A former Arizona assistant basketball coach claims in a recording of a wiretapped phone call played in federal court Wednesday that Wildcats head coach Sean Miller was paying or at least promised to pay $10,000 a month for prospect Deandre Ayton, according to multiple reports.
The FBI-intercepted phone call from June 2017, between former associate head coach Emanuel "Book" Richardson and pay-for-play middleman Christian Dawkins, was among more than a half-dozen played in court Wednesday in New York as part of a trial dealing with bribery in college basketball recruiting, the result of a wide-ranging federal investigation into corruption in the sport.
Amid seven wiretaps played in the Lower Manhattan courtroom, there were multiple inferences to Miller himself personally paying Ayton, who played one season at Arizona before the 7-footer from the Bahamas became the No. 1 overall pick by the Suns in the 2018 NBA Draft.
On one call between Dawkins and Richardson, the two discussed Ayton and the possibility of Dawkins’ management company eventually signing him as a client. That’s when Miller's name came up, according to ESPN's report on the call regarding what Richardson believed was Miller’s agreement with Ayton:
While talking about Ayton, Richardson told Dawkins, "Sean's got to get the [expletive] out of the way and let us work."
"We'll see how Sean plays it out," Dawkins said.
"You know what he bought per month?" Richardson asked.
"What he do?" Dawkins asked.
"I told you — 10," Richardson replied.
"He's putting up some real money for them [expletive]," Dawkins responded. "He told me he's getting killed."
"But that's his fault," Richardson said.
Also on the same call, Dawkins told Richardson he didn't need to use any of the $20,000 that Dawkins’ company was going to give him to pay Wildcats player Rawle Alkins because Miller was allegedly handling any payment to Alkins.
“You already know, Sean’s taking care of Rawle and them,” Dawkins says in the wiretapped conversation (via Yahoo Sports). “So it ain’t no expense to Rawle. So that’s easy.”
Miller has denied violating any NCAA rules while at Arizona.
