Yahoo Sports: Pat McCaw named in NCAA corruption case
In a recent article from Yahoo Sports, Golden State Warriors guard Pat McCaw was implicated in an NCAA basketball corruption case.
But it shouldn’t really matter.
After being named in a NCAA basketball corruption case on Friday, current Golden State Warriors guard and former UNLV player Pat McCaw is in a unique position to denounce the NCAA and their practice of profiting off unpaid student-athletes.
According to Pat Forde and Pete Thamel of Yahoo Sports, a federal investigation into “the expenditures of prominent former NBA agent Andy Miller, his former associate Christian Dawkins and his agency, ASM Sports” revealed that a number of current and former college basketball players may have received certain material benefits that are currently deemed impermissible by the NCAA.
Among the documents tied to the investigation, Patrick McCaw is named as one of those former players, having had a family dinner with an ASM Sports representative at The Ritz Carlton on March 23, 2016.
The dinner apparently cost the ASM agent $178.01, and it is the only time McCaw’s name is ever mentioned.
Diving into the ridiculousness of NCAA rules
Considering McCaw played his last game with the Rebels on March 10, 2016, having a family dinner with a sports agent a couple weeks later seems rather harmless. Of course, he was still enrolled at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, so it was still technically in violation of NCAA rules.
McCaw then declared for the 2016 NBA Draft on April 4, and on June 23, he was selected by the Warriors with the 38th pick. He went on to become an unlikely contributor off the bench, eventually winning an NBA championship in his rookie season.
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It’s also important to note that McCaw eventually signed with former Denver Nuggets draftee, Bill Duffy, and his agency, BDA Sports. Duffy has managed guys like Steve Nash, as well as former Warriors players like Anthony Randolph, Al Thornton, Festus Ezeli and Andris Biedrins.
So should McCaw or UNLV face any backlash from this exposé?
Lonzo Ball sure doesn’t think so. He went on record with ESPN on Friday, saying, “Everybody knows everybody’s getting paid. Might as well make it legal.”
And frankly, I’d have to agree with him. The NCAA can’t keep track of everything, so there’s bound to be a couple back-alley deals that will never surface. Why not just make it legal?
Besides: Many of these guys risk severely injuring themselves by playing only a year in college, and for what? To line the pockets of those benefitting from fraudulent college institutions?
Every past, current and future college student knows the cost of going to college: You end buying overpriced textbooks that you’ll barely even use that year, only to graduate four or five years later with mounds of student debt and a lack of viable employment options.
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There’s absolutely no reason for the NCAA to place such strict restrictions on players they don’t even care enough about to pay, especially if all a particular player and his family want to do is have a nice dinner paid for in full.