NY Knicks: Interesting detail to consider in Nerlens Noel lawsuit

Current NY Knicks center Nerlens Noel is suing his former agent and the story might be deeper than what meets the eye.

As reported yesterday by a multitude of mainstream media outlets, Noel filed a lawsuit against Superagent Rich Paul and his firm, Klutch sports.

The lawsuit claims that Noel lost $58 million in potential salary while he was represented by Paul from 2017 to 2020.

This also comes on the tail-end of Klutch Sports recently filing a grievance with the NBPA, claiming Noel withheld $200,000 in commissions from his previous contract with the Knicks. This seems to be turning into a big game of cat and mouse.

NY Knicks’ center Nerlens Noel is suing his former agency

Brian Windhorst of ESPN dove deep into the specifics of the suit here:

"In the lawsuit, Noel said Paul advised him to pass on the $70 million offer and accept a one-year deal so he could be an unrestricted free agent the following year when Paul said he could get Noel a more lucrative contract. Noel eventually did turn down the deal and signed his one-year qualifying offer of $4.1 million.The following season, Noel broke his thumb and missed 42 games as his numbers dropped. He didn’t re-sign with Dallas and played the next two seasons for the Oklahoma City Thunder, making the league minimum, $3.7 million combined, as a backup. He then played last season for the Knicks, making $5 million. Noel remained with Paul for all four contracts.Noel claims in the lawsuit that Klutch didn’t make him a priority when he was a free agent, wasn’t responsive to teams looking to sign him as a free agent, and failed to execute a multiyear deal with the Thunder that he was told was in the works. Noel separated with Paul last season after signing with the Knicks."

Now, an interesting little wrinkle in this whole story is that Rich Paul was once employed by current Knicks’ President of Basketball Operations, Leon Rose while Rose was running CAA.

This separation was widely recognized as a bit of a back-stabbing move when it first happened considering Rose had mentored Paul from when he first entered the industry in 2006.

Even more so, Rich Paul had a number of players jump ship and sign on with Klutch, most notably LeBron James.

Paul left CAA in 2012 and LeBron’s new contract was coming in 2014, so the 5% commission CAA would have earned the agency approximately $2.1 million in commissions just from LeBron’s deal alone.

Not to mention the flock of other NBA players that left CAA in the wake of the separation.

What I find to be interesting in all of this mess is how Nerlens hired a new agent just weeks after signing with the Knicks.

I’m curious how much of this lawsuit has to do with the ongoing ‘beef’ between Leon Rose’s old agency, CAA, and Klutch Sports.

Perhaps Leon nudged Nerlens to look a little deeper into the happenings that have transpired in the last 4 years while employing Rich Paul and Klutch.

All I know is that we recently detailed how Nerlens Noel is being recognized as one of the most underrated players on the team today, and I couldn’t be happier to have him on board.

Just hope he gets what’s rightfully due to him when this is all said and done so he can focus solely on winning with our beloved Knickerbockers.