Roger Montgomery (born 1970) is an American sports agent and former professional basketball player. He is the current CEO of Montgomery Sports Group. As a sports agent, Montgomery has represented basketball players in the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United S ...

(NBA) and international leagues.

Early life

Born in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, Montgomery graduated in 1988 from Fairfax High School in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

. In 1988, Montgomery's senior year, Fairfax was the Los Angeles 4-A Division champion.

College career

Montgomery first enrolled at

Pratt Community College Pratt Community College is a public community college in Pratt, Kansas, United States. Athletics The official mascot for Pratt Community College is the Beaver. Pratt CC participates in 11 sports in the NJCAA and in the Kansas Jayhawk Community ...

in Kansas. In 1991, he signed with

Georgia Southern University Georgia Southern University (GS or Georgia Southern) is a public research university in the U.S. state of Georgia. The flagship campus is in Statesboro, and other locations include the Armstrong Campus in Savannah and the Liberty Campus in Hine ...

but transferred to

Life University Life University is a private university focused on training chiropractors and located in Marietta, Georgia, USA. It was established in 1974 by a chiropractor, Sid E. Williams. History The university was founded in 1974 by Williams as "Life C ...

, an NAIA school, the next season. Montgomery transferred because he was not included in the starting roster at Georgia Southern. At Life, Montgomery was an NAIA Academic All-American and graduated in 1994 with a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

degree in business.

Professional career

Basketball player

After graduating from Life University, Montgomery became operations assistant for the

Houston Rockets The Houston Rockets are an American professional basketball team based in Houston. The Rockets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member team of the league's Western Conference Southwest Division. The team plays its ho ...

basketball team. When a two-month lockout began in July 1995, Montgomery played professional basketball overseas briefly in

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

, and

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

for three seasons. In the 1997 1998 season, he played in

Tapiolan Honka Tapiolan Honka is a basketball club based in Espoo, Finland. Their men's team plays in Korisliiga and their women's team plays in Naisten Korisliiga, both on highest tiers of Finnish basketball. History It was founded as a sports club Tapion Ho ...

of the Finnish league

Korisliiga The Korisliiga is the top-tier professional basketball league in Finland, comprising the top 12 teams of the country. In its current format, each team plays all other teams two times in the regular season, once at home and once away, for a total o ...

. He ended his career with

Noteć Inowrocław Noteć Inowrocław is a Polish basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, sho ...

of the Polish Basketball League.

Sports agent

After his playing career ended, Montgomery co-founded Momentum Sports Management in

San Antonio, Texas ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_t ...

in 1999. At Momentum, Montgomery represented and trained Maurice Evans, who played college basketball at

Wichita State Wichita State University (WSU) is a public research university in Wichita, Kansas, United States. It is governed by the Kansas Board of Regents. The university offers more than 60 undergraduate degree programs in more than 200 areas of study in ...

and

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

before joining the

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

as an undrafted free agent. Explaining Momentum's approach, Montgomery told the ''

San Antonio Express-News The ''San Antonio Express-News'' is a daily newspaper in San Antonio, Texas. It is owned by the Hearst Corporation and has offices in San Antonio and Austin, Texas. The ''Express-News'' is the third largest newspaper in the state of Texas, with ...

'': "We focus on the transition from high school or college sports to the professional level." Retrieved March 10, 2012 via LexisNexis. Momentum also represented

Desmond Mason Desmond Tremaine Mason (born October 11, 1977) is an American painter and former professional basketball player. He played as a shooting guard and small forward. Mason has also found success as an artist, working in a variety of media. Currently, ...

, the 17th pick in the first round of the 2000 NBA draft. Montgomery founded his own agency, Montgomery Sports Group, in 2006. He represented another undrafted player who would eventually become an asset to a team,

Jeremy Lin Jeremy Shu-How Lin (born August 23, 1988) is a Taiwanese-American professional basketball player who last played for the Guangzhou Loong Lions of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA). He unexpectedly led a winning turnaround with the Ne ...

. Montgomery hoped that Lin would be a first-round draft pick, but Lin was not selected in the

2010 NBA draft The 2010 NBA draft was held on June 24, 2010, at the Theatre at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The draft, which started at 7:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time (2300 UTC), was broadcast in the United States on ESPN. In this draft, National ...

. Lin entered the NBA as a free agent and was cut by two teams before the

New York Knicks The New York Knickerbockers, shortened and more commonly referred to as the New York Knicks, are an American professional basketball team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The Knicks compete in the National Basketball Associat ...

signed him, and Lin became one of the leading players with the Knicks.

Clients

*Kyle Casey *Maurice Evans * Langston Hall *

Kevin Kotzur Kevin Kotzur (born November 3, 1989) is an American professional basketball player for Altiri Chiba The Altiri Chiba is a professional basketball team that competes in the second division of the Japanese B.League. They are based in Chiba, Chiba ...

* Kelvin Lewis *

*Jordan Morgan *

Sonny Weems Clarence "Sonny" Weems (born July 8, 1986) is an American professional basketball player for the Shanxi Loongs of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA). He played college basketball for the University of Arkansas and the University of Arkansas ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Montgomery, Roger 1971 births Living people American expatriate basketball people in Finland American expatriate basketball people in Poland American sports agents Basketball players from Los Angeles Basketball players from Chicago Basketball players from San Antonio Georgia Southern Eagles men's basketball players Businesspeople from Texas Forwards (basketball) Pratt Beavers men's basketball players American company founders Life University alumni American men's basketball players