Joel Bell is an agent for numerous professional athletes in the NBA and elsewhere. Prerak Shah's website, Draftcity.com, specialized in reporting on the prospects of potential draftees of the NBA. Jonathan Givony was a reporter and writer for DraftCity focusing on scouting of players. On April 9, 2005, DraftCity published an article under Givony's byline about Bell and potential draft NBA draft pick, Kelenna Azubuike. In the article, Givony wrote that "[t]he word 'scumbag' came up again and again in conversations around [Bell]," and that Bell was "widely known as an extremely sketchy agent who has no problem bribing greedy parents with offers of $50,000 or so in order to convince their kids to flush their career down the toilet."

In a subsequent article on April 12, 2005, Givony indicated that he had received many emails and phone calls in response to the April 9 article and wrote: "My comments a few days ago on Joel Bell were definitely out of line, even if there is some truth to it. This was a heat of the moment type thing, but the way it was worded was unprofessional." He also explained that "from what I've been told over the past few days, there is no way in hell that Joel Bell would have given [Azubuike] $50,000 to sign with him becausee it would take years and years for his agent to make that back based on the 4% he'll be making off either his 2nd round contract or the money he'll make in Europe."

In a third article published on April 17, 2005 under the heading "Kelenna Azubuike Clarification," Givony wrote: "I have no first hand knowledge of Mr. Bell's activities as an agent or his motivations and actions in respect to Kelenna Azubuike. Indeed, I have never met Mr. Bell. That being said, I would like to reiterate that I did indeed hear several things from numerous people that attended the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament about Mr. Bell, his actions as an agent, and his reputation in the industry."

In late April 2005, Bell and his company, Bell Management, sued Shah, DraftCity, and Givony in federal district court in Connecticut. The complaint asserted a claim for defamation and requested $25M in damages. Pursuant to a settlement agreement, Bell dropped Shah and Draftcity.com from the suit in September 2005. The action proceeded against Givony, a resident of Florida. The federal court in Connecticut held that it lacked personal jurisdiction over Givony, and transferred the case to the Southern District of Florida. See Bell v. Shah, No. 3:05CV00671, 2006 WL 860588 (D. Conn. March 31, 2006).

Bell subsequently settled with Givony, and the case was dismissed. The MLRC is reporting that the settlement involved $10,000.