N.B.A. Agent Wins Rare Tampering Case

By standard measures, Quincy Douby’s N.B.A. career has been fleeting and forgettable. He entered the league in 2006, played sparingly for three seasons and never averaged more than 5 points before playing last season in Turkey.

Yet this blip of a career has cost a prominent player agent tens of thousands of dollars and dented his reputation. It could potentially get him disciplined by the National Basketball Players Association, which certifies and regulates agents.

In a ruling issued this summer, an arbitrator found that the agent Andy Miller had illegally interfered with Douby’s relationship with another agent, Keith Glass. Miller was ordered to pay $40,000 in damages.

The sum is modest, but the judgment is noteworthy, marking one of the few times that an N.B.A. agent has been punished for, in essence, stealing a client. Agents complain about the practice all the time. But lawsuits are rare, and sanctions even more so, because cases are difficult to prove.

When Glass won his case, it was the equivalent of hitting a game-winning shot at the buzzer, from the opposite baseline.

“This certainly has the potential to be a significant case,” said Gabriel Feldman, a law professor at Tulane and director of the school’s sports law program. “It’s rare for an agent to successfully sue another agent for client-poaching, or tampering, or tortious interference, or whatever you want to call it.”