While the NCAA continues to investigate Yahoo Sports‘ accusations that UConn recruit Nate Miles had an improper relationship with sports agent Josh Nochimson — a former UConn student manager — former Huskie / current Piston Rip Hamilton tells the Hartford Courant’s Desmond Conner of his own dealings with Nochimson.

“It’s crazy because when I left for the NBA, he was coming with me just to learn the business, learn how to be a manager for athletes or whatever,” Hamilton said Wednesday in the locker room before his Detroit Pistons met the Nets in New Jersey. “I didn’t pay him anything. I was like, ‘OK, you can come along.’ It was like an internship and that was it … and I saw how good he was at being a manager, helping me around the house, getting my stuff together, making sure … you know, he was like my personal assistant.

Nochimson eventually used Hamilton’s American Express card in unauthorized ways, Hamilton said.

“The only thing he had access to, but he really didn’t have access to, was my American Express card, which I just use to pay my bills,” Hamilton said. “So, really, I never looked over it. I knew every month … I knew my phone bills, my utilities and all the stuff I could pay on my American Express. I didn’t use it for anything else, so there was really no need for me to check it.

“When I checked my American Express bill, they wouldn’t let me into my account because my security information didn’t add up to what they had on file. He changed everything … just changed it. So my American Express account was like his, you know what I’m saying? It was crazy. … We’ve been on it; as soon as we found out we’ve been on it. When I looked at all my statements and stuff, he was doing it since like 2003-04 to ’08.”

This did not surprise Hamilton’s father, Richard.

“My dad was always like, ‘Yo, son, there’s something about him because nobody knows anything about him,'” Hamilton said. “He was secretive in everything. … When the [Yahoo!] story broke, I was like, ‘Wow.'”

Hamilton said he was surprised that Nochimson had become a sports agent before decertifying himself in June after Hamilton fired him.

“What’s crazy is that when he became an agent, I didn’t even know he had become an agent,” Hamilton said. “Is that crazy? My dad told me. ‘No way, Dad’ and my dad said, ‘Ask him.’ I said, ‘No way. He would have told me.’ Well, you know what? He became an agent and didn’t tell me.”