Coach Sean Miller Credit: Christopher Boan

Arizona basketball coach Sean Miller’s name has come up frequently during the federal court case against Christian Dawkins and co-defendant Merl Code.

Wednesday’s proceedings included a wiretap that proports to show former Arizona assistant coach Emanuel ‘Book’ Richardson discussing an ongoing payment scheme to former Wildcat Deandre Ayton.

Ayton, who was selected number one overall in the 2018 NBA Draft, was mentioned by Richardson during a wiretapped conversation with Dawkins.

Among the damning evidence entered into record on Wednesday was this transcript, from Dan Wetzel and Pete Thamel’s Yahoo Sports story. 

Amid the seven wiretaps played in court during the college basketball bribery trial, there were multiple inferences of Miller himself personally paying Ayton.

On one call between Dawkins and Richardson, the two discussed Ayton and the possibility of Dawkins’ management company eventually signing Ayton. That’s when Miller came up.

“You know what he bought per month,” Richardson said on the call concerning what Richardson believed was Miller’s agreement with Ayton.

“What he do?” Dawkins asked.

“I told you, 10,” Richardson said.

Later, Dawkins said, “Hey, he’s putting up some real money for them [racial slur].”

Also on the calls, the two discussed that Richardson did not need to use any of the $20,000 that Dawkins’ company was going to give him to pay Wildcat player Rawle Alkins because Miller was allegedly handling him.

“You already know, Sean’s taking care of Rawle and them,” Dawkins said. “So it ain’t no expense to Rawle. So that’s easy.”

Richardson has already pleaded guilty to accepting a $20,000 bribe as part of the FBI’s investigation, and will be sentenced for his charge on May 30.

This article appears in Apr 25 – May 1, 2019.

Christopher Boan is a cocksure smartass of a writer that mainly focuses on sports, music and the hellscape in-between. He's a four-time Arizona Newspaper Association Better Newspaper Award winner, and...

6 replies on “Sean Miller Alleged to Have Given Deandre Ayton $10,000 A Month”

  1. Accepting bribes, racial slurs regarding the very people you want to represent. How could we not trust him? Is it possible that Sean lied to Book to keep him at arm’s length? There is more to this story… Just be patient.

  3. The notion that Sean Miller, Book Richardson and the Arizona basketball program are some sort of outlier, that they were doing terrible things that other programs weren’t, is utterly preposterous.

    Sports pundits who are pushing this line are either 1) total idiots who also believe in the Tooth Fairy, or 2) bald-face liars shilling pathetic propaganda to support the NCAA’s last-ditch, profoundly dishonest attempt to cling to the fantasy that major college basketball is an amateur enterprise.

    The most important takeaway from the trial testimony is that EVERYBODY who played this game at a high level with Final Four or NBA dreams was doing this stuff, because THAT’S HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS. And you know what? That’s how it has worked for decades, as many previous scandals (and even some trials) have made painfully obvious.

    If I were the UA, I would tell the NCAA this: “GO F#%@ YOURSELF. You investigate and determine how much Zion Williamson was paid to attend Puke University, and THEN we can talk about how much Ayton was paid to attend Arizona.” Unless and until that happens, making Arizona (and Book and Sean) the fall guys for a chronically and systemically dirty business is the only true injustice that I see here.

    And then maybe we can have an adult conversation about how the whole system needs to change.

  4. first of all, Yahoo sports is just another BLOG, not a recognized, quality, sports journalistic organization, I don’t know if the report is accurate or not. But your lazy writing and reporting, by not getting at least one confirming source about what was on the tape is indicative of what standard of truth and journalistic skill is used by the weekly and others. That said, your style seems to be similar to most other ‘reporters’.

    I believe the Tucson community deserves more and I would encourage you to do more digging and homework before stating third hand that MIller paid Ayton 10K/month. That reporting what another person heard or said during a court procedure without context, with spin, and controlling the narrative is just sad.

    You can do better..

  6. I think what most of you are missing is the fact that the FBI has already questioned Miller and Ayton after the recording was reported by Schlabach and they found nothing. What is the point in trying somebody in the court of public opinion unless your goal is to destroy them and all they have built.

    Why no Duke, NC or Kentucky? AZ is the target. I won’t help them.

    And the NCAA sucks because they fostered this environment while they sold tickets and clothing off the hard work of supposed students. The jeanie is out of the bottle.

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