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Brandon Jennings Headed to Europe

Discussion in 'NBA Draft' started by ghost, Jul 8, 2008.

  1. The_Nine_Gates

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    If a team does not pay its players it must do so or is banned from its domestic league and from all European cups.

    The team can either declare bankruptcy and not pay its player and it would then be banned for 5 years from professional competitions and must become a junior or minor league club, or the team can pay the players and just get relegated to the lower 2nd division for making payments late.

    If a team in Italy A is offering Jennings 300k a year there is absolutely no way that this team has failed to pay any players. Each team gets reported on and there would be 5-10 low level Italian A teams that would have 5 years or more with never ever missing a player pay check.

    Any team that would sign him would be all guaranteed contracts. You are talking about division 2 teams that don't have guaranteed contracts. Why on earth would Jennings and his agent go to a division 2 team? the Italian equal of the NBDL?

    It's like saying a player is going to a Double AA team. It's not even a pertinent issue to the topic at hand IMHO.
     
  2. joliver325

    joliver325 Member

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    This dude has the potential to get paid. I'm sure shoe companies will want to get in on him early.

    http://collegebasketball.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=825218


    "Sources close to the process say the Jennings camp has explored numerous options over the past six weeks and garnered multiple professional opportunities in Europe. Each would pay well into the six figures for one season of work, and the most important determination on where Jennings will sign is based on the team's coaching staff and commitment to his development.

    If Jennings isn't comfortable with the international options, he also could take the year to work with a personal trainer and coach, most likely under the umbrella of a professional sports agent.

    Also interested in Jennings, according to industry sources, are shoe companies Nike and Reebok, both of whom might tender an endorsement contract immediately."
     
  3. Shaud

    Shaud Member

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    I'm guessing that his 2nd test was good enough to get him in Arizona but was red flagged because I guess the score was to high believe?

    I may be wrong though.
     
  4. King1

    King1 Member

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    I stated that early on in this debate as well. I thought there was a good chance he would have a shoe contract before ever stepping foot on an NBA floor. I also thought that he may go the personal trainer route (I think he will bring one with him to Europe anyways)
     
  5. King1

    King1 Member

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    That's what I heard. His second test score was red flagged and he had to take the test again. There was too much of a disparity in the rise of the score from the first test to the second one. This happened to Taurean Charles (who was supposed to be one of the best LBs in the country around 4 or 5 years ago). He ended up getting into Florida but was a huge head case and got into a bunch of trouble. He transfered to Bethune-Cookman and went undrafted. He was profiled on a movie called "The Year of The Bull".
     
  6. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    So he's going to go to Barcelona and be named the starting PG then?

    The guy wants to be a 1-and-done player in Europe andn wants to go to the draft lottery - 15 minutes as a backup for a middle class team?

    Goodbye lottery, hello second round!
     
  7. poprocks

    poprocks Member

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    found an intereting article on the internet about the NBA and the Expansion of the Euroleague. It's kind of old as it was written in Oct. of 2007.

    Basketball’s Globalization will breakup NBA’s Monopoly

    http://www.interbasket.net/news/116...ion-of-basketball-will-breakup-nbas-monopoly/

    Then there's this from a writer who obviously knows Brandon Jennings personally. According to this story, the second time he did very well on his testing but because there was such a huge discrepency they made him go three times. So it's off to Europe he goes.

    http://slamonline.com/online/2008/07/props-brandon/

    You do YOU, Brandon Jennings.

    I sent Brandon Jennings an email the other night — partly to congratulate him for what he’s shown the balls to do, and partly to wish him well on what he’s trying to do now. By now you know what “it” is: Brandon Jennings is backing out on his commitment to Arizona to play professional basketball next season in Europe.

    Unsurprisingly, a lot of people have a lot of opinions on this topic. Mine is already public knowledge.

    Dan Shanoff shares my view of the situation.

    His colleague Mike DeCourcy, meanwhile, is about 180 degrees away. I sat on a media panel with DeCourcy at the LeBron James Skills Academy over the weekend, and I respect dude’s experience and knowledge (although he does need to update the headshot on his column; having seen him three days ago, this photo looks to be about 20 years old). He makes a lot of very valid points here, and he might end up being right about all this. But I think he (and my colleague Lang) are missing a couple things in all this. And because Lang and I enjoy few things more than disagreeing with each other, I feel compelled to outline exactly what they’re missing below…

    1, Brandon Jennings apparently did quite well on his standardized test the second time he took it, but because he hadn’t done well the first time, the testing company was suspicious and asked him to take it again. Anyone reading this who ever had to take the SAT or ACT once can imagine how much fun it wouldn’t be to have to take it two times, let alone three.

    2, It’s not as if dude is googling the names of European club teams and cold calling their front offices in the hope of reaching someone who speaks English. There are people involved on his behalf — specifically Sonny Vaccaro, who knows everything about this game and everyone in it — working to make sure that it works. That’s not to say it WILL work, of course; the point is only that Brandon Jennings and his family aren’t the only ones with something at stake here. Sonny’s been dreaming of pulling off a move like this for YEARS, and he’s been laying the groundwork for a minute. His legacy is on the line to an extent, and I promise you that’s not something he takes lightly. The people involved in making this happen know what they’re doing, and they’re doing everything they can to make it work. That’ll almost definitely mean built-in endorsement cash that no flaky Euroleague GM will be able to flake out on. It’ll mean TONS of media coverage, which will raise Brandon’s profile and long-term earning potential. And it’ll mean working with a European team that has a vested interested in making this work for them, as well.

    3, All this talk of Brandon Jennings being exposed by a year in Europe is valid, but only to a point. Put it another way: Did anyone watch this year’s NBA Draft? Particularly the part in the first round when some dude named Alexis Ajinca was taken 20th overall by the Bobcats? I hadn’t heard much of Ajinca before the Draft, and I don’t know much about him now. But I do now this: In two professional seasons in France, Ajinca averaged a whopping 4.7 points and 3.1 rebounds per game. So tell me, did Alex get “exposed” by all that top-notch competition in what is probably Europe’s third or fourth (or fifth?) best league? Well, I imagine the folks in the Bobcats’ front office (whoever they might be) would argue that Ajinca has a ton of potential — that he’s a project, and they drafted him as such. Besides, he’s a seven-footer.
     
  8. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    Compared to March Madness?

    INCREDIBLE FAIL...brandon jennings SAT fail
     
  9. DaDakota

    DaDakota Balance wins
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    What guarantee do you have that Arizona will make March Madness?

    EPIC FAIL !!!!

    DD
     
  10. joliver325

    joliver325 Member

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    Hell if a dude can get drafted in the first round (alex ajinca) from the Euro league averaging 5.5 pts and 5 rebounds a game, I think Jennings will be ok.

    If a player could be projected in the lottery and play on the 2nd tier division of his european team and also be close in rankings to Brandon Jennings (rick rubio) I think he will be just fine.
     
  11. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    With Jennings? Pretty high.
     
  12. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    Would you rather be Alex Ajanca or Jeryld Bayless/Derrick Rose?
     
  13. joliver325

    joliver325 Member

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    Do you even want to see this cat make it successfully?
     
  14. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    Not really, he seems like a douche.

    When people act like it's a penalty and slavery to be handed a $200,000 college education, simply because they can run and jump, it's very aggravating and ridiculous to me, given that 99.9999 percent of all people/high schoolers would absolutely kill to be in his situation.

    The guy does not seem like a guy who wants to work, he has a tremendous sense of entitlement - I don't like to throw around the "selfish player" label but in this case there's a bit of warning.
     
  15. The_Nine_Gates

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    Every division 1 team in Italy would be a guaranteed contract. That agent is some idiot who doesn't know what he is talking about. Let's try to keep the debate to pertinent issues.

    Because not having a guaranteed contract is a division 2 team. And he's not going to a division 2 team and no division 2 team would ever pay him 300k because their whole budget would be about 500k. It's not at all relevant to this debate.

    As for playing 15 minutes in a mid class Italian team hurting draft stock? It could indeed, but only if he plays poorly. If he played well his stock would go up. Do you realize that Ricky Rubio played last year on a mid level Spanish team and last year was in the Euroleague's version of the NBDL? Do you realize that in this mid level Spanish club that wasn't even in the Euroleague but was in the 2nd level ULEB Cup that Mr. Rubio was a backup?

    This guy is rated #1 on the NBA draft boards for next year and Jennings is rated 4-5. If the guy played well his draft stock would go up, if he played bad it would go down, it's that simple. Italy A is a better level than the NCAA tournament and every scout and GM knows that. A guy like Ricky Rubio is a backup on a mid level Spanish club that wasn't even in the Euroleague level but the 2nd pro level of ULEB. It's like the NBDL to the NBA and this equivalent of being a backup in the NBDL of Europe is #1 on all NBA draft boards because of his age and because he's playing well in a level that is above NCAA and against grown men.

    The same would be true for Jennings but even if he played poorly his stock would only go down a little bit, no way to 2nd round because again it's a higher level than the NCAA and it's versus grown men, not boys.
     
  16. joliver325

    joliver325 Member

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    I wouldn't want to be Chris Thomas (Notre Dame) or Deandre Jordan (Texas A&M). Projected lottery to FAIL=Chris Thomas, Projected lottery to 2nd round=DJ

    I don't see how that question you brought up qualifies anything?
     
  17. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    Playing well in NCAA = huge advantage as far as draft position, endorsements, etc.
     
  18. The_Nine_Gates

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    That's 5 points and 5 rebounds in the French league. Euroleague is the best league in Europe, French league is easily one of the very worst, maybe the 8th-12th best league in Europe, somewhere in that range. That was just a bizarre draft pick.
     
  19. Shaud

    Shaud Member

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    He said he didn't try the 1st test, if they are going to red flag scores I don't get the point in giving a re-test.
     
  20. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    LOL - well if Italy A is better than why was Galinari not even in the same stratosphere as Rose or Beasley this year?
     

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