Kevin Durant Is In Safe Hands

The recent signing of Kevin Durant with Nike means two things. 1) Kevin Durant and Greg Oden are now teammates. 2) Durant’s agent (Aaron Goodwin) made good on his guarantee.

As an incentive to sign Durant, Goodwin made a guarantee that he would net Kevin Durant a shoe contract of at least 40 million dollars. If the contract value was anything less, Goodwin would not receive a commission. The commission on a 40 million dollar deal would earn Goodwin approximately 8 million dollars. It was a win-win for Durant to sign such an agreement with Goodwin. He either gets a 40 million dollar deal or he saves anywhere from 5-7 million.

In recent weeks, it was revealed that Adidas was offering Durant a deal worth over 40 mil, but Nike was not, and that Nike was unwilling to go beyond that figure. Goodwin and Durant’s mother were rumored to be talking Kevin into taking the larger contract, while many in the sports business world (most prominently, Brian Berger of Sports Business Radio) said that Kevin had his heart set on Nike since he was a young kid. As the days progressed, the news changed dramatically. Did Kevin have a change of heart? Was he going to sign with Adidas? No sir! Instead, Nike made an offer over 40 mil…way over 40. The final numbers came out to a 7 year deal worth 60 million, with a 10 million dollar signing bonus. It was still less than the offer made by Adidas, but Durant was sold on Nike, and Goodwin was sold on getting paid.

Overall this was an outstanding job by Goodwin. Not only did he go out on a limb and make a bold offer to Kevin, but he lived up to his word. He truly did a fine job as Kevin Durant’s agent, and I would like to be one of the first to congratulate him on a job well done.

-Paul Schackman

I would also like to add to the discussion (Darren Heitner here). I had a discussion with someone in the Aaron Goodwin camp yesterday, and we cleared up a little of the mess that has been floating around on the internet.

1. Aaron Goodwin has been negotiating a shoe deal for Durant for months. It made news recently and lasted on our minds for only a brief amount of time (as most news tends to do).
2. This turns out to be the 2nd largest endorsement deal ever. One that Goodwin was taking heat for before it was signed on paper.
3. Goodwin was in the middle of negotiations when he was attacked. That is the main reason that he could not initially respond to any criticism. It would not have been in the best interest of his client.
4. There was no point that Goodwin was in any threat of not making due on his promise to the Durant family. At the same time, Goodwin never promised to get Durant a $40 million+ shoe deal, he never had a deal to only get paid if the contract exceeded $40 million, and the only reason that the deal took so long to make was because Goodwin wanted his client to have the best deal possible from the company that Durant preferred to sign with.

I am hoping that we can get Aaron Goodwin on the blog for a little bit to explain more about the situation, but I think this new information will do for now.

-Darren Heitner