Sam, you are very defensive of this subject. Can I ask what your scared off? Do you really think that a Euro club will not one day attempt to pull this off? I dont understand how you can be so naive and say that it is impossible really I dont understand you? The world is getting smaller not bigger. things they said were impossible: In 1980 a CEO of a top computer company stated that by 2000 only 1 million households in the USA would be able to sustain a PC. Man will never walk on the moon BBS posters please feel free to add more impossible to possible
Okay, I've grown tired of this. Sorry, Sam, but I have to out you and your little scheme. People, is it so hard to figure out? Have you not seen the critical film Bad Lieutenant? "Leave it on the Mets," says Harvey Keitel, the titular character. And he took his colleagues' money, and bet on the Dodgers. Sam, like the bad lieutenant is investing heavily in european basketball. My sources tell me that he is moving into a minor ownership role of at least two teams. By then getting onto this incredibly influential bbs site, he attempts to influence American basketball fans and the NBA industry, so that they do not worry about the overseas competition. "Trust me, leave it on the Mets!" Let's hope this all works out better for Sam than it did for Harvey. (video removed... I listened to the language again, and it even gets racial. Anyway, Harvey heard Strawberry hit into a double-play and literally shot his car radio, which is awesome.)
European teams find overseas players more attractive. They will pay an American player what ever he wants at the expense of local players without any hesitation. As Ive said before, forget about how a club can afford it, if the team owners want a player, they'll make a ridiculous deal that make no financial sense at all to get him. Its happening in other sports right now and it will happen in Basketball. Just look at the stupid money some very average NBA players are getting now to head over. Give it time and it will happen. I just hope the NBA puts some moves in place that will mean NBA players heading over to play in Europe are joining European NBA teams so they are not lost to the top league.
Because it is impossible - too many things would have to happen for it to occur. First, unless the Cavs win the championship next year or the year after, LeBron would have to essentially give up the NBA and his dreams of winning a title - basically sacrifice his own legacy. Instead of being discussed with Jordan, Magic, etc - he will be discussed with the guys who never won titles (Barkley, Stockton etc), and even worse, he will be seen as a quitter who could not take the heat and went to a lesser barnyard. He would do all this for the sake of having an extra $50 mm U.S. in salary despite already having hundreds of millions. He better hope the check clears - because gone would be the lucrative endorsement deals he commands domestically - salary-wise it would be a complete wash. Second you'd have to find a European team willing to commit 100 million Euros to him in a guaranteed deal - the biggest euro deals in existence are about 1/10th to 1/5th the size - you are talking about the highest salary goind from about 6-7 million dollars or whatever childress gets basically going up 300-400%. The highest payroll in Europe currently is CSKA which is 30 million US$ - LeBron in Europe would have to command at least that much for himself alone. Of course he would also have to deal with the indignities of playing in European domestic leagues - playing in the smallest arenas and worst facilities he's played in since Junior high, wearing team polo shirts around smoke filled arenas, playign with guys like Terrence Morris etc That is going to be next to impossible because as I have said many times - the basketball market in Europe isn't big or lucrative enough to support it. Essentially you are asking the club owner (it would have to come from a privately owned club, a regular member-owned club doesn't have the resources) to plunk down $150 million in guarantees for a player in a sport where there are only 50-60 games a year and the payouts are not that great - I question whether CSKA at $30 million even turns a profit despite the fact that they won the euroleague last year - the payouts are simply not that much - even if they doubled their revenues by adding LeBron it's hard to see them doing much more than breaking even. Accordingly you need somebody who is basically willing to throw money away on a plaything and a player who is willing to compromise his career for it. As currently constituted - there is no way a European team in the near future will do this. It's no more likely than Cristiano Ronaldo suiting up for the Houston Dynamo next season.
...and here i was thinking you were going to post the traffic stop scene. I may indeed be long put options on Euroleague, but then I may be planning to slice the HK-Kowloon tether. Who knows which way I will go?
Well, it looks like 100 million Euro offers may soon become a reality! So I guess I as wrong! Of course, they will be about as valuable as a monopoly money, due to the crappy Greek economy singlehandedly setting off a chain reaction that is destroying the future of the Euro as a currency and all of Europe's economy. I guess Barnyard Ball was not enough of a buoy to save the ailing Hellenics. Hope Josh Childress deposited his checks and converted them to dollars, if he ever got any.
The irony of Greece overspending on assets that they can't afford and then destroying the Euro because of it is just too much for this thread in the whole microcosm sense. Oh the heady days of 2008, when the euro was poised to take over the world, the NBA with it. Fast forward...and now they're talking about bringing back the freaking drachma. On the plus side, maybe LeBron will buy a Greek team and play for it. He could probably pick one up for a couple of used headbands right about now.
