Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) is battling with the NBA over payment for American basketball players.

King is aiding American players owed back pay by foreign basketball teams, and he’s talking to members of the House Judiciary Committee as well as State Department officials, about what can be done to set things right.

The team at the center of the controversy over back pay is the Greek club Olympiakos, which was recently found to have defrauded former NBA player Chris Morris of more than $1.1 million it contractually owed him.

U.S. courts ordered Olympiakos to pay Morris the sum he was owed, as well as more than $400,000 that had been promised to Morris’s agent, Tom McLaughlin. Neither Morris nor McLaughlin had been paid as of press time.

Things heated up last week, when Olympiakos arrived in the United States to play two exhibition games against the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers and San Antonio Spurs.

King first became aware of the situation while talking to fellow Notre Dame alum and former pro basketball player David Rivers, who has also filed a complaint against Olympiakos.

“It’s really galling,” King told ITK, “the way some of these guys are treated, usually during the last year or two of their contracts, especially since athletes have a limited career life span.”

Last Wednesday, King sent a letter to NBA Commissioner David Stern detailing what he had learned. “It’s time for the NBA to use their leverage to make sure these players aren’t defrauded,” King explained, saying that ideally, the NBA would refuse to play exhibition games with teams that still owed American players back pay.

King’s proposed legislation already enjoys bipartisan support: Another House Notre Dame alumnus, Republican Dan Lungren (Calif.), expressed his early support. “Dan’s on board,” said King.

Who will tell the president?

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs may have committed a faux pas when he called President Barack Obama to inform him of his Nobel Peace Prize, according to former George W. Bush and Clinton administration insiders.

Nobel Peace Prize Committee Chairman Thorbjoern Jagland, when asked if he called Obama to inform him of the honor, said no, because as he put it, “Waking up a president in the middle of the night, this isn’t really something you do.”

That is, unless you’re Gibbs. According to a statement by the president, Gibbs called the White House from his cell phone at 6 a.m. on Friday, less than an hour after learning of the prize. The call was routed through the Situation Room to a secure line, and from there, into the president’s bedroom.

At a press conference later in the day, Gibbs described calling the president to wake him with the news.

“Are you the designated waker?” quipped a journalist.

“I don’t think anybody wants the job,” said Gibbs, “I just figured it would be easiest to do.”

That seemed simple enough, but according to the former insiders, it was far from the norm in former administrations.

“The press secretary would never have called [President] Bush directly,” a former Bush West Wing staffer told ITK. “That’s breaking the chain of command, and bad things happen when you do that.”

The official White House chain of command places the chief of staff and the deputy chief of staff above the press secretary, a rule which was reportedly followed closely under President Bush’s administration.

“The chief of staff was the ultimate filter to the president,” said the Bush staffer. According to the source, if for any reason Bush needed to be woken up in the middle of the night (such as when Saddam Hussein was captured), Secret Service agents would coordinate with Chief of Staff Andy Card.

President Bill Clinton had a slightly different arrangement from either of his two successors. During his second term, it was Clinton’s two young personal aides, Kris Ensgkov and Doug Band, who were widely known to transmit information directly to the president — albeit information they received from Chief of Staff John Podesta. “Those guys were always with the president,” said a former Clinton White House aide, “and they had a great relationship with John, so the three of them had their communication system down.”

Legendary soccer goalie to show off moves to Capitol Hill

ITK perked up at the recent news that legendary Mexican soccer goalie Jorge Campo would be coming to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to play some footie.

Further down the page, it became clear that what Campo will be playing is not in fact soccer, but a new soccer-related video game. Less exciting, but could still be fun ...

Ultimately, the video game turns out to be ... “Financial Soccer,” courtesy of Visa Corp., wherein soccer is the delivery system for ... get ready ... personal finance pointers.

According to a press release, “To score a goal, players must answer fast-paced, multiple-choice personal finance questions correctly to advance down the field.”

The upside is that the game is for a good cause: It’s a public-service video designed to teach people basic personal finance. And it comes at a good time for Visa, which is facing increasingly strong attacks from industry groups opposed to the practice of charging credit card service fees.

Campo will be joined at 9 a.m. by U.S. Treasurer Rosie Rios, as well as members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, led by Rep. Rubén Hinojosa (D-Texas).

Obama HOPE image may cause problems for Portrait Gallery

After nearly a year of denials, Los Angeles-based artist Shepard Fairey, who created the iconic Obama HOPE poster, has admitted to using an Associated Press-owned photograph as a template for the profile he created of then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

And that may cause some problems for the National Portrait Gallery.

According to a statement issued Friday by the AP, Fairey confessed that once he realized he had copied the image, he deleted evidence from his computer files and created a fake silkscreen from an unrelated image to help cover up the copying.

The AP has long asserted that the profile of Obama was copied from an AP photograph taken by Mannie Garcia, a claim Fairey vigorously denied.

The revelation may present a sticky situation for the National Portrait Gallery: In January, lobbyists Tony and Heather Podesta donated Fairey’s original collage to the museum. But now that the originality of the piece is in question, they may be forced to re-label or even remove it. A spokeswoman for the Gallery declined to comment, citing the ongoing legal battle between Fairey and the AP.

Those in the art world may find it difficult to feel much sympathy for Fairey, especially after the aggressive campaign he launched against those he accused of intellectual property theft for stealing his image and applying it to everything from mugs to apparel to other works of art.

Following the AP statement, Fairey issued a separate statement, apologizing for what he characterized as a lapse in judgment. While he did not address the cover-up directly, Fairey said he was taking every possible step to correct his mistake.

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