Sifting through what was left of college basketball on Friday morning, after the walls were dynamited by Yahoo! Sports so everyone could see all the nasty business going on inside, there was on the one hand very little surprise. Marquee players at marquee programs got paid by agents, one way or another. It was fascinating and important to see the specifics, but it was mostly no great shock. Still, as I scanned the list, one name leaped off the screen as the emblem of the new way we must view the sport:



Fred VanVleet.



He is not the biggest name on the list. He allegedly received, according to the report, the comparably modest sum of $1,070 during his time at Wichita State, with his stepfather taking a separate payment of $2,000. But this modesty is precisely the point. Fred VanVleet was a three-star recruit. He wasn’t a top 100 player. He wasn’t identified at an early age as a future cash cow who was then hooked and bought on the promise of what’s to...