Rick Carlisle has reached solution on a civil suit where he was the defendant and a dismissal is forthcoming. The trial was scheduled to begin April 28, 2025, which would have coincided with the first round of the NBA playoffs.
Former agent Jarinn Akana filed a lawsuit in December 2023 alleging that Carlisle reneged on his promise and breached their contract by refusing to pay the commission owed to the agent for negotiating the coach’s contract extension that was signed with the Dallas Mavericks in 2018.
According to the lawsuit, Carlisle wrote a check dated Jan. 1, 2019, to Akana for $200,000 as the initial, reduced commission payment on the extension, which was worth $8 million per year, and then refused to pay the commission in the following years.
The lawsuit alleges that Carlisle, the longtime president of the National Basketball Coaches Association, requested that Akana act as his representative following the sudden death of agent Dan Fegan, whom Akana had worked alongside. The lawsuit alleges that Carlisle had hired Fegan, who had a lengthy list of player clients, to renegotiate the coach’s contract with the Mavericks before the agent’s death.