Arizona Assistant Claimed Sean Miller Paid Deandre Ayton $10,000 Per Month

Sean Miller paid DeAndre Ayton $10,000 a month according to one of the coach’s former assistants at Arizona. Emanuel “Book” Richardson was caught on a wiretap discussing Ayton’s “salary” in June of 2017, and the recording of that call was played in court on Wednesday.

On the tape, Richardson and aspiring agent Christian Dawkins discussed how Dawkins could recruit Ayton as a client to his sports management company.

Here’s a excerpt of what was heard on the call:

"While talking about Ayton, Richardson told Dawkins, “Sean’s got to get the [expletive] out of the way and let us work.” “We’ll see how Sean plays it out,” Dawkins said. “You know what he bought per month?” Richardson asked. “What he do?” Dawkins asked. “I told you — 10,” Richardson replied. “He’s putting up some real money for them [expletive],” Dawkins responded. “He told me he’s getting killed.” “But that’s his fault,” Richardson said."

This is really bad news for Miller. While it may be difficult to prove, he’ll always have the stain of this on him.

Ayton was a five-star recruit and one of the top five prospects in the country coming out of high school. There was a lot of pressure on Miller to land him after he transferred to Hillcrest Prep Academy in Phoenix.

It’s hard to see how Miller survives this long-term at Arizona. He’ll forever be tainted by this scandal.

Arizona responded to the news with the following statement: