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Authored by Matthew Gordon - 16th August, 2010 - 1:55 pm
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Meet Spencer Hadelman, the youngest agent in pro basketball.
He sits comfortably in his home office, a converted bedroom of a downtown Chicago condominium. It is replete with papers detailing various tidbits about his clients, and is home to every last thing an agent needs ? none more so than his desktop computer and cell phone. His eyes constantly veer toward them, even as he answers my questions. An agent rarely ceases working and is always alert.
Aside from his necessarily on-call attitude toward work, he doesn't look the part of a typical sports agent. Twenty-three years old, dressed in basketball shorts and a Bulls T-shirt with Hebrew writing (could anything be a more blatant identifier of a proud Chicagoan Jewish man?), he looks like any other carefree young person.
His voyage started four years ago, when a family connection allowed him to intern for prominent basketball agent Leon Rose (LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, among others). Hadelman had just finished his freshman year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was looking to become an accountant. It was only through his chance to intern for Rose that he sought to become a sports agent at all.
?I was just 19. I didn't know the business,? he admits readily, ?[but] when you are given opportunities by people who are established in the business, you really have a chance to make an impact.?
The agency where he worked was in Philadelphia, a city he'd never visited before. On his second day of work, he was directed to drive to Newark Airport in order to pick up PJ Tucker. When he met Andre Buck, an agent who was then working for Rose, he was even a little intimidated.
?It was my first day and I was really nervous. I started three days after the other interns because I had to move from Chicago,? Hadelman reminisces. ?As the summer went on, [Buck] found that I knew a lot about the NBA.
?The next summer, I lived with him and his wife ? it was the most important summer. When you're learning a business that isn't 9-to-5, living with an agent is the most important thing. Draft conversations would go until 2AM. When a call comes in from Europe at 6AM, I didn't get that the first summer... The number one thing that shocked me was that in America, people don't think about overseas basketball ? people think of it as just hanging out with NBA players but it's not like that. You often work 18 to 20-hour days, because of the world clock.?
Hadelman is upfront about the lessons he's learned from Buck: ?I try to take what he did and apply it.?
Like his employer Buck, Rose is a figure Hadelman looks toward as an example.
?Leon's a great guy... There's an aura around him because of who he represents, but he's a normal guy. Very family-oriented, which I admire. Very no-nonsense, business-oriented.?
Tucker gave Hadelman a different type of experience ? interacting with the people who are idols to so many young sports fans. ?You're just really excited to meet professional players.... but they're normal people. We didn't really talk about basketball, just normal stuff that guys talk about.?
Hadelman's experience came quickly, and in turn, so did his reputation. It was Tucker who recommended that Buck pay attention to Hadelman. Michael Flowers, then a UW-M basketball star who would go on to his second Big Ten All-Defensive Team selection that season, became Hadelman's first big catch.
?I developed a relationship with Michael Flowers, who was a year ahead of me at UW-M,? Hadelman explains. In the largest show of faith Hadelman had experienced to that point, Flowers asked Hadelman to represent him despite Hadelman not even being 21. Hadelman happily accepted. He also ended up representing Flowers's brother Jonte, who is Division II's all-time steals leader with 391 (?who had four NBA workouts,? Hadelman is quick to mention), and Pittsburgh product Ronald Ramon that same year.
?In a business where there's no loyalty, [Ramon's] the most loyal guy I know,? Hadelman emphasizes.
Among Hadelman's clients, Flowers still holds a special standing. ?Mike Flowers, when you're a starting 2-guard on the #1 team, going up against Steph Curry... when someone that prominent trusts you at that age... no matter where my career takes me, if I end up representing 25 NBA players and Mike, Mike's a priority. He got me to where I am.?
Flowers aside, Hadelman's time at UW-M presented the unique challenge of balancing a four-year accounting degree with being an agent.
?By the time I was doing [agent work] full-time, I was only doing 12 credits a semester, all business. It's challenging with midterms. I couldn't go to Portsmouth with a player one year. Time management is the key to life. Juggling makes people efficient. I'd be studying for an accounting final and checking calls in the library. When you're an accounting major, it's about organization. It's the organizational skills from a business standpoint that sets you up for this business.?
Despite the prevalence of lawyers representing athletes, with Rose as no exception, Hadelman hasn't felt lacking without a law degree.
?A lot of the contracts we deal with are cookie-cutter contracts, especially overseas. It's not something you can't handle,? Hadelman elucidates.
?What you need is a people skill-set. You need to be able to relate to a lot of people and multi-function.? That he says this in the midst of checking an email is no surprise.
Not every aspect of being an agent is so rosy. Any industry as rife with politics as sports representation is bound to create its own set of difficulties.
?You can't avoid it,? Hadelman says plainly. ?At the end of the day, if you can look yourself in the mirror... do the right thing and establish yourself.
?You can't really trust anyone. Most people want to see the good in people, a lot will say what you want to hear and won't say the truth. It's impossible not to have a lack of trust. Everyone is looking out for themselves.?
As with prospective NBA players and prospective jobs for Americans, overseas is a place where Hadelman can find at least some measure of trust.
Through interning, university and learning the industry, the formative years of Hadelman's career have been about crafting an identity. In this respect, his crowning moment to date came at the NBA pre-draft camp two years ago when he was known as Spencer instead of a former intern for Rose.
The wall behind him holds a signed photo of Tucker with a cheeky inscription. Pictures of him with various basketball players dot the other walls of his office. His living room? A signed, framed UW-M Michael Flowers jersey is impossible to miss. Just like Spencer Hadelman works the phones at every hour of the day, every wall that doesn't have something basketball-related on it is blank. That's the life of an agent.
Matthew Gordon can be reached at matthewpmgordon@gmail.com
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