When the ball stops bouncing the work and effort in the background still continues.
It appears that it all ended and now it's silent. No more college games. But behind the scenes the clock is ticking. We are preparing for Jaylen's professional career by interviewing agents. I must admit, we have "GOOD PROBLEMS," and we are blessed, but none the less it's still a stressful time.
My upfront opinion is that selecting an agent is like selecting a high school or college. It's best fit. It's the relationship that matters. RESEARCH is your most important ammunition. You need to look for someone that is going to be honest and upfront with the people involved and most importantly his/her client (Jaylen). Not tell you what you want to hear or sell you a DREAM. At times it will seem like they are all saying the same thing. After all it's 95% salesmenship. The rest will come by way of instict. A feel. More your GUT and again you can still get it wrong. It's their professional ability to navigate and negotiate on your young adults behalf while supporting the vision, path, and personal goal of the player. This person chosen is directly responsible for negotiating your career and all things outside of the players performance. While the relationship is developing, as a parent your primary goal is to ensure that the player him/herself is focusing on basketball. I've been doing that for the past 6 months at Jay's request. Fielding phone calls, taking meetings, sitting in presentations, responding to text messages, and remaining political when all of them show up at games and expect to communicate with you, etc..... The primary questions I asked to be answered were:
1. Do you have the skillset and experience to provide my son with the best options available for a pro career?
2. What's your strategy? (training, team workout strategy, accepting Portsmouth or not, breakdown of the next 90 days)
3. How many people do you personally represent and how many are you going after/targeting this year?
5. How many of them play my son's position?
6. How much will you be compensated to execute the strategy you agreed to execute?
All in all about 20 agents contacted me. We narrowed that down to half and conducted interviews over the course of this past weekend. Ultimately Jaylen is an adult and will make his own decision. It was my responsibility to provide as much good information and fact finding as I could a place the people at the table. Who will it be?
In the meantime you will get to see him one more time on the collegiate level in the Reese's Senior All-Star game at 4:30PM on Friday March 30 on CBSSports.