If posted, please lock. Gordon Giricek signs a 2 year deal (amount not mentioned) with a team in Turkey. Also mentioned an offer made by the Spurs, but it was much lower. This is getting pretty crazy... Don't know much about this dude, except that he was a Jazzhole. Seems kinda like a Nachbar-type player.. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3543277
he was not getting much playing time with the Suns. He would play behind Ginobli if he signed with the Spurs who offered much less money. Good for him, more playing time and more money. Basketball is global so the whole world is a stage.
He is a decent 8th man or 9th man. Definitely would have gotten work next season, unlike Dan Dickau, whose career was probably over in the NBA. (Yes, I know Dickau started 9 games for the Clippers last year, but he is terrible)
When he first came into the league maybe. I still remember him bursting on with that dagger 3 he hit off a Tmac drive and kick in Orlando in the '03 season. Him and Drew Gooden were supposed to be the "help" that Tmac got. More players are leaving, but it really doesn't affect the NBA game that much. It's not like they're top or even mid-level talent anyway. And there'll always be more of players of this calibre coming in and gettting their chance to shine.
Gordon Giricek to Fenerbahce Link Croatian guard Gordan Giricek, who has averaged nearly 10 points per game since joining the NBA in 2002, has become the latest player to leave the league for a bigger payday. Gordan Giricek Giricek Giricek finished last season as a member of the Phoenix Suns. On Tuesday, the 6-foot-6 shooting guard signed a two-year contract -- with an option to return to the NBA next summer -- with Turkey's premier club, Fenerbahce. "We looked around the NBA," his agent Marc Fleisher said. "Everybody was moving very slowly. And there were great opportunities for him to play overseas for a lot of money. Fenerbahce are Turkish champions and a EuroLeague team. It was a tough decision, and it came down to Fenerbache and Triumph, in Russia." "Gordan had an offer from the San Antonio Spurs," Fleisher added, "but it was for much less." Giricek was one of the NBA's top rookies for Memphis in 2002-03. He logged time for the Orlando Magic before settling for five years with the Utah Jazz. Giricek then played briefly for the 76ers before joining Phoenix in March 2008. With an NBA career 3-point field goal percentage of 37 percent, Giricek has sometimes been pigeonholed as a shooter, but experts insist there is more to his game. "He's an underrated defender," ESPN analyst David Thorpe said. "And he's very aggressive. He moves well. He's a good NBA player." Fenerbahce is the latest on a long list of overseas teams that have raided NBA rosters in recent weeks. In nearly every case, agents report that NBA teams have been slow to make offers, while overseas teams have been enthusiastic. "There is a new sense in Europe," Fleisher said, "that anyone is available. It used to be that they would only go after certain kinds of NBA players. They would make offers to unrestricted free agents or to players who were at the end of their careers. But now they sense that there is an opportunity, thanks to the way the collective bargaining agreement is set up, that they can go after and get NBA players. It's a whole new world."
These kinds of defections don't bother me in the slightest. Players like Giricek, Boykins, and Dickau can all be replaced within the draft, so teams won't miss their contributions at all. Players like Childress and Nachbar though....those are players who have contributed at a high level in the NBA, and cannot be replaced by a rookie just coming out of college. The Hawks and the Nets will most likely miss those players. It's interesting that for years and years now, the NBA has been doing this to the Euroleagues, and with MUCH more talented players....but now that the tables have slightly turned (I won't say it's a complete turnaround until a star player leaves in his prime), people in the US are starting to bristle a little bit. The NBA is still far and away the best basketball league in the world though, and that is never going to change.
