That's just like saying NBA players won't get paid because in the US their might be an ABA or USBL team that didn't pay some players. It's like saying an NFL player might not get paid because in the US some Arena League teams went under. It's absolutely completely irrelevant to this Jennings situation. You are talking about scrub players in Europe playing in semi-pro domestic leagues for clubs that their entire sporting club budget is about 300k. NOT in the Greek league or Italian league. Semi pro leagues in Greece or Italy. You are actually shocked that a guy playing SEMI pro ball in Greece didn't get paid? You do realize that Italy and Greece like the US have several pro basketball leagues right? Or do you not understand this? There is Greece's version of the NBA where Spanoulis plays, Italy's version of the NBA where Gallinari played, then their are semi pro and also minor and junior leagues in these countries, just like the US has. The MAXIMUM any NBDL player can make is $40,000 and the average salary is $24,000. Actually, even the semi pro league in Italy or Greece pays A LOT more than that to the average player. But yes, some times those teams go bankrupt and players don't get all their money. You are not even talking about the same basketball leagues. The Greek league or Italian league is a completely DIFFERENT league than what these articles are talking about. You understand that the USBL is not the same as the NBA just because they are both in the US right? Well that's the same thing as different leagues in those countries. Again, if you don't pay players in the actual top professional league then you are banned from the league for 3-5 years.
I'm not seeing your point. Most people in Europe have no idea who Manu is, who Dirk is, who Lebron is, who Kobe is.
No, actually it's not. You are either mistaken or you are intentionally misleading us here. Celestand played for SKIPPER BOLOGNA. http://www.basket-stats.info/players/playerfile/c/john-celestand.htm That is not a minor league club. That is Serie A. Incidentally, he also played w/a former Rocket edit - not a former rocket, didn't he make it training camp once? I forget, Rumeal Robinson, and a former Cougar, Anthony Goldwire, that year. The Greek team he played against was in the EUROLEAGUE COMPETITION. They are all top teams, as you know that is the top level of competition. The year that Celestand played for Skipper Bologna - there were four Greek teams playing in Euroleague w/Kinder. PAO, AEK, Olympiakos, and Peristeri The one Greek team playing in Skipper's division was PAO, they did not play any Greek teams in the next round - so by the process of elimination, I believe that is the team he was referring to. http://www.basket-stats.info/euroleague/2001-2002/results/standings.htm So, Nine Gates, are you trying to tell me that Greek Powerhouse PAO is a minor league team in Europe? That they are playing semi-pro ball?
If you don't pay players you get banned from the top domestic league 3-5 years and from the Euroleague for 5 years. It's obvious you have some personal vendetta against this Jennings kid.
If that was underhanded sarcasm, then I have to say you don't get it. Brandon Jennings may be a very talented 18 year old, but will be just another teenager out there in Europe, not to mention he's American, which is a known fact that most Europeans out there have a underlying contempt against.
No I really don't get what you are trying to say as for a point. It is absolutely true that hardly anyone in Europe has ever heard of any of those players. Even in most places they don't care about Euroleague players. If you took hockey, football, basketball, gold, baseball, tennis, Nascar, etc. and all of them up into one sport that sport would still be smaller by a wide margin than soccer is in Europe. The vast majority of people in Europe don't care one bit at all about basketball.
.....well PAO didn't pay its players, and neither did Skipper - and I didn't see them get banned. So it's obvious that this practice is more common than you think.
You are talking about 7 seasons ago. A full 7 years in the past of league rules and amount of money being paid and revenues. Panathinaikos, the team you mention as a "Greek powerhouse" had budgets of something like €1-2 million euros in those days. Now the team's budget is about €35 million euros. Also, since then rules have been put in that ban the clubs from the league for several years if they don't pay players. Peristeri has in fact been out of the top Greek league and Euroleague. In fact, Peristeri was sent out of Greek A1 division (the pro league) and went to the B division (a minor league). They still are not even back to the Greek A1 division. It took them 3 years just to get back to the Greek A2 division (the semi-pro one). Those are the facts. Let's not even discuss them getting back to the Euroleague. That's laughable. I would certainly hope that you would understand that European basketball in the 2008-09 season time is not the same financially as it was back 7 years ago. The monetary end for clubs is exponentially higher by several magnitude.
Nice of you to focus on Peristeri - of course we are talking about PAO and Skipper not paying their players, not Peristeri (which was NOT a minor league team back then). You're telling me PAO's entire budget was only 1m euros back then? That's a load of crap, I bet Bodiroga alone made over 500,000 considering he was reigning Euroleague MVP - you're telling me the remaining players were all make just 50,000 or so each? Laughable. Also I don't know if you've checked the financial markets lately but if you think elevating salaries for European basketball palyers are in the cards, I have lots of Italian index futures to sell you.....
You have something against Jennings, that much is clearly apparent. Care to tell everyone what that is? Hmm, PAO's budget back then? Well as someone who spent much time in Italy over the years and followed the Euroleague, sorry, but you don't have your facts right. A little history lesson for you. In the 1980s the Italian League became a big pro league. It really became the first legit rival to the NBA. Back in those days basketball was HUGELY popular. You had stadiums filled and the rich soccer clubs had big team budgets. Basketball mattered, even the small sporting clubs had big budgets and filled stadiums. Teams gave big contracts out, even Bob McAdoo went there for big money, even big money in NBA terms in those days. Fast forward to the era you are talking about and basketball in Italy was barely even a blip on the radar. When Manu played in Italy no one cared about basketball and the league was poor. Also at that time the Euroleague was awful. The early years of Euroleague like 2000-2003 was full of terrible teams and even teams from horrifically bad leagues. If you even took the Euroleague from 2003-2005 era when Jasikevicius made his big name to the Euroleague of last year, you would understand the difference. Jasikevicius was a great player then and in today's Euroleague he's barely more than a role player. That's how much the level has increased. Players that were stars just 5 years ago in many cases would not even sniff a bigger club today. Now the Greek League. Back in the late 1980s was when the Greek League started to come into power. By the 1990s it was by far the best basketball league other than the NBA. Today's Spanish League (the best domestic league in Europe nowadays) is like a YMCA rec league compared to what the Greek League was back in those days. In that time even guys like Dejan Bodiroga, Dino Radja, David Rivers, Walter Berry, Byron Scott, Eddie Johnson, Dominique Wilkins, etc. jumped for joy and fought over contracts over there in Greece, the money and the league was so big. Fast forward to the era you are talking about and the Greek League was at possibly its lowest point in the last 4 or 5 decades. Teams like Aris, Panathinaikos, Olympiakos, Panionios, Iraklis, PAOK, AEK went from spending millions of euros on single players, to barely even spending that on a whole sporting budget for basketball. Several of the teams went to 300-400 k budgets. You are obviously basing European sports culture on American sports culture. You don't seem to understand that European sports culture is a whole different world than American sports culture. And again, since this time RULES EXIST that ban any team if they did not pay players. Shall we argue that NBA players don't get paid by their teams because once back in the US pro basketball era NBA and ABA players didn't have guaranteed contracts and sometimes did not get paid? It's as relevant and pertinent as some of the things you are bringing up.
Right.....the Greek league was at a low point in 2001-02, that's why PAO won the Euroleague and Bodiroga was F4 MVP.....sure..... Actually I do understand this, Jennings doesn't, along with a lot of people posting in this thread.
Did I just now explain to you that the Euroleague was horrible in that era? In that era the Euroleague was horrible. A complete juco league. Just having Bodiroga a player like that was an auto championship. Perhaps you should read what other's post a little more carefully. By contrast, a team with a 1-2 million euro budget today would be lucky to win 2 games in the Euroleague. The Euroleague cannot be looked at through NBA fans eyes like you are doing. The NBA has been for years since the 1980s maintained pretty much as a strong league. It has ups and downs but it stays relatively the same. The Euroleague started out in 2000-2003 eras as total and complete crap. 2003-2006 era better than NCAA. 2007-present it's rapidly becoming a legit rival to the NBA. Not as good as the NBA, but it's maybe 1-2 years at this rate from being as much a rival as the ABA was in the old days. Again a player like Jasikevicius was a world beater at that level just a few years ago and now he's just a role player in a big club and nothing more. A lot of players that were stars in Europe 4-5 years ago would not even get a contract today in a big club. And big players today in big eras can come to the NBA if they wanted and do well like Navarro and Scola. Just 5 years ago that was not true because the good players came right to the NBA at a very young age and didn't even care about Europe. You are talking about the Euroleague 7 years ago like it's still today. Hell, why don't we just talk about the Rockets like it is still Clutch City.
2002 Euroleague featured Bodiroga, Ginobili, Okur, Scola among other superstars and a number of players that made to the NBA like Giricek, Jaric, etc....that doesn't sound weak to me.
Isn't pretty obvious? Do I really have to go back and explain my position? Just go back and read some of my previous posts.
