Sonny Vaccaro will be honored in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
The Grassroots Basketball of America (GBOA) Hall of Fame announcement will be held at the Palms Hotel and Vaccaro will be given the organization’s Grassroots Pioneer Award.
Grassroots legends Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Stephon Marbury, Chauncey Billups, Sharief Abdul-Rahim, Rafer Alston, Felipe Lopez and Tim Thomas will also be honored
The event will also raise money for Coaches Versus Cancer.
Vaccaro has long been an opponent of the NBA age limit and has been influential in recent years in brokering Brandon Jennings‘ contract with an Italian club and in negotiating for American high school phenom Jeremy Tyler to play overseas as well. Tyler will skip his final two years of high school and then enter the 2011 NBA Draft.
“I just think it’s a whole new world,” Vaccaro told The New York Times in reference to American players going overseas. “There’s never going to be a migration, like the salmon going upstream. But there’s going to be selective kids who have the option.”
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InfinityDividedByZero / July 18, 2009
If he grew up in NY, he’d be shaking down pizza joints and bodegas for the Gambinos. Instead, he grew up in Pittsburgh and spent his life profiting off of pimping sneaker companies to young African-American kids with actual talent.
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shu07grad / July 18, 2009
Totally agree…..definition of a scumbag, that’s what he deserves recognition for.
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RockChalkWoody / July 19, 2009
Vaccaro=scumbag.
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