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College basketball’s trap: How agents and shoe companies team up to exploit athletes

Lines you'll remember from the FBI press conference on Sept. 26, 2017, announcing arrests for corruption in college basketball.

It's a trap. The target enters, takes the bait. The door snaps shut behind him.

It's a system created to lure the nation’s best basketball players, often capturing them when they’re still in high school.

The trap is operated by sports agents, coaches and financial advisers who lock promising young players into their networks, controlling their careers through college and the NBA, all to maximize their value to apparel companies intent on driving sales in the multibillion-dollar sneaker market.