Jermaine O’Neal is in the building! Quentin and Darius welcome the six-time NBA All-Star to the Knuckleheads podcast. J.O. talks with Q and D about his first real moment in the NBA, coming from the OG, Hakeem Olajuwon, being part of the best draft in NBA history, and the role Oreos played in his not re-signing with the Heat when LeBron was headed to South Beach!…. Tune in!
For the past 25 years, Hal has gathered a rich knowledge and expertise in getting the perfect deal for his clients. He is well known and respected in the industry as an honest and tough negotiator that has been successful in securing contracts that have exceeded his clients expectations.
After graduating from Boston University with a BA in History and receiving his JD from UCLA School of Law, Hal served as Assistant General Counsel of the National Basketball Players Association (“NBPA”) from 1997 to 2010. He was a key member of the team that negotiated and drafted the 1999 and 2005 NBA/NBPA Collective Bargaining Agreements (“CBA”). Hal’s primary responsibilities included: developing the NBPA’s labor strategy; participating in all matters with the NBA, including negotiations regarding the BRI revenue sharing system which required the review of all arena leases, naming rights and sponsorship agreements, and broadcast contracts; providing legal advice to players and agents on salary negotiations, the salary cap and collective bargaining issues; managing and actively participating in all litigation matters, including the representation of players during grievance hearings; serving on the boards that oversaw the jointly administered benefits with the NBA; and developing and presenting the annual seminar for NBPA certified agents.
From there, Hal spent years at Excel Sports Management followed by his time at Wasserman Media Group. Both tenures allowed Hal to successfully represent athletes, coaches and administrators in contract negotiations, marketing and sponsorship opportunities, and providing career guidance. Hal also served as General Counsel, overseeing the company’s legal affairs, assessing and resolving issues regarding the company’s clients and advising in areas such as corporate governance, labor relations, litigation, marketing, business development and corporate strategy.
Spanning over 25 years in professional athletics, Deddrick Faison started his career in professional sports as the Assistant Director of Sports Communications and Player Relations for the Portland Trailblazers. During his tenure with the Trailblazers, he helped create Portland’s first player developmental program which was instrumental in the evolution of off-court business and philanthropy opportunities. Additionally, during his tenure with the Portland Trailblazers, Deddrick honed his negotiating skills by securing various endorsement contracts with players, agents, and business managers.
Following his stint with the Portland Trailblazers, Deddrick created his own management company, Fazn Inc. Fazn Inc.’s first and most noteworthy client was six-time NBA All-Star Jermaine O’Neal. As O’Neal’s manager, Deddrick was instrumental in the negotiations of O’Neal’s seven-year $126 million contract with the Indiana Pacers and was the lead negotiator of his multi-year, multi-million-dollar contract with Nike.
Deddrick currently serves as the Chief Talent Director and one of the NBPA certified agents for the Seven 1 Sports and Entertainment Group.
Deddrick lives in Carmel Indiana with his wife Jennifer, and sons Deddrick Jr. and Jaylin.
Richard Gray is a licensed NBPA agent with over 8 years of industry experience with focuses in NBA player representation, retired player transitional services and philanthropy. A graduate of Park University in 2006 and Washburn University School of Law in 2012, Richard began his career as an agent in 2017 after serving as Chief of Staff to Isiah Thomas in his role as Team President for the New York Liberty of the WNBA for 3 Seasons. Prior to joining the Liberty, Richard worked in the front office of the Brooklyn Nets for 2 seasons.
With a background in finance and interest in psychology, Serik has invested in a broad portfolio, working with businesses in FinTech, Enterprise and Consumer Facing businesses, including some delivering positive social/environmental impacts such as Robinhood, Astranis, Calm and Rubicon Global. Serik founded Elefund in 2015 with the belief that businesses create value by masterfully solving complex problems with a simple toolkit. He began his investing career as a public equities investor applying value investing principles, a framework which later served as a cornerstone to Elefund’s investment approach.
Sujay is one of Silicon Valley’s leading business innovators. Prior to co-founding WndrCo, he was the Business Founder and CFO of Dropbox from 2010 to 2015. In this capacity, he created and led the global business and finance organizations, which included all customer-facing functions, finance, corporate and business development, and business operations. Sujay and his teams raised over $1 billion, launched and scaled Dropbox's products for businesses, created partnerships responsible for over 100mm users, executed ~20 acquisitions, and grew the global business team from two to ~500 employees in seven global offices. During this period, the company significantly scaled all business and financial metrics, including overall revenue from $12mm in 2010 to over $500mm run rate, Dropbox for Business revenue from $1mm to over $200mm run rate, and users from ~15mm to 300mm. The 409a valuation grew from $18 million to nearly $10 billion.
Previously, he was a principal at New Enterprise Associates, where he was closely involved in investments in Workday, Cloudfare and Playdom (acquired by Disney). Earlier, he worked at Cisco Systems and McKinsey & Company.
Sujay is a Lecturer at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, a Trustee of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, and a Trustee of Global Health Corps. He has a B.A. in Economics from Princeton University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School
The Managing Director and General Partner of IVP. IVP was founded by Reid Dennis in 1980. Forty years later, the firm continues to partner with exceptional entrepreneurs to create market leaders for the future and currently has over 8.7B in committed capital. Somesh focuses primarily on growth investments in Enterprise Software, Consumer and Mobile Internet, and Digital Health companies. Prior to joining IVP, Somesh worked for the Corporate Finance Division of Credit Suisse’s Technology Investment Banking Group, Luxmi Capital, and the Corporate Development Division of Sony Entertainment Television (SET) in Mumbai, India. Somesh was recognized by The New York Times and CB Insights in 2019 as one of the top 100 venture capitalists and by GrowthCap as one of the Top 40 Under 40 Growth Investors in 2019, which highlights exceptional private capital investors in the growth segment.
Somesh is currently a member of the Advisory Board of the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship at UC Berkeley, the Tech Advisory Group of UCSF and the Stanford Center for Philanthropy and Civil Society (PACS). He was formerly a member of the Haas Alumni Board and Haas Development Board at UC Berkeley. Somesh earned a BS in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business, at the University of California at Berkeley, and an MBA from Stanford University.
Sameer is responsible for the Android and Google Play product, engineering and experience teams. Sameer joined Google in 2008, founding and scaling a number of significant businesses for the company, including Google Shopping, Google Express, Trusted Stores, Merchant Center and Channel Intelligence. This is Sameer’s second tenure at Google; he left in 2015 to serve as President of Jawbone before returning to Google in 2016. He holds a BS, Computer Science from the University of California San Diego.
An engineer by training and entrepreneur by nature, Hari has a track record of founding successful businesses in technology and web security. He was previously founder and CEO of Endurance International Group, a publicly traded company he built from a start-up into a global hosting and email marketing company with an enterprise value of approximately $3.5 billion and more than 3,500 employees worldwide.
Hari is named on over 40 approved or pending technology patents, was named Ernst & Young’s 2012 Entrepreneur of the Year (New England), and was also named one of Forbes magazine’s most powerful CEOs 40 and Under in 2014 and 2015.
Hari holds an MBA from the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania. He also earned a BS in computer engineering from Mississippi State University and studied Electrical Engineering at Stanford.
