Who is here to help advance my career?
Key Learnings
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Take the decision to work with an agent very seriously because you are deciding to let someone act on your behalf.
Ensure your agent has certification from FIBA to work within International basketball as an agent.
Use different representatives (agent, financial advisor, and lawyer) for different parts of your personal and professional affairs.
Remember that the reputation you build at the early stages of your career will impact how marketable you are when you are playing at higher levels.
Build good relationships with your sponsors to increase the chances of renewing your contract.
A Player's mentor looks after the player’s best interests and personal development only.
A Players’ Mentor will help you develop your career and help you planning and identifying transitions.
Family plays a paramount role in the development of a player; however, they do not understand the specificities of the game, and, most of the time, they will not understand what is happening in your head.
Parents are primarily responsible for the overall evolution of the athlete as a person.

What can an agent do for me?

A sports agent represents an athlete and helps identify, pursue, and negotiate jobs and endorsement deals. As your career grows, you may experience greater demands on your time. More competitions, media appearances, speaking engagements and travel requirements can leave you with less time to develop and maintain your skills on-the-court.

 

An agent can help you manage your time, allowing you more time to focus on playing the game by:

  • Understanding your value in the basketball market and negotiate with team management to pay you what you are worth
  • Understanding your needs and goals to negotiate the length of your contract, salary and extra incentives that may be available to you
  • Identifying, pursuing, and securing additional sources of income through endorsements, appearances, speaking events, etc.

Use different representatives for different parts of your personal and professional affairs, such as looking for legal and/or financial counselling. Placing complete trust and authority in one person to handle all your matters may sound convenient. However, if something were to go wrong or the trust was breached between you and your agent, it would be better if that breach only affected one aspect of your career instead of all aspects of it.

Therefore, use a separate lawyer to plan your estate and a separate financial advisor to manage your money and investments.