Documents allege Adidas paid ex-Duke star Zion Williamson’s family while he was a recruit

Though the NCAA cleared Zion Williamson in 2018 to play his lone basketball season at Duke and the school in 2019 found the claims he’d violated his eligibility had no merit, evidence of payments between shoe companies and his family continue to surface.

Court documents filed as part of a civil lawsuit between former college player Brian Bowen and Adidas detail a series of payments the company allegedly made to Williamson’s family in 2016 and 2017 prior to his Blue Devils’ career.

Bowen, a five-star player who was recruited by N.C. State and others, initially enrolled at Louisville in 2017 and later attended South Carolina. He lost his NCAA eligibility as a result of the FBI’s investigation into corruption in college basketball. In 2018, he sued Adidas claiming the company engaged in money laundering, bribery and fraud by denying him a college basketball career.

Earlier this year, Bowen’s attorneys filed a series of questions with the court for Adidas to answer. Known as interrogatories, these questions sought details of payments by Adidas to a host of recruits, including former N.C. State player Dennis Smith, Williamson and former Kansas players Billy Preston and Silvio De Sousa. Kansas, which is an Adidas-sponsored school, also recruited Williamson.

Alleged financial transfers to Zion’s family

On April 12, attorney William Taft, representing Adidas, wrote a letter to Bowen attorney Colin Ram with answers to some of the questions. The letter was entered into the records for the case, which is being litigated in the U.S. District Court for South Carolina in Columbia, S.C.

Bowen’s side asked for information “regarding adidas’s knowledge of fund transfers to Zion Williamson in which adidas employees or contractors may have been involved.”

Taft’s letter states Adidas “is aware of the following documents suggesting that certain fund transfers to Mr. Williamson or his family may have occurred.”

The letter details what it calls “potential transfers from (Adidas executive) Chris Rivers that may have been to Lee Anderson, Zion Williamson’s step-father.”

Starting with a $404 payment on Nov. 14, 2016, a list of nine payments are detailed with the last being an $800 payment on Sept. 12, 2017, according to the letter. The largest payment was $1,107 on Feb. 14, 2017, the letter states.

The nine payments total $5,474.

In an email to the N&O on Tuesday, Taft declined to provide further documentation beyond what was filed in court. Ram did not respond to an email sent by The News & Observer.

Thousands per month?

The alleged payments coincide with the time period when Anderson coached the Adidas-backed South Carolina Supreme basketball team, which featured Williamson, and played on the Adidas Gauntlet circuit. Such payments, if found to be related to team expenses, would not impact Williamson’s NCAA eligibility.

But the letter also made reference to other possible payments from Rivers to Anderson, stating

“Rivers may have transferred $3,000 per month to the Williamson family for an unspecified period of time” and “Rivers may have transferred $1,000 to the Williamson family.”

“Adidas does not know the specific purpose of these transfers,” Taft wrote.

The letter also references documents Adidas submitted to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, the group that spearheaded the college basketball corruption, that could have information of any further payments to Williamson and his family.

‘Zion Williamson was paid to attend Duke’

This is not the first time claims of payments to Williamson and his family have been made.

As part of Williamson’s litigation in a contract dispute with his former marketing agent Gina Ford, her attorneys have claimed his NCAA eligibility had been violated before he arrived at Duke in summer 2018 due to receiving improper benefits.

In 2019, celebrity attorney Michael Avenatti said Nike arranged payments to induce Williamson to attend Duke, which has an apparel sponsorship with the company.

“The documents and the hard evidence do not lie,” Avenatti told The News & Observer in September 2019. “Zion Williamson was paid to attend Duke.”

Avenatti was subsequently convicted of attempting to extort $25 million from Nike. Currently on house arrest, he faces up to 40 years in prison.

Avenatti did not respond to an email Tuesday from The News & Observer.

During Avenatti’s trial, text messages were entered into evidence showing three Nike executives discussing offering Williamson $35,000 on Feb. 12, 2017, the News & Observer previously reported. Payments to other recruits were also discussed but no evidence was presented that the payments were made.

Duke investigates Michael Avenatti’s claims

Duke conducted an investigation into Avenatti’s claims and said it found no evidence Williamson was ineligible for the 2018-19 school year when he played for the Blue Devils.

That’s in addition to the NCAA Clearinghouse’s deep dive into Williamson’s finances in 2018 prior to declaring him eligible to play college basketball.

“All recruits and their families are thoroughly vetted by Duke in collaboration with the NCAA through the Eligibility Center’s amateurism certification process,” Duke athletic director Kevin White said in an emailed statement in 2019.

Williamson was the ACC player of the year during his lone season at Duke, when he led the Blue Devils to a 32-6 record and the ACC championship. The New Orleans Pelicans selected him No. 1 overall in the 2019 NBA Draft.