Will Wade responds to report claiming FBI has wiretap conversations discussing his ‘offer’ made to prospect
Published:
Will Wade and LSU appear to have some serious damage control on their hands moving forward.
If you missed the explosive report published by Yahoo! Sports on Thursday, the FBI allegedly has wiretap conversations between Wade and former agent Christian Dawkins in which the LSU coach repeatedly discusses an “offer” made to a prospect. At one point in the wiretap, Wade refers to “Smart” which leads to the assumption that he is talking about his current player Javonte Smart.
Interestingly enough, Wade was already scheduled to meet with the media immediately just before this story broke. Here is what Wade had to say when asked about the report:
“I haven’t read it. I haven’t read it. So I don’t have any comment on that,” Wade responded in a video shared on Twitter by Amie Just of NOLA.com.
The LSU coach was then asked if Yahoo! gave him any heads up that this story was going to be published. According to Wade, they did let him know just before it went up.
“I heard about 20 minutes ago,” the LSU coach stated.
Finally, Wade was asked if he planned to address this with his team. Again, Wade noted that he had not read the report.
“I don’t know what there is to address at this point,” Wade commented.
If you haven’t seen the transcript of the call between Wade and Dawkins, here is the most damning comments from the Yahoo! Sports report:
Wade: “I was thinking last night on this Smart thing. I’ll be honest with you, I’m [expletive] tired of dealing with the thing. Like I’m just [expletive] sick of dealing with the [expletive]. Like, this should not be that [expletive] complicated.”
Wade: “Dude. I went to him with a [expletive] strong-ass offer about a month ago. [Expletive] strong.
Wade: “The problem was, I know why he didn’t take it now, it was [expletive] tilted toward the family a little bit. It was tilted toward taking care of the mom, taking care of the kid. Like it was tilted towards that. Now I know for a fact he didn’t explain everything to the mom. I know now, he didn’t get enough of the piece of the pie in the deal.”
Dawkins: “Hmmmm.”
Wade: “It was a [expletive] hell of a [expletive] offer. Hell of an offer.”
Dawkins: “Okay.”
Wade: “Especially for a kid who is going to be a two- or three-year kid.”
According to the call logs, Wade and Dawkins exchanged one final call the same day Javonte Smart publicly committed to LSU.
A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Michael Wayne Bratton oversees the news coverage for Saturday Down South. Michael previously worked for FOX Sports and NFL.com
