguire.”

Asked about Condon’s situation, Steinberg said the party at most risk for an awkward situation isn’t Condon — it’s the 49ers, who might end up having Smith back with his confidence “undercut” after the team’s public courtship of Manning.

“This situation is inherently hurtful,” he said.

Steinberg said Harbaugh’s confidence in Smith is what saved the struggling quarterback in the first place. Backed by unwavering public support — a career first — Smith “played his heart out” all season, Steinberg said.

Now, the 49ers might have to build his confidence all over again.

Steinberg said there is a misconception that an agent can play puppeteer, pushing one quarterback here and another there to best suit the agency. He said teams and players work in their own interests, especially in the case of Harbaugh and Manning, two strong-minded men.

Angelo Wright, the founder of SportsWest Sports, agreed. He said, “Condon might have to B.S. somebody. But you’re not going to B.S. Peyton Manning.”

Kenneth Vierra, a Bay Area-based lawyer and agent who has represented NFL players since 1991, compared the situation to a real-estate agent working for both the buyer and the seller — perfectly legal but logically challenging.

It’s not just a matter of avoiding conflict, he said, there is also the matter of avoiding the appearance of conflict, especially when an agent has the ability to control the conversation and, ultimately, the outcome.

“Tom Condon is an effective and powerful agent, to be sure. I’m not suggesting for a second that he would do anything unethical,” Vierra said. “I’m just saying that it’s difficult.

“How does he deal with it? Delicately, and hopefully by providing Peyton and Alex all the information they need to make intelligent choices. But in the final analysis, the clients have to decide whether they’re confident in their representation.”

The repetitive news cycle which has developed lately has a major impact on shaping public opinion. Once a piece of film or information has run endlessly on CNN, ESPN, on the Internet web sites, talk radio and multiple outlets it creates a sometimes distorted impression which may be indelible.