A judge ruled that Zion Williamson must answer questions regarding a lawsuit filed by a sports marketing suing Williamson and his current management company. The lawsuit claims Williamson received improper benefits while at Duke. Gerry Broome/Associated Press
A state judge in Florida ruled Tuesday that New Orleans Pelicans rookie Zion Williamson must answer questions under oath about whether he received improper benefits during his lone season at Duke in 2018-19. Williamson’s attorneys are expected to appeal the ruling to a higher court.
The questions were submitted by attorneys representing Gina Ford and Prime Sports Marketing, who are suing Williamson and Creative Artists Agency, his current management company, for breach of a $100 million contract. Williamson earlier filed a federal lawsuit of his own against Ford and Prime Sports in North Carolina, asking a judge to void the contract he signed with them because Ford was not a registered agent in the state, a violation of North Carolina law.
Ford’s legal team claims, without presenting evidence, that Williamson and his family received improper benefits from people associated with Nike, Adidas and Duke before and during his college basketball career. Such benefits, they claim, would have rendered Williamson ineligible to play NCAA basketball and thus unprotected by North Carolina laws regarding amateur athletes and contracts. Ford also claims Williamson was a resident of South Carolina at the time, meaning North Carolina laws do not apply.
Williamson’s attorneys countered in legal filings that Ford’s claims are “nothing more than a fishing expedition aimed at tarnishing Williamson’s reputation” and are designed to “maximize potential embarrassment and media coverage in an attempt to improperly gain settlement leverage.”
The NCAA and Duke have conducted investigations into Williamson’s eligibility, both before he arrived at the school and after he departed. Neither found anything that would compromise his eligibility. But Doug Eaton, one of Ford’s attorneys, argued to Judge David Miller of the Florida 11th Circuit Court on Tuesday that Williamson’s eligibility must be decided in court.
“The NCAA is not the final arbiter of that issue,” Eaton said. “We’re able to establish that he was not eligible during that time frame, which would be a defense to their claim that our contract was invalid. The purpose of this statute is to protect student-athletes – actual student-athletes, eligible student-athletes – from predatory behavior of agents. It’s not designed to protect people that are already accepting improper benefits.
“If you’re accepting improper benefits, you are not an eligible student-athlete, and the NCAA can rule retroactively that you are ineligible. It has happened numerous times before. … This is not a set-in-stone determination that he’s an eligible student-athlete, and we have the opportunity to prove that he was not eligible in that time frame, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Miller agreed with the argument put forth by Ford’s attorneys. Williamson’s legal team is expected to appeal that decision to Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal, according to ESPN. According to sports legal analyst Daniel Wallach, his attorneys are expected to argue to the appeals court that the Florida trial should be paused until the resolution of the federal lawsuit in North Carolina, which was filed before the Florida case.
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