Staff Blog
Europe: No Longer Just for High Schoolers
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| Olympiakos swingman Josh Childress |
| hawks. |
A couple weeks ago Brandon Jennings, one of the best prep school basketball players in the nation, opted to forgo college basketball and instead sign with Virtus Roma, a professional team in Europe. Because of the NBA’s recent age limit he wouldn’t have been able to financially capitalize for a full year if he would have stayed in the states.
I agreed with the move completely. If you do not expect to complete your college education, it makes little sense to risk a torn ACL or other debilitating injury for the love of the sport or the program. Jennings is a professional basketball player – giving a year to Arizona would literally be doing his job for free (or for the equivalent money to a years’ tuition).
Basketball was going to be the young man’s profession, why should he hold off and delay future earnings? I thought that the move made far too much sense not to become a trend – Jennings wouldn’t be a blip on the radar but rather the leader of the vanguard – now I’m even more convinced. I sat down recently with Memphis-bound guard Tyreke Evans who told me that while he had never considered the move, he certainly saw the wisdom behind it. While no one directly affiliated with Evans admitted that Tyreke should have taken that path, I certainly got the feeling that it was something they wish they had realized was an option. Now, players such as Jennings and Evans will have to think about playing overseas, especially if Jennings thrives there.
What I didn’t see was Europe becoming a viable option for current pro ballplayers. Sure, for years foreign players have been eschewing NBA contracts for pro teams in Europe. Carlos Delfino and Juan Carlos Navarro are the two most recent examples. But what hasn’t happened in an American-born NBA player, in the midst of his prime, signing with a European club.
Until now.
The reason was simple: Olympiakos could pay him more.
Childress representatives and Hawks officials negotiated for weeks on a contract extension but could never come close to agreeing to terms. The Hawks offered Childress a five-year deal with a starting salary in excess of the mid-level exception of $5.5 million.
But Childress, 25, spurned the Hawks‘ $33 million offer for a more lucrative deal with Olympiakos.
There is no salary cap in place for the European clubs and Olympiakos was able to offer whatever they wanted for the swingman. Combine that with the declining value of the dollar, the tax-free salary Europe offers and the NBA can’t and the famous perks that European teams lavish on their stars, and this looks like a coup for Childress.
For years the NBA and commissioner David Stern have been praised for their ability to keep NBA teams financially and professionally competitive with each other. The luxury tax acts as a hard cap, the rookie-scale salaries keep prices down, and the salary restrictions create maximum contracts – all of these are good for the teams and bad for the players. With the globalization of basketball becoming an ever-increasing reality, foreign teams have begun drawing more and more interest. It isn’t unreasonable to suggest that it is only a matter of time before true superstars will start having to turn down money to play in the League.
For now, the Sixers, a team with two restricted free agents looking for more money than they are willing to pay them, should probably be paying close attention to how the Childress deal works out.
Great article. Three points:
1. Childress is sick. I am distraught that I cannot continue to follow his development as the current most underrated player in the league.
2. I completely agree with your point about 18-y-olds playing in Europe.
3. Why don’t you say “they” a few more times in one sentence? “I certainly got the feeling that they wish it was something they wish they had realized was an option.”
4. like I said, I have three points
oh actually one more question: what are the “famous perks that European teams lavish on their stars?”
@McAdams: fixed … and European stars are given houses, cars, chefs, etc. while under contract It has been rumored that that “etc” can get a little scandalous