Defense Attorney Tries To Put Blame On Nike And Under Armour For Paying Players Too

[FloHoops] - Yet it should also come as no surprise that Schachter and the other defense attorneys also maintain that the Adidas schools aren’t alone in this so-called basketball “underworld.”

Nike and Under Armour do the same thing, they maintain.

“And this is what Mr. Gassnola is thinking,” Schachter told the jury Thursday. “This is his intent. The Nike schools do the same thing for their schools. Nike does the same thing for their schools, and if Adidas doesn’t do the same, it’s going to lose its sponsorships to Nike.”

This is an interesting strategy and one I can’t really blame an attorney trying to make. The moment we heard about this scandal and that it was centered around Adidas people immediately said what about Nike and Under Armour?

In fact during the whole thing there was an allegation that Under Armour paid Silvio De Sousa to send him to Maryland as well. The allegation is that De Sousa’s guardian – who is also the guardian of Bruno Fernando – received $60,000 to send De Sousa to Maryland. The Terps are obviously the flagship school for Under Armour – with the founder being a Maryland grad.

I don’t think it’s necessarily crazy to think other companies are funneling players to schools as well. It’s an investment for the companies. I mean, Nike was legally paying Marvin Bagley’s father to have an AAU team, Bagley then ended up at Duke. That’s an investment and the way we should be looking at this.

We shouldn’t be looking at it as fraud or anything like that. Everyone is benefiting here. Schools are getting players they want. Companies are getting a head start at a client once they make the NBA and players/families are getting money. That’s the way I look at it at least.

I don’t know if we see anything more with Nike or Under Armour. It could come out later in trials or through findings. But, as of now it’s just attorney’s closing with that statement. This is where we just need to be more open about what’s really going on in the game and how it’s not some ‘dark underbelly.’