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Few people understand as well as Michael Coyne just how international the game of basketball has become.
Mr. Coyne, a lawyer and the head of Evergreen Sports Management in Cleveland, has ties with two of the most prominent international players who will be taken in next month's National Basketball Association draft-7-foot 5-inch Chinese center Yao Ming and 6-foot 10-inch Brazilian power forward Maybyner "Nene" Hilario. Both men are expected to be first-round selections, and Mr. Yao could be the first pick in the draft.
In the case of Mr. Hilario, Mr. Coyne finds himself in the enviable position of being the agent for a player projected to go in the first half of the first round. The situation isn't nearly so straightforward with Mr. Yao, who technically is under contract with Mr. Coyne through July 31 but is being wooed by agents and is the primary target of a new rule that requires Chinese athletes playing abroad to give 50% of their earnings to the Chinese government.
There's still much legal work to be done before Mr. Yao can become an NBA player, and Mr. Coyne as yet has no guarantees that he'll benefit from his time spent working to bring the Chinese star to the United States.
"I feel very confident that the Yao situation is going to turn our way, but there's still a lot of uncertainty," Mr. Coyne said in an interview last week. "Optimally, this will be worked out before the (June 26) draft, but realistically, it won't."
Mr. Coyne in 1999 negotiated a then-controversial contract with Mr. Yao and the Chinese government in which Mr. Yao would have handed over one-third of his NBA contract to Mr. Coyne,...