Could this man control college basketball?

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 21:00:00 +0000

Levan Mikeladze floored his Audi A5 on a straight stretch of road in Tbilisi. He is 23, smokes two packs a day and has the beginning of a paunch. He boasts that he was 19 when he negotiated a 2 million euro contract and that he is the Democratic Republic of Georgia’s first basketball agent certified by FIBA, the world governing body for basketball.

“I stopped playing at 16," he said, "when I realized others can run and I can make money.”

In the status- and wealth-obsessed post-Soviet world, being a billionaire businessman holds far more cachet then being an athlete. Which is why Mikeladze joined forces with Jamlet Khukhashvili, a man he half-jokingly refers to as “the godfather.” They are an odd pair, the jaded boy genius and the smooth-talking Jewish salesman. But then, Georgia and basketball is a strange combo.

Georgia is known for producing many things -- conflicts, wine, Joseph Stalin – but not professional basketball players. Yet inside this little nation in the turbulent Caucasus, sports fans can rattle off the names of all five native Georgians who have played in the NBA: Zaza Pachulia, Tornike Shengelia, Vladimir Stepania, Viktor Sanikidze and Nikoloz Tskitishvili. They tend to leave out that Sanikidze never actually signed a contract. It is easier to skip to Giorgi Shermadini, Manuchar Markoishvili and Viktor Sanikidze, all of whom play in the prestigious Euroleague.

Riding along with a mobile marijuana dispensary

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 01:00:00 +0000

My first drug deal was back in high school. The student who sat next to me in American Government handed me a baggie to pass to a kid sitting a few seats away. The money transferred hands the same way, kid to kid, just like we passed handouts on the judicial, legislative and executive branches.

I was a little unsure whether my minor role in the proceedings was incriminating. But there was no question in my mind Rodney was engaging in illegal behavior. We might have been at Berkeley High School, but selling marijuana was still against the law.

Not so today. California began allowing medical marijuana use in 1996, and permitting caregivers and patient associations to cultivate and distribute it in 2004. But after a federal crackdown on storefront dispensaries -- the feds don't recognize the medical marijuana exception -- mobile businesses stepped up their trade, employing the same personal delivery model Rodney used two decades before.

Salon.com > Katya Cengel

Could this man control college basketball?

Riding along with a mobile marijuana dispensary