LeBron James’ Agent Rich Paul Says White Athletes Don’t Want Black Agents

Rich Paul is one of the more well known agents in the NBA. Paul founded Klutch Sports Group and represents a number of prominent NBA players, including Anthony Davis, Eric Bledsoe, John Wall, Ben Simmons, Draymond Green, Jusuf Nurkić, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, long-time friend LeBron James, Lonzo Ball, and most recently, Trae Young, OG Anunoby, and Tyrese Maxey.

As you can tell, most of his clientele aren’t white.

In an interview with the New Yorker, Rich Paul talks about being a Black man in a field of agents that is overwhelmingly white. After saying many Black athletes are reluctant to sign with a Black agent, Paul said it was much more the case with their white counterparts:

Rich Paul said, “It’s very difficult for me to represent a white player.” I expressed surprise that this was the case.

“It just is. Look around. There’s very few,” he said. “I represent a player from Bosnia. But, again, he’s international. He looks at it different.”

“So white players who are American don’t want a Black agent?” I asked him.

“They’ll never say that,” Paul answered, cracking a rare smile. “But they don’t. I think there’s always going to be that cloud over America.”

New Piece: In this week’s @NewYorker, I profiled Rich Paul, the agent of LeBron James and many other stars, and wrote about how the NBA is changing, and the politics of the league. https://t.co/uLsHLPtyCH

— Isaac Chotiner (@IChotiner) May 31, 2021

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The real question is, how many American white NBA players are there in the NBA?

We know at this point European players are really the most prominent white athletes.

Jusuf Nurkic appears to be the only white player in the NBA who is represented by Paul…

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