Being an NBA player ... what does that mean to you?
One of the first words out of almost anybody's mouth would be "money." I mean, you make the NBA, you make money.
(Some rookies would swear it is not true, but nobody believes them.)
But it just keeps happening. Josh Childress, Jannero Pargo, Carlos Arroyo, Carlos Delfino, Earl Boykins, Juan Carlos Navarro, Bostjan Nachbar, Nenad Krstic, Primoz Brezec, Loren Woods ... they could all be playing in the NBA if they wanted to. Yet they're all going to be playing overseas this season, and the primary reason is money.
Today Gordan Giricek joins the list, having just signed a two-year deal to play for Fenerbahce in Turkey.
Giricek's agent, Marc Fleisher, tells me that European teams are feeling everything has changed:
There is a new sense in Europe that anyone is available. It used to be that they would only go after certain kinds of NBA players. They would make offers to unrestricted free agents or to players who were at the end of their careers. But now they sense that there is an opportunity, thanks to the way the collective bargaining agreement is set up, that they can go after and get NBA players. It's a whole new world.
Fleisher adds that most European teams are wholly distinct from NBA teams in an important way. "They don't care about making money," he explains. "They are all about promoting the sponsor, or civic pride, or in the case of some clubs, national pride."
That changes the economics somewhat, as deep-pocketed teams could be motivated to spend beyond reason -- if the return is measured in something other than dollars.
