I wouldn't be happy but I certainly wouldn't wish that "he miserably failed" as you so elequently put it. He's not running with any money now as he's yet to sign with a team. People on the board who seem to have solid knowledge of the leagues overseas have said he doesn't stand to make much money. I don't have a problem with frustation at all. however, wishing a kid to fail miserably because he elected not to go to your second favorite college program is completely ridiculous in my mind. I am not a fan of Terrelle Pryor's act at all but i don't wish the guy failure. it just doesn't make sense to me.
Isn't life about doing what you love, getting paid, and taking care of your family. I could have still been teaching school, coaching, ad waiting my 30 yrs. Instead, I ventured out, started my own business and now I get to dispute DD on this board, chill with my wife and kids, and watch and analyze the hoop games I have on my 300 gig worth of hard drive. People may say he's dumb or he's lost money, but its easy for outsiders to say go to college, make money for Big State and wait 2 yrs, but what if u live in the projects, your mom work 3 jobs, and you eat ramen noodles every night? I'm happy for the kid because I believe in training for your future profession. So what if he gets drafted late 1st rd or so. The league will shake u down and the 2nd contract is the one anyway. Arenas just got maxxed out. Lewis makes over 100m for his contract. When he comes back, if he can't play, he can go back to europe. If he can, then he could get his 9m tony parker or mo williams money. Either way he's doing what he likes to do and being rewarded. How many of u made 100k at 18 doing something you love. Hell a lot of you are 48 and don't make 100k and is working doing something u don't like.
Great move by Jennings. Hopefully it will open the door for others to do the same. The NBA rule of being 19 is silly and I'd much rather make 6 figures in Europe than make a ton of money for a university and not really see anything in return.
Jennings had had people sucking his _ for his entire life and would have gone to U of A had he been able to make the grade, so I hardly think that he's the hardship case you are implying.
Whose to say he didnt get guaranteed money. A. plethora of American players are recruited to play overseas and make good money doing so. He would be getting paid much more than he would going to college knowing that he isnt planning on staying. If you sign a contract for guaranteed money then there isnt anything stupid about it. Even if he only gets 200K that's still good. College basketball does more pimping of athletes than anything.
From an article I posted last month: "The only guarantee with contracts in Europe," [an agent who represents American players in Europe]said, "is that you're guaranteed not to get all the money you're expecting."
The NCAA system that pimps black athletes and drove Brandon Jennings to Europe needs to be abolished now, Jason Whitlock says. http://msn.foxsports.com/cbk/story/8327672/Jennings-may-just-be-a-pioneer-for-'student-athletes'
I've read about some European clubs not paying out, especially in Russia. But for the most part if he hooks up with the higher tier teams like CSKA, AC Milan, etc. He's going to be taken care of much more than not recieving a dime in college. Plus he goes up against competition that is probably better than D1 basketball. Just think of the players that get drafted from overseas but stay b/c they are getting paid better...than the NBA (eventhough its just the rookie scale). Overseas ballclubs pay good money. Ask Scoonie Penn, Hollis Price, Trajan Langdon, all the other no name college players that went over there. Plus maybe he'll get a bit of culture.
If he hooks up with a higher tier team he's not going to play (and likely not going to get paid much either) - and his draft status drops.
Thats speculatory at best. These teams do their homework on American players and aren't held back my American rules when it comes to high school players. They know he is one of the top 5 high school players coming out and someone is going to want to pay to have his service. They may even try to lock him up to make it more lucrative to stay overseas. I definitely feel and agree with the points you bring up and there are some risk. But it isnt anymore of a risk not getting paid and risking injury that derails your whole career and kicks you out of school To be honest this could be a whole other discussion about college athletes not getting paid.
That's like saying "the only guarantee with pro basketball contracts in the USA is that you're guaranteed not to get all the money you're expecting because if you play in the CBA or ABA the team might fold." He's talking about second division or even minor league or junior division teams from domestic leagues. Like the French or Greek minor league division, etc. It would be like arguing there are no guaranteed contracts in the NBA because the USBL might have a team go bankrupt and some players didn't get all their money. What that agent said is absolutely ridiculous. Teams are banned from the Euroleague for 3 years if they fail to pay any player on their team. Even in domestic leagues like Italy or Greece teams are banned for 2-3 years from division 1 if they fail to pay players. That agent is a complete moron because there is no way Jennings will get 300k unless he is a division 1 league and it will have to be a pretty big league. They were speculating Italy, well a team would be banned for 2-3 years from the Italian league top division if it did not pay any players. And only a top division team would pay him even 300k as speculated. So what that agent said is just plain wrong and stupid.
I can't tell if you are serious or not, but I will say this. There is no reason that a person wouldn't be able to study for that exam and at least get a 530. Absolutely none. If he truly wanted to get into Arizona he could have worked hard academically in the first place or gotten help to prepare for the test and passed it. The fact that education isn't a priority at all to this kid exemplifies stupid in my opinion. Edit: Here's another example. One of the kids that committed to UK, DeAndre Liggins is not the smartest academically. However, he has taken the test three or four times and taken test prep classes (and had personal tutors) for the past year to help him get the grade he needed. It took till the very last ACT testing date for him to get the grade necessary to get into UK, but the word is that he did it. You don't have to be book smart to do well on those tests, you just have to work hard and be prepared.
Basically everybody who has studied the situation says that you are wrong on this. Even his agent is only floating 300k - they don't want one year rentals, which is Jennings declared plan.
You talk about presuming things but how do you know what his life has been like? If I recall correctly the guy played for Dominguez high school (which is located in Compton) before he showed all his talent and got a scholarship to a private school (like all the top athletes typically do). I'm not sure how his personal life was but you're presuming his had everything handed to him his entire life without being able to back it up with any factual evidence. You're starting to sound like you have personal anger against him. You're not the only person but to me I don't get it. Is it pathetic he couldn't get a 530 on his SAT? Yes. Do I think he would be better off at Arizona then Europe? Absolutely. Am I mad at the kid or do I wish him failure because of this? Not at all.
Who's saying I'm wrong? Its an opinion of mine but even if they are floating 300K I'd take that. He'd be stupid not to. Come on I know most people have money and grew up with money growing on trees but for the few who haven't 300K looks pretty good for 1 years service. The NBA pays guys for 10days of service, so I think Europeans dont mind doing it for a year. http://collegebasketball.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=825218
There are plenty of smaller Italian league clubs in division 1 that could sign him as a backup PG and pay him 300k. The main thing was when they said he wanted 800K that would have made it where whatever team he was on he would not be good enough to play at all. But at 300K it's a different story, he can be the main backup on a team in that level of pay scales. Teams that are not in the first level of pro basketball the Euroleague (where Spanoulis plays), or the 2nd level the ULEB CUP (where Rudy Fernandez and Ricky Rubio played last year) (they call it EuroCup now) or the 3rd level the FIBA Cup (now they call it the EuroChallenge), these Italian division 1 teams that are not in any of the top 3 tiers in Europe are indeed teams where he could get about 15 minutes as a backup and get paid about 300k. So, a team that just is in the top tier in Italy but not in any of the top 3 tiers in Europe. There are several teams in this category, he would be a backup probably get 15 minutes a game and could earn 300k. And he would be playing in front of about 7,000 fans a night because that is about typical for the top division in Italy. Keep in mind Ricky Rubio played in the 2nd level of Europe last year and was a backup. So for Jennings if he was in a team in two leagues lower level which he would be in one of these such described lower level Italy teams from top division of Italy, then I think indeed if his agent is trying to get him in a small club in Italy A then that is probably indeed the perfect place for him. 10-15 minutes in Italy A as a backup would help him a lot more than one year in NCAA would. Maybe not in draft stock but it would easily in the level of his game. Because Italy A is better than NCAA. And if he played really well at 19 in Italy A his draft stock would actually go up. Not only that if id didn't go up he could still get a big contract somewhere in Europe. An big Italian team like Montepaschi Siena, Lottomatica Roma, Olimpia Milano or a team like Olympiakos that always likes to sign young talents to big contracts. If he played really well in Italy A then any of these type teams would offer him probably 1-1.5 million euros net a year. So actually, what his agent is talking about would be just about perfect for him. But it is based on him taking more like 300k. That's a lot more realistic to work out. At 800k he would be on a team where he would probably be the 3rd string point guard.
I feel you but obviously he probably didnt study hard b/c his plan may not have been to truly go there. I believe, (only an opinion) that if he was serious about going there he would be doing his hardest to make it in.
