There are actually many 2nd round draft picks already in Europe. Maarty Leunen is going over there also. Some of the older NBA players opt to play in Europe for more money than in the USA for the vet's minimum. It's been like that for years. It's nothing new.
I agree, Europe is no more a weak basketball market, there are hell of good players there. I bet some of the strongest Euro teams can compete with the weakest in the NBA fairly.
it's got to be like the way soccer is set up between various leagues. they all have their own leagues that they play with, like the english premier league or serie a. the regular season is played amongst the teams in your league, and a set number of teams from each league advances to the european champions league at the end of the regular season. the regular season would still decide your respective league's champion. so the NBA would play against NBA competition, and crown an NBA champion. however, the top 4 teams from the NBA would also advance to an international championship tournament, along with say the top 2 teams from the spanish league, greek league, russian, etc... the problem with this system would be the time difference IMO. in soccer, the european club teams play each other because they are close by. the south american club teams, asian club teams... they all have their own multi-league tournament for soccer for their own region. the NBA will probably remain on their own except possibly playing exhibition matches against euro clubs. it'll be interesting to see if european basketball decides to set up a similar champions league style tournament like soccer has. or do they already have a tournament like that...
Look what I found on google. A link of NBA players to migrated from the NBA to europe. If you go to the link and click on the player's names, you can get the player's european statistics and some comments. There are a total of 67 players. This has been going for years. Even Magic Johnson and Bill Laimbeer went to Europe. There is not some new flood of players. http://www.geocities.com/tzovas/nbastars/ Abdul-Rauf, Mahmoud Anderson, Kenny Anderson, Willie Armstrong, Darrell Bailey, Thurl Benjamin, Benoit Berry, Walter Blackman, Rolando Bowie, Anthony Bradley, Bill Brown, P.J. Catledge, Terry Chambers, Tom Dantley, Adrian Davis, Antonio Dawkins, Darryl Del Negro, Vinnie Donaldson, James Dumas, Richard Edwards, Blue Elie, Mario English, Alex Garrett, Dean Gatling, Chris Gervin, George Gilmore, Artis Grant, Gary Haslem, Udonis Higgins, Rod Jackson, Marc Johnson, Buck Johnson, Eddie Johnson, Magic Laimbeer, Bill Mahorn, Rick Malone, Jeff Mason, Anthony McAdoo, Bobb McDaniel, Xavier McInnis, Jeff Miller, Oliver Mills, Terry Morris, Chris Murdock, Eric Murray, Tracy Nixon, Norm Pack, Robert Patterson, Ruben Pierce, Ricky Pippen, Scottie Rambis, Kurt Richardson, Sugar Ray Rodman, Dennis Sampson, Ralph Scott, Byron Shaw, Brian Skiles, Scott Tarpley, Roy Theus, Reggie Threatt, Sedale Trent, Gary Wallace, Ben Webb, Spud Wiggins, Mitchell Wilkins, Dominique Williams, John Sam Woolridge, Orlando
yeah it's called the euroleague. and one correction, the champions league isn't after the domestic season. it runs side by side with the domestic season and is played mid-week (tuesdays and wednesdays). also since it's run side by side with the regular season the participants are picked based on their finish in the previous season. e.g., the 2008-09 champions league participants will be based on how they did in the 2007-08 domestic season. i think the term "world champions" that all the winners of american sports leagues use is less egotistical when it comes to the nba simply because basketball is a global sport and the best players in the world all ply their trade in the nba.
Salary cap needs to be raised, otherwise it's just gonna be stars and scrubs on a team, with all the 2nd tier talent going to Europe.
Stern's on the job on that one he already created a NBA-Europe-China Relationship, it's a shame our players are leaving just because of money..
The thing is, as long as the NBA remains known as the toughest basketball league in the world, I don't see the talent level dropping all that much anytime soon. True, the 2nd-tier, MLE-level talent here will probably have Europe as a viable option. But on the flip side, there are many top-tier talent there who would want to compete with the best, which will still be in the NBA. Unless, of course, teams over there start throwing crazy money at your Tmacs, LeBrons and Wades. Which in all likelihood, will never happen.
Mate, I hate to say it but if nopthing is done it WILL happen. Imagine what it would be like for a Euro team to be able to get a top class player like say Wade. Imagine the massive boost, not only to the club, but to the gos involved running the club. As Ive said today on another forum about another sport struggling with this same problem, when you look at the finances of these clubs, it just doesnt seem to add up. You wonder how they can afford to shell out so much money for players when the teams just dont seem to be making all that much money. Its because its all run by rich men with egos.....and at the end of the day money is rules.
Yes, they're funded by Russian oil money. But why I say it will likely never happen is due to the difference in marketability. No top-tier talent here will bolt for the Euros simply because of this fact. If they bolt, even if the top Euro teams can offer comparatively up to the NBA's max level contracts, they would still lose out on endorsement dollars. You think Nike won't balk at LeBron going from the NBA to a Euro league? At the very least, they'll attempt to cut his endorsement dollars. At worst they'll ask for a mutual termination if possible. Exposure = marketability for these guys. Unfortunately, even the best of the Euro leagues, to my knowledge, can't neither compare with the NBA in terms of fanbase or international exposure. As long as that doesn't change, the top-tier talent will always remain in the NBA. The challenge then becomes finding replacement mid-level talent that's good enough to help teams compete at a high level still.
Getting top players from the main league isn't that difficult if you have enough money. Remember the USFL was able to sign marquee players like Hershel Walker and Jim Kelly? I know. The USFL folded quickly. But the Euroleague is different. They don't have to compete in the same market with the NBA like the USFL did with the NFL. They have their own fan base, and they have their own home grown players. If they can lure a few top tier players, it will be a whole new ball game (no pun intended).
The real silly part is that people actually get worked up whenever I point out the silliness of this world champion thing.
I may be mistaken about this but for many European countries aren't they not taxed on income (or not taxed heavily) but instead pay high sales taxes due to value added taxation? Also could the taxation rules apply differently to foreigners than they do to citizens?
Clubs will make up for the lost endorsements. Its a weird sporting mentality that your dealing with TBH. In Australia and the US, we see sporting achievement as developing young players, they come into the "big leagues" and they go on to become top players. In Europe, because of soccer I guess, its just about buying the best players you can, and thats satisfies them even if it means killing off their own player development.
If europe was a country and not a continent, it would be much easier to create a league capable of overthrowing stern's, after all, some of the best players are foreign. But For every tau ceramica, there are 15 vive menorcas absorbing possible role players. Maybe one day, a great nation will unite all of europe into a union, under a democracy of course. Then,the former countries( now states) would be allowed 2 teams per state. This new way foward would allow an abundance of talent to go around. I don't know if this has ever been attempted, but it has a great chance of working. Best regards, losef
you should do better research because what you conclude from this is wrong. it's true, there were already nba players going to europe many years ago. still, it's a different situation. a couple years ago team usa and the nba were way superior to the rest of the world. nba players played in europe either before they made it in the nba or after their career was basically over. especially the big names on your list played in europe after their respective nba career came to an end. they earned their money, enjoyed their fame and played a little ball before going into actual retirement. this was possible because of the huge gap between the usa and the rest of the world. those players got their money because they were famous and because they still could average stats like 26 ppg in europe even after their play in the nba declined to maybe 8 ppg. today it's a totally different situation. the gap between the usa and the rest of the world is as close as it ever has been. players can't just go over to europe after their nba career and expect to get a huge contract and average unbelievable numbers. those days are over for most players. so we can whitness a different situation. there are european stars and talents that don't want to go over to the nba because they can earn more in europe and still be a star player on a good team in a good league. a couple of years ago almost any european star player would've killed for a chance to play in the nba. today, this is already different. then, we have players that are capable of being a solid contributor on any nba team going over to europe. those guys are not stars past their prime living by their fame. they are solid nba players in their prime. that's also a situation that's new. another new situation is that more and more us college players who couldn't get a job in the nba go over to europe and have to switch team after team because they can't really fit in. so, what does this all mean? international basketball will get better faster because the level of talent will increase. we're in a situation where the average nba player could probably earn more money in europe. the fiba has already adjusted it's rules to a more nba orientated style. the european style and the american style will mesh even more. with the better competition there will be better talents and more fans. this is a natural thing and can't be stopped. we'll get to a time when most nba teams won't be better than the european top teams. the euroleague will be comparable to the nba in terms of level of play. fewer international star players will go over to the nba. more good american players will play in europe. fewer us college players that couldn't land an nba job will get a job in europe. what can the nba do? well, basically nothing to stop it (the only thing that could stop it is if the euro loses it's value and the dollar begins to rise, which isn't likely.). stern can only work to make a profit out of it, for example by expanding the nba to europe.
Going to be pretty hard to do that, e.g. playing in 1000 seat arenas (not an exaggeration or a typo - a plurality of Greek league teams do in fact play in stadia with approximately 1000 seats or so - only 3 arenas are over 10k) is not that attractive nor lucrative Not really - years ago we weren't able to cream skim and get European players to come here to play. Now we are - see Scola financing his own buyout. Yes, the NBA might lose a few 12th men - but who cares, nobody who has been lost has been irreplaceable thus far, and quite frankly, to paraphrase Stephen A, noboby soon will be either.
I guess it's different, you still don't have Kobe going over to Europe. Nowadays, Europe is signing bench players from the Raptors and Nets, or signing Rocket's 15th man, Spanoulis. It's not that different than 2 years ago. Spanoulis couldn't make it in the NBA. Garbajosa is over the hill and going back to Europe, like all the former NBA All-stars. The difference is that Garbajosa wasn't an NBA All-star. While Pau Gasol, Yao Ming, Steve Nash, Dirk, Tony Parker, Luol Deng, Calderon and Ginobili stay in America. While young foreign talent like Biedrins, Yi, Gallinari, Scola, Batum, Bargnani, Ian Mahinmi, and Bogut have come to the USA. The majority of the foreign players going to Europe aren't 1st options on the NBA teams, not even 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th options. Nachbar, Spanoulis, Juan Carlos Navarro went back, but they never as good as the other foreign players. Childress can go to Europe and by the T-Mac of Greece like Spanoulis, because he's so much better than the talent in Europe. While Tony Parker, Ginobili, Steve Nash, Gasol, and Dirk duke it out for the NBA championship.
