Danny Ferry left, and he was a high draft pick selection. It wasn't because he couldn't cut it. It's because he didn't want to play for the Clippers. Former All-stars, they were in the 5-8 in that point of their careers, also.
Agreed. In the past, We got Dirk and they got Danny Ferrry. Nowadays, we got Deng, who used to play in euro basketball tournaments and was recruited to a new jersey highschool, Nocioni, Scola, Calderon, Bargnani and Biedrins. Basically, The NBA traded Spanoulis, Boykins, Childress, Shawn Kemp, Dan Dickau, Pargo, Qyntel Woods, Nachbar, Carlos Arroyo, Jennings, Omar Cook, Delfino, Loren Woods, Garbajosa and Pippen for Luol Deng, Nocioni, Scola, Bogut, Calderon, Bargnani, and Biedrins. They got more scrubs, but I'll take our quality over their quantity of nba bench players and draft busts like Qyntel Woods and Omar Cook.
No one is disputing that the NBA is the best league, but when you take away NBA talent you are weakinging the league. DD
but shouldn't the best/most marketable players get the most pay? If you aren't in that echelon of players, shouldn't the other players have the individual right to choose the place that will appreciate them the most? Besides, I don't see the NBA league office giving NO an extra $2,000,000 so that they can keep Pargo. In the larger picture, the NBA has been taking the best players from overseas for decades by paying them more money, but now we have a problem of having our mediocre players taken from us...by being paid more money? We can't have one and not the other.
I say more power to the guy, he gets to travel the world, play a shorter season so he could spend more time with his family, and then keep even more of his money than he would had he played here. If Pargo retires at 35 and has a net worth of $12-$15M and ends up making 8% a year on that he'll be taking home a $1M/yr salary for the rest of his life at 35 which is where every single one of us wishes we could be. Its not like he was gonna be a star or anything in the NBA, he's not really disapoointing that many fans. Good luck now NO can play Mike James vs us!
The point is talent going out is being replaced by the talent coming in. The NBA hasn't lost any irreplaceable players. You could probably argue retirement takes away more NBA talent than Europe does.
If any of the players that are leaving are rotational players, then the league is weakening by their departure. Even if the new players replace them, which there is no guarantee of..... Plenty of rookies fail, or get better offers for playing time or money somewhere else. Is it a big problem? No, not yet, but it could become one..... DD
This summer we've lost childress,earl boykins,nachbar,jannero pargo, and a few others.....are ratings or ticket sales gonna drop next year? My bet is no, so David Stern won't be sweating until a big namer leaves
By definition you are wrong because not only are they being replaced by "rotational players" but by guys who are projected to be better rotational players, which is why they are being replaced. There is not a dearth of rotational players in the NBA - guys who can replace Bostjan Nachbar are a dime a dozen, which is why he is gone. The number of people playing basketball at a competitive level has doubled or tripled or more over the last 25 years. The number of NBA roster spots has augmented by maybe 10% in that same time frame. Do the math.
We'll just have to agree to disagree. All of those guys are replaceable, IMO. Childress is the only player that could actually start or enter the rotation of a good NBA team. You're being too literal. If I walked up to my car, took the gas cap off and chucked it into the river -- would that devalue my car? Absolutely. Can I find another gas cap? Would I have to look far? Would I lose sleep? Childress is good. Pre-injury Krstic was good. Delfino is okay. Pargo is okay. Everybody else sucks or isn't good enough to enter an NBA rotation. Hell, Earl Boykins was out of basketball before he was signed. Same with Dickau. These are the same ball clubs that were offering washed up and spent C-Webb $6M a year.
Given Generic Pargo's penchant for chucking and horrible scoring efficiency, the NBA is a better place thanks to the Russians signgng his ass and saving NBA fans from having to watch him in action.
i'm gonna have to somewhat agree with DD that anybody leaving weakens the NBA. now that doesn't include a dickau or boykins b/c guys who have basically fallen out of the NBA have always left for europe. and yes, over the course of time, we have received a huge amount more from foreign players coming in than have left. but as i see it, whoever comes over from europe/SA/asia, whoever retires, whoever comes from college will continue to be what it is, while losing actual players to europe is new. i don't think we're getting anything extra from europe b/c we lost childress. european teams having enough money to steal actual players (which really is childress and pargo right now) is a new variable and if they were to continue to have more money, the NBA almost can't make enough money to pay every 7th-8th guy more than a 1st guy in europe. now is anyone other than the 4 hardcore hawks fans going to lose any sleep over josh childress not being in the nba next season? no. random injuries can cause far bigger losses in any given season. but it does make the hawks a weaker team and, as a result, makes the nba weaker, however slighly. if in the future 20 or 30 actual rotation guys leave, we're even weaker. like others have said, rotation players are still easy to find, but replacing every 6th with a 7th, every 7th with an 8th, etc isn't good. and if the occasional 3rd or 4th rotation guy leaves, it just isn't good. not that i'm sure there's a real solution. the nba can't help being so much better that the hawks 6th man can get by far the best contract in europe and players aren't going to stop liking money. as a basketball fan, i want all of the best players in the same league, not a slightly watered down NBA with slightly, uhh, watered-up euroleagues b/c that doesn't make the euroleagues any more compelling and just hurts the nba. but we'll see if this is a temporary trend, a small jump step equaled by more europeans jumping in to take the old spots, or whatever.
Overall NOW the NBA is still pulling more talent from Europe than Europe is pulling from the NBA. However, BEFORE virtually all the talent was flowing from Europe to the USA with hardly any going the other way. The trend seems to be going against the NBA.
The global talent pool for basketball is growing, perhaps dramatically. This is because the global demand and popularity of basketball is growing. I think there is a good chance the influx of foreign players into the NBA will more than negate movement the other way. I think we have to wait a while before judging the impact. As long as the NBA generates mega-millions of dollars while the Euroleague pales in $$$ comparison, there probably isn't much to worry about. It would be nice if there weren't any competition for players but you can't have it both ways. The worldwide growth of basketball that creates more NBA-level players also creates more demand for their services overseas. Players like Marc Gasol, Rudy Fernandez and (probably) Ricky Rubio will negate the impact of guys like Josh Childress leaving. Only when the Euroleague teams start averaging $40/50/60 million in payroll, we will have a big problem.
That's not true at all. In fact it's the exact opposite. The flow used to be one way - with virtually ALL of it being Americans going to Europe - virtually NO Europeans coming to the US. Why was Kobe Bryant growing up in Italy...and which Italian players were playing in the US at the time? Before the US sent people - NBA HOF quality players - to Europe. Europe sent nothing this way. Now we cream skim off of Europe for all-stars and send bench players to Europe. I'm happy with that change.
