The stunning trade that sent Kyrie Irving to the Celtics and Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, and the Brooklyn 2018 first round pick to the Cavaliers became the complete and total focus of the NBA world on Tuesday night, but there were still things going on outside of that in the Association. Chiefly, in the middle of negotiating an $148 million dollar extension for his client Andrew Wiggins, Bill Duffy was fired by the 4th year NBA player according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
According to Woj, the Timberwolves were set to offer Wiggins the full maximum allowed by the Collective Bargaining Agreement, $148 million dollars. Duffy told ESPN that he believes that there may be some agent tampering going on with Wiggins, which, while the NBAPA doesn’t prohibit players from changing agents even in the middle of negotiations, it does allows the former agent to receive some compensation.
Duffy released a statement to ESPN expressing his disappointment about the way things ended with Wiggins and noted that he will look to do whatever he can to protect his rights and interests with regards to the deal.
“We are disappointed that Andrew made this decision, especially after a three-year partnership where we worked closely with Andrew and his entire family,” Duffy told ESPN. “Unfortunately, tampering is a common problem in our industry, and that’s part of the reason why I’ve already been in contact with the NBPA to discuss my rights in this matter. Obviously, whenever Andrew signs the max extension that we negotiated with Minnesota, we will work with the NBPA to make sure that our interests are protected.”
This will be interesting situation to keep an eye on going forward. The big question becomes how much longer does Wiggins have to wait to sign the deal that is on the table? There’s also the issue of when he does, how much does he owe to Bill Duffy? The behind the scenes business of the NBA is one that is typically kept in secret from the public, but sometimes the dirty game that is the agent business leaks out and we get a peek behind that curtain into the way things get done.
