Stephon Marbury Uses Players' Association to represent him as Free Agent

Rick has written extensively about the benefits of players' associations retaining the capacity to negotiate contracts on behalf of individual players--meaning that players use the players' association, instead of an agent or agency, to negotiate employment contracts with teams.Boston Celtics' free agent guard Stephon Marbury has decided to use National Basketball Players Association' deputy counsel Hal Biagas to represent him this off-season. Last season, Biagas negotiated Marbury's buyout with the Knicks (a subject discussed earlier this year at the Yale Law School Sports Litigation Panel which Biagas, Alan Milstein, and I were on).Here is Marbury's reasoning, as told to Marc Spears of the Boston Globe:“The best thing about the NBPA is that they work for you for free,’’ said Marbury via e-mail. “When you have a team that negotiates the Collective Bargaining Agreement for all the players representing you, there is strength in numbers.’’Although Marbury is a...