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O.J. Mayo (Official Thread)

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Baggage carries little weight

Allegations shouldn't hurt Mayo in draft

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O.J. Mayo has a sweet jump shot, nice height and size. NBA executives say he's a good kid, too. The Southern Cal star is also a better defender than many give him credit for. And when it's all said and done, that's what the NBA will care about, and not the recent allegations against him.
Despite charges that Mayo violated NCAA rules by accepting cash and gifts, four high-ranking NBA team executives said that won't hurt him in this year's draft.
"The situation that has received so much publicity recently, it's allegations and hasn't been totally proven," said Grizzlies general manager Chris Wallace. "Secondly, that is a collegiate issue. It's not one for us in his draft evaluation process to have great concern over."
Another NBA GM with a lottery pick said, "You judge a player on his body of work, his workout."
An NBA assistant GM said, "There might be one or two teams that won't want to be a part of the drama, if you will, and the constant questions of who is around. But from what I hear, he's not a bad kid."



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espn.com

NBA union investigating BDA's dealings with Mayo

ESPN.com news services

Updated: May 20, 2008, 10:12 AM ET

O.J. Mayo is already drawing NBA interest that has nothing to do with his draft lottery status.
The National Basketball Players Association is investigating Bill Duffy Associates Sports Management to see whether the organization gave money to the former USC guard to secure him as a client, Robert Gadson, the union's director of security and agent administration, told ESPN.
The Sports Business Journal first reported the investigation.

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ESPN - Report: USC to tell NCAA it banned Guillory from getting tickets - Men's College Basketball
ESPN.com said:
Report: USC to tell NCAA it banned Guillory from getting tickets

USC is planning on telling the NCAA it did not know of any improper activity between O.J. Mayo and an event promoter alleged to have given the basketball player $30,000 in cash and gifts, according to a Los Angeles Daily News report.

School officials said the NCAA might speak with the school this week, according to the report, and USC is preparing its initial defense, including telling the NCAA that it previously had banned the promoter, Rodney Guillory, from receiving tickets to Trojans games.

"Right now, we're just trying to weather the storm," a USC official said in the Daily News report.

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espn.com

Mayo leaves Duffy firm; top union lawyer recused from investigation

ESPN.com news services
Updated: May 22, 2008, 6:16 PM ET

O.J. Mayo will have a new agent after severing ties with Bill Duffy Associates in the wake of an "Outside The Lines" report that Mayo took money from a man who got it from BDA.
The split, first reported by CNBC.com, is immediate. Mayo, under National Basketball Players Association rules, can't hire a new agent for 15 days from the time he files paperwork splitting with BDA.
"Due to the overwhelming intensity of recent allegations regarding the recruitment of O.J. Mayo, we feel that our representation of him is a distraction for he and his family at this time," Calvin Andrews, Mayo's BDA agent, said in a statement released to CNBC.

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Here's an article that paints it a little more in the light of Mayo firing Andrews rather than a mutual separation of the ways:

Sources: Mayo dumps Duffy - NBA - Yahoo! Sports

LOS ANGELES ? O.J. Mayo has fired Bill Duffy and Associates and will select a new agent before leaving for the Orlando pre-draft camp next week, multiple sources told Yahoo! Sports.

Calvin Andrews, an agent for BDA, had been in Chicago trying frantically to hold onto his client. Since the agency was the center of an ESPN investigation into possible improprieties in the recruitment of the USC freshman star, a fierce tussle has played out behind the scenes for control of the 20-year-old prodigy?s future.
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It seems to me that if you're under investigation, it may not be the wisest move to take the guys who have the most dirt to spill and take away their reason not to talk.

Then again, the one person least likely to suffer from all this is Mayo, so what does he care? Oh no, don't take away my college eligibility.
 
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espn.com

UP FRONT

Don't pretend to care if O.J. Mayo got paid. You'll just encourage the NCAA (and the media).

by Stephen A. Smith


mayo.jpg
Michael Hickey/WireImage






Have a question for Stephen A. Smith? ESPNthemag.com will be hosting a chat with the man himself next Wednesday, May 28. You can submit your question here at anytime and come back next week for the answer.
The year was 1993. One day, the location was a park in Harlem. The next, a playground in Brooklyn or Queens. The subject was always basketball players and how easy it was for shady characters to funnel dollars to them behind the proverbial back of the NCAA.
I was covering high school sports in New York back then. At a time when the only O.J. who mattered was Simpson, everybody knew an O.J. Mayo. There have been O.J. Mayos all over this country for decades. Some of them we became aware of ? Marcus Camby, Chris Webber, Keith Lee ? but the vast majority we did not.

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espn.com

Draft Watch: How "bad" is O.J. Mayo?

CHICAGO -- O.J. Mayo is drenched in sweat. His muscles are twitching. His trainer, Tim Grover, is yelling in his ear, "Don't let it beat you, O.J. Don't let it beat you."
Mayo is horizontal, in a push-up position, both hands on a yellow medicine ball. The ball is sitting on a Power Plate -- a vibration device that can shake the fillings out of your teeth.
He holds on. His facial muscles tense. The vibration continues. The burn sets in.

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jimotis4heisman;1172370; said:
its been said on here more than once...
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Sorry,

He wasn't a Buckeye, so I don't really follow his story. And my uneducated perception was : a kid with super-star talent, nationally known since the 7th grade, reportedly "on the take" ...I never thought he had the profile of someone to put an effort forth in the classroom...again, totally due to my own lack of effort to keep up with it all...

Just was stunned by that tidbit.
 
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OJ Mayo is a bundle of contradictions -- a media whore and HS hoops "gun for hire" who by all accounts has also been a serious student, both in the classroom and on the court. And also an exceptionally hard worker.

On balance, I'm not sure what I think of the kid.
 
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espn.com

Mayo says he is focused on basketball, not 'OTL' allegations

By Andy Katz
ESPN.com
(Archive)

Updated: May 29, 2008, 11:31 PM ET

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- The NBA made sure the media knew there was a possibility embattled USC freshman O.J. Mayo might not make his scheduled media session Thursday because of a missed flight.
But Mayo caught the next airplane from Chicago to Orlando. And, in the middle of a pre-NBA draft media scrum in a banquet room at the Grand Cypress Hyatt, Mayo answered questions, mostly about his draft position, but some about the allegations raised by ESPN's "Outside the Lines" that he was funneled cash, gifts and extra benefits by a runner named Rodney Guillory, working on behalf of agents Calvin Andrews and his boss Bill Duffy of Bill Duffy Associates.

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