Yes Tanzer was Harringtons agent and the deal was a classic example of what can go wrong with a predraft deal. Teams are in fact trying to do more and more predraft deals and yes in some cases demanding them. Teams are in fact playing hard ball. I will reiterate find a competant agent and let them handle it. In some cases (you must know your player and the market) the deal my be the best you are going to get. But I will refer back to what I said several emails ago. Pick a school you accually want to attend and have the mind set you are going there until a deal you want is agreed to. If you are good enough and the team wants you bad enough the deal will get done. There are a few cases where a predraft deal is a good one and makes sense. If a team says take it or leave it you are generally better off leaveing it. If they really want him they will negotiate with in the bounds of their pre draft offer. I had a team call last year between rounds and ask for as deal. It was not a number the family wanted and so I passed. This was during the draft, the team hung up and said "we pick in less than 1 minute", "we are going to pass on him". Then 2 picks latter picked him. We got significantly more money in fact the 2nd highest Bonus in the round. I had done my homework I knew who was negotiating with and I used my resources to know how bad they wanted him. This was not a first or second round pick either. Don't worry about the round it is all about value and knowing the market. Sometimes the (SLOT) might be the right number for the player, sometimes its not. As for NCAA regulations yes the Advisor should not be in dirrect contact with the team but and this is a big but, this is never how it works the teams would rather deal with us and the families ussually would prefer that as well. You must as an advisor choose your words tactfully and never represent the family you inform the team about what you are advising the family on. Letting the advisor handle it with the team keeps it cleaner for both sides. As long as you tell the team " I am advisiong the family that they should ask fo X " "I am advising the family that he is worth X because...." It is very Grey but the NCAA knows whats going on and doesn't get involved for several reasons. I don't care to list them here.