The guy who actually wrote the article, Ethan Strauss, said that Nico wasn't the guy who called Steph, Stephawn (the actual name mistake in the article is Stephawn not Seth). In fact he was on a Dallas area podcast just yesterday and pointed out totally missed the point of his article. If anything the thrust was that Nico was a relationship manager and not an executive with decision making powers. He was basically a guy who made sure the athletes were happy. Steph was one of his clients but Kobe was his main client. The top decision maker for NIke didnt even attend the meeting with Steph, which, as Ethan points out in the article, more or less demonstrates what the prevailing winds were indicating as to the level of importance of Steph to the Nike portfolio at the time, (he wasnt). He goes onto say that Nico essentially peter principled as a GM after Mark sold the team. The plan was for Mark to be the defacto GM and Nico to curry favor with players he had relationships with. When Mark sold to the Adelson's Nico was essentially promoted and now took on a role he was never supposed to have in practice. Strauss also theorized that the negotiations between Nico and Pelinka may have reverted back to the dynamic they had when Pelinka was Kobe's agent and Nico was his Nike rep. As a Nike rep for a client such as Kobe the biggest job description is to please your client and those associated with him ie his agent. Everything reported about the trade negotiations between Nico and Pelinka plays out as though Nico had a pavlovian response to please Pelinka as he did when he was Kobe's agent.