Klutch Sports Group CEO Rich Paul is now one of the most powerful agents in the world, but he revealed it certainly wasn’t because he received a lot of help from fellow Black agents.
“No black agents came to me and said, ‘Rich, let me help you, let me show you. Let me help you understand,'” Paul said on First Take. “What they did was they went into families and talked bad about me. ‘Oh he’s just a kid, he’s just LeBron’s friend… Once LeBron’s done, he’s done.'”
(starts at 1:11 mark):
"No Black agents came to me and said, 'Rich, let me help you, let me show you, let me help you understand.' What they did was they went into families and talked bad about me. … 'He's just LeBron's friend. … When LeBron is done, he's going to be done.'" – @RichPaul4 pic.twitter.com/lwx9Ae2l92
— First Take (@FirstTake) October 10, 2023
Paul also mentioned how he has little respect for most people in his industry, as he blasted them for their lack of integrity and professionalism. He was critical of the way many of them do business and stated that his new book, Lucky Me: A Memoir of Changing the Odds, will let the world know why he is the way he is.
Getting back to the Black agents, it is not all that surprising to me that he was treated that way. It is a cutthroat business and with Paul not even having graduated from college, many would have viewed him as someone who’s only going places because he’s good friends with LeBron James.
Rich Paul Took A Shot At His Former Boss Leon Rose
Paul didn’t immediately become LeBron’s agent upon stepping into the industry, of course. James was represented by Aaron Goodwin even before he entered the NBA and in 2005, he switched to Leon Rose. Rose would later join Creative Arts Agency in 2007 and Paul worked under him for quite some time.
Then in 2012, Paul and James both left CAA and Rose. Paul started his own agency, Klutch Sports Group, with LeBron being his big client. While you’d assume working under a top agent like Rose would have helped Paul, he claims he learned nothing under him.
“The one thing you have to understand when you start a business is you have to know what you don’t know,” Paul said. “I didn’t learn from the previous agency that I worked with.”
(starts at 0:37 mark):
Rich Paul to Stephen A Smith on First Take: "I didn't learn from the previous agency that I worked with"
Paul worked for Leon Rose at CAA before founding Klutch and taking Rose CAA client LeBron James with him pic.twitter.com/ijxTCXgD9k
— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) October 11, 2023
I should make it clear that there is no love lost between the two sides here, so we’ll never know what exactly happened during all those years that Paul was with CAA. Whether he really learned nothing or if he’s trying to make them look bad is something only they’d know.
Paul hired another agent, Mark Termini, after launching Klutch Sports to help him understand the business better. Termini played a big role in their success over the years and only ended his association with the group in 2020.
Rich Paul Revealed Why He Became An Agent
Whatever you may think of Paul, the fact is that he has managed to rise to the very top. It certainly was a great decision on his part, to pursue a career as an agent and he explained why he decided to become one.
“The reason why I wanted to become an agent was because I felt like there was an industry representing players that really didn’t care about the human of the player,” Paul said. “… They wasn’t necessarily grooming the individual for being a man out in the world.”
"The reason why I wanted to become an agent was because I felt like there was an industry representing players that really didn't care about the human of the player. … It's less about the show and be more about the substance." – @RichPaul4 👏 pic.twitter.com/5yQEQMwpEK
— First Take (@FirstTake) October 10, 2023
That is a wonderful reason, and there does seem to be truth to it. Draymond Green recently explained what made Paul so special, and one of them was that he taught Green about the multi-billion dollar business that is going on around them.
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