Charlie Villanueva is at a crossroads in his NBA career. After nearly a decade in the league, he is currently a free agent.

The former UConn star has documented this period of his career in "Crossroads", an eight-part video blog series chronicling his free agent journey. Here's Part One (about five minutes), which includes a conversation with his agent, Cheshire's Jeff Schwartz; footage of his workouts; some personal thoughts, and more.

Crossroads, which has been created by Charlie and his brothers and shot on a Samsung phone, is produced by Tivity Social in partnership with SportsBlog, VISalus and WeVideo.

Things are going well for Cheshire native Jeff Schwartz lately.

The successful basketball agent recently joined forces with fellow superagents Casey Close (baseball) and Mark Steinberg (golf), adding clients like Tiger Woods, Derek Jeter, Anika Sorenstam and Mark Teixeira to Excel Sports Management’s already impressive list.

Schwartz, who already represents Jim Calhoun, Kemba Walker, Emeka Okafor and A.J. Price, also added another member of the UConn family to his cliental in the form of Jeremy Lamb.

Lamb is expected to be a lottery pick at the NBA draft a week from tonight in Newark, though his status is a bit up in the air due to a sprained ankle injury he suffered five minutes into a workout last Wednesday in Toronto. It’s not a serious injury (an MRI checked out fine), but it’s been enough to keep him out of any workouts since.

Lamb, whose only full workout was for New Orleans shortly before the Chicago pre-draft camp, still is hoping to work out for three or four more teams (Cleveland, Portland, Phoenix and Milwaukee) before the draft.

“If he’s not able to, he’s not able to,” said Schwartz. “We’ll probably still try for teams to meet with him. He’s such a good kid, comes from such a good family, it’ll help for them to see him and get to know him.”

Schwartz still believes Lamb will be one of the 15 players invited to the green room on draft night, but can’t venture a guess where he’ll be selected.

“I feel good about Jeremy,” Schwartz said. “At New Orleans, they said he was super-competitive in the workout, and way more athletic than they realized he was. To me, that’s what he’ll bring. He can shoot it from anywhere, can get his own shot, he moves well without the ball and he’s more athletic and competitive than was evident at UConn. People questioned that because of UConn’s record and certain games, but he’s saying every day, ‘Jeff I want to get out there, I’m fine.’ I’m saying, ‘No, you’re not fine.’ Sometimes, agents have to protect their clients against themselves.”

Greetings, back from vacation. What'd I miss over the past 10 days or so? Anything?

Yeah, apparently a few things. As we know, Alex Oriakhi is Missouri-bound, Jeremy Lamb (who's agent is Cheshire's own Jeff Schwartz) and Andre Drummond are headed to the NBA, Roscoe Smith is searching for greener pastures and Michael Bradley might be, as well. Am I forgetting anything?

UConn is in quite a situation right now, but a lot could be remedied if/when we find out what Jim Calhoun's plans are. Will he stay through the end of his contract, or even longer? Stay just another season? Or will he retire now? It's important for the program to know, because it's getting burned on the recruiting trail right now.

A little stability within the program (coach-in-waiting, anyone?) could help out a lot.

But don't take my word for it. Here's a quote from one prep school coach, who's had players recruited by UConn in the past, from the above linked article:

"If you’re asking me as someone who would advise a kid, I’d have a hard time telling him he’s gonna play for Jim Calhoun for four years. And I don’t think, unless they have a much better year next year, that he’s going to have a guarantee he’s going to be able to name a successor. Those are pretty big sticking points."

The coach added that a coach-in-waiting would help UConn because "any time you can show continuity, where the program is gonna be, that allows a kid to make a four-year decision, regardless of whether he wants to be in college for four years."

This coach also had some interesting things to say about this past year's UConn team -- namely, that the general knock around basketball was that the Huskies "didn't get along well ... at all" -- particularly the guards. At least one recruit has said he witnessed this discord first-hand while at a UConn practice.

Interesting stuff, though probably something most assumed all along.

We're always looking for local angles these days, so a story on Jeff Schwartz, the New Haven native and 1982 Cheshire High grad who is the agent to numerous NBA stars -- not to mention Jim Calhoun -- was a natural.

Jeff's an interesting guy. He focuses on taking clients who are good people, and in return really tries to foster a family-type atmosphere with them. Guys like Emeka Okafor, Jason Kidd, Lamar Odom, even Calhoun, look at Schwartz as more than just an agent. He's been to Calhoun family weddings, once lived for a short time at Kidd's California home, and, yes, he was in the wedding party at the famous Odom-Kardashian nuptials last September (no comment on whether Lamar signed a pre-nup!).

And while Schwartz represents Calhoun, it's important to note that the coach doesn't steer his ex-players to him. Yes, Okafor, Hilton Armstrong, Charlie Villanueva and A.J. Price are Schwartz clients. But the dozen or so other ex-UConn players playing professionally right now chose other routes.

"Sometimes it works against me," Scwartz admitted. "Coach is tough on those guys, and at the end of year, when they're all done, sometimes they want to run as far from him as possible. The shackles are off."

Here's Schwartz's take on a couple of other subjects that didn't make the story:

(On the proliferation of street runners and dirty agents who have had too much influence on some amateur players in recent years)

"I wish that there was tighter scrutiny with it. You’ve got some really good agents out there who do things right way, but then you've got a lot of people who put kids in harm’s way. We talk to our union a lot about it, trying to keep things at a professional level and allow college kids to enljoy college experience. I think it’s an issue across sports. I don’t know how it gets solved."

(On the rule that a player must be at least one year out of high school to be drafted by the NBA)

"I think the more mature someone is, in general, the better chance they have at success at anything. However, I represented Martina Hingis when she was 16 years old and No. 1 in the world, so I've seen it from all sides. I really think it’s on a case-by-case basis. Do I think, overall, it’s helpful to have a year or two of college? It never hurt anybody. I think it’s good thing."