Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Tourney for ‘Sonny’s kids’

If helping kids is a crime, then Sonny Vaccaro admits he's guilty.

The basketball power broker who works for adidas wields a big shoe. Players from across America, as well as Canada and Brazil, are converging on Las Vegas this week for summer basketball's version of Lollapalooza -- "The Big Time" tournament, sponsored by adidas.

Beginning play today will be 182 teams. By the time Sunday night rolls around, an astounding 452 games will have been played. More than 300 college coaches and virtually every NBA team will have watched nearly 2,000 players perform.

For many of those players, this week represents their best chance of being seen. To Vaccaro, that's the idea.

"This is exposure for the kid who's not a superstar," Vaccaro said, defending the humongous size of The Big Time. "There's a player for every school at this tournament."

While the superstars will be on display in Las Vegas, they've already been scrutinized, both at Vaccaro's ABCD Camp in New Jersey and Nike's camp in Indianapolis.

"The top-10 kids have already been showcased. That's what ABCD and Nike are all about," he said. "If you're talking about meat markets, sure, it's a meat market.

"But this tournament's not about a meat market and I wish the media would back away from that kind of thinking. This is a bunch of kids traveling across America just to play basketball."

And they're here to chase a dream.

The players know who is in the stands and why the coaches are there. They know they are being watched. Vaccaro said that makes for better basketball.

"I think you're seeing more structure in the games," he said. "The AAU coaches are doing a better job of getting into the team concepts and the players understand that they have to play under control."

Vaccaro constantly finds himself at odds with those who seek to control him, such as the NCAA, or those who wish to see him out of the picture, such as Nike, his former employer.

Vaccaro believes the growth of The Big Time over the past two years is a major reason Nike pulled support from its tournament in Las Vegas and put its resources into a tournament in Orlando, Fla.

"I can't pretend I wasn't surprised," he said. "The fact they threw up their hands and said, 'I quit,' was very satisfying.

"I'm not bitter. That's just the way they operate. They say they're for the youth of America. That's bull. They only support winning situations. The LVI was a good tournament and they pulled out."

The LVI is back for a 24th year, beginning today at UNLV. But it is drastically scaled back from 200 teams to just 32. In Las Vegas, adidas' tourney rules the roost.

"The summer league guys feel they're participating in a national championship," Vaccaro said of The Big Time. "This is what it should be."

Because so many of the top players are here, the coaches naturally gravitate toward them. Vaccaro says he's providing a service to both sides, whether the NCAA likes it or not.

"The window to evaluate is so small, it forces abnormal things," he said. "The NCAA better do one of two things -- either shut down summer basketball altogether or lengthen the time to evaluate players through August.

"The way it is now with only three weeks, you're putting tremendous pressure on the coaches and you're putting pressure on the kids. This is their audition."

Vaccaro would like to help the kids even more than he does. He'd like to be able to give them shoes, clothing, money or whatever they need. But the NCAA prohibits such conduct, which is frustrating to both Vaccaro and the players.

"They should stop the hypocrisy," he said of the NCAA. "The schools get paid lots of money from the shoe companies. The coaches get lots of money. A coach can go make his own deal and change companies if he wants.

"But the kids get nothing. We're talking indentured slavery for 17- and 18-year-olds. Their freedom is limited and that's not right.

"The sad thing is we scrutinize the kids, but we don't scrutinize the adults who make the rules."

Still, Vaccaro forges on. He's not afraid to throw big money at youngsters untested at the pro level. He's willing to sign Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady to multimillion-dollar deals, just as he did in 1984 when he worked for Nike and Vaccaro had a hunch about a guy named Michael Jordan.

"There's nothing to hide," Vaccaro said of his motives and his actions. "I'm not afraid to say what I need to say.

"I've been in this for 35 years. If I did something to hurt a kid, do you think I'd still be able to do this?"

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