Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is officially done with the traditional agent structure, shedding his agent and intending to represent himself.
This news was first reported by Chris "Man Cave" Haynes on hell.com:
One assumes he believes as the MVP frontrunner, league-leading scorer, and captain of a first-place team he can probably convince the Oklahoma City Thunder he’s worth all the money they’re able to give him.
I hope he’s right. He bought a cybertruck. That’s a dangerous move. It’s kind of like Pokemon cards. Once you buy one, you’re stuck doing it more and more for the rest of your life.
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Will Shai Gilgeous-Alexander be able to secure himself a supermax deal?
Admittedly this is basic, but but the calculation could be that firing your agent could be more complex in a different sport. However, the NBA is a salary-cap league. Shai not getting the supermax contract would be like a produce clerk not getting the maximum allowed raise as set forth by The Budget after lifting the company president and carrying her out of a burning grocery store while she was too distracted inspecting a pluot for dust to realize there was a flaming beam about to crush her from the ceiling. There wasn't any dust by the way. That was her dandruff.
Then again, the store burned down, so the produce clerk might just get fired. Tough world out there.
I’m sure you now better understand the risk Shai is taking in regards to his expected $300~ million supermax contract. That’s a lot of money. “Many money, say, me say many, many, many,” one might say.
The NBA allows an agent to take up to 4 percent of a player’s salary. That’d be near $12 million in this case. A cybertruck costs at least $80,000. So 150 cybertrucks. Someone has to buy them, I guess.
In addition to commission on player contracts, “agents often negotiate lucrative endorsement deals with top brands [...] where the commission can range from 10-20 percent of the total deal value.”
This aspect seems a bit murkier. One hopes Shai is also in good shape for handling negotiations for endorsements. He seems nice. I’m sure he’ll be fine.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s former agent, Thaddeus Foucher, also represented Russell Westbrook before splitting on what Foucher called “irreconcilable differences.” Westbrook later signed with Excel Sports. Shai seems intent on representing himself.
Shai had the biggest contract of any of his clients at $35,859,950 this year. That’s $1,434,398 in commission money.
Foucher is also the agent for De’Andre Hunter, Norman Powell, Lu Dort, and Yuki Kawamura, among others. Cam Reddish is in there too, but nobody wants to talk about that.
Among his clients, the largest yearly contract currently negotiated for is Evan Mobley’s $47,940,508 in 2028-29. $1,917,620.32 in agent money. Kawamura’s smallest at $578,577 for this current season. My calculator just froze. But if you turn it upside down it spel-