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This is probably news to everyone on last year’s NC State basketball team, but it turns out there are people in the Czech Republic profiting off of their likenesses. With unauthorized nesting dolls! (Heh, “unauthorized nesting dolls” is not a phrase you expect to be employing on any given day.)
Discovered @TorinDorn2 in the Czech Republic. #paytheathletes pic.twitter.com/xsv85U8jNm
— Honovi Locklear (@honovi_locklear) August 9, 2018
lol i bought that same thing when i went about a month ago, there are a bunch of other players inside too pic.twitter.com/iXSBTdEqs6
— Sam (@DennisSmithIII) August 10, 2018
I asked, and yep, a handful of State’s key players from last season all have their own doll. I was hoping the No. 1 was Richard Howell, so that I could offer all my money to buy it.
it was all players from the 2017-18 roster: 1 is lennard, 12 is al, 11 is markell, and 14 (the smallest one, ironically enough) is yurt
— Sam (@DennisSmithIII) August 10, 2018
Anyway, remember that there’s stuff like this going on whenever an NCAA-type pushes back on compensating players. None of those arguments are ever, remotely, intellectually honest. The NCAA would be furious about these nesting dolls, mind you, but only because they aren’t getting a cut. But it’s the players who are always—very much on purpose—kept on the wrong side of the grift.