Interesting article. My opinion is yes. The NBA needs their stars the most out of any of the 4 major leagues. The Packers can survive without Brett Favre, the Cavs without Lebron are another story. The NFL didn’t miss Michael Vick, the NBA would sorely miss Lebron.
The league has finally started to gain more respectability as the NBA has been able to move away from the thug and hip hop years of the early 2000s.
The NBA can not afford a mass exodus of star and mid level players. They’ve overexpanded and would need a serious contraction of teams to keep the competition world class.
Good lord, something happens twice and the sky falls in. Adande does not claim anywhere that this is going to kill the NBA, and that’s because it won’t. I’ll tell you why: the NBA won’t let it. The owners are rich and generally they’re not horribly stupid when it comes to money, so if they need to respond in order to keep the players who make money for them, they’ll do that.
Three primarily NBA players (two of them U.S.-born) have signed to play in Europe this year. Josh Childress did it because he wasn’t satisfied with the offer he was getting from a bad team and realized he’d make more playing in Greece. Earl Boykins did it because nobody in the NBA offered a job, so he’s going to make $3.5 million a year in Italy - not a staggering sum by NBA standards. Carlos Arroyo went to Europe because he lost his job as an NBA backup. Is this a sign portending greater competition from European teams? Yes. This is not an exodus of star players. It’s one midlevel player and two backups.
James was asked what it would take to get him to play in Europe, and he said he’d consider it for $50 million, or about two and a half times his current annual salary. Kobe said he’d take the same sum to play for his hometown team in Milan, which is worth about the same amount. The fact that they’d think about it at all is a sign that Europe is a bigger deal than it used to be, but it’s not like an American player is giving serious consideration to this idea right now. Both guys are under contract for another few years, and LeBron is due for a very big payday, his first super-huge contract, in 2010. That’s probably going to be a huge longterm deal - one that will keep him in the U.S. for probably seven years, and I don’t think he’s passing up that opportunity to play in Europe for a year.
I’m not a huge basketball fan, but IMO it would be awesome. The fact that soccer is a global sport is a big attraction to me, I’d like to see more sports like it.
What were the thug and hip hop years of the early 2000s? I remember back in the 90s Howard Stern used to play clips of basketball players being interviewed after games and they were all incoherent. They sounded like punch-drunk boxers. So I was very proud the other night when I saw the US team being interviewed and they were all very well spoken and seemed like good representatives of their country. I didn’t know who any of them were though.
I wasn’t comparing them to other black people. I was comparing them to punch-drunk basketball players, whose race I don’t even know because I heard them on the radio.
I’m not judging the comment, just noting the occasionally explosive phrase. Which was a little unfair, really - I don’t know what’s changed about now, or the early 2000s, compared to the “thug and hip hop years.” The only difference I can think of is that the players have to wear suits to press conferences because we all know throwback jerseys are too ghetto.
Athletes in general are just not great quotes, in my limited experience. They don’t talk about what they do a lot and most of them are afraid to overthink it.
The unfair thing about those interviews is that they are usually taken right after these poor fellows have been hauling butt up and down the court for 48 minutes.
It isn’t a racial or developmental issue. It is sheer fatigue.
I’ve heard Grant Hill interviewed right after a game and sound like Chewbacca.
One or two stars might depart when a team like olympiacos makes them an outrageous offer as a gimmick but its in no way going to lead to some massive exodus. The guys who hired Childress have already admitted they have no chance in recouping his cost, they just want to win games. Offering kobe 50 million might get them a few championships but not a lot of teams will be willing to lose a ton of money like that. Basketball in other countries is just not lucrative enough to lure the stars away from the NBA en masse or for very long.
Craig Sager: So Grant, you guys had a great quarter in the first and the second, the wheels fell off. It seems like they switched to playing zone and you guys didn’t react to that. Was that what happened in your estimation?
Grant Hill: Hrnaglalglaglaglaglaglalglalallllaaaaaaa.
Craig Sager: Right. Thanks for talking to us, Grant. Good luck in the second half.
Thus far, I haven’t seen or heard of any European teams offering huge contracts to stellar American players. Thus far, it’s just talk- talk that stars like LeBron James and Kobe Bryant are only too happy to exploit, to get better deals from NBA teams.
I’m not saying there aren’t any rich European teams that would be willing to shower big money on an American star or two. But so far, it hasn’t happened, and it’s not likely to benefit more than a few lucky players.
First, the “thug and hip-hop” era of the NBA never existed. The NBA has always had a certain proportion of complete and utter jackasses just as it has always had a certain proportion of classy, stand-up professionals. All that changed is the marketing, and that marketing was mostly driven by the likes of MTV, Pepsi, Nike and GM, not by the NBA or it’s players directly. In the 80’s the NBA’s most recognizable players were Larry and Magic, and in the 90’s it was Shaq, MJ and the Bulls. Those guys were all very good on camera and were largely positive roles models on the surface. They all had a pretty pleasant demeanor and wholesome image. Then, in the 2000s, Iverson was left as about the only high profile public player who wasn’t a high school kid or a European. Marketers and branding executives had to adjust and make the best out of what they had in what was a pretty bleak era for the NBA. The league didn’t make AI hip-hop, the league just had to sell itself with all that was available. Now that the talent level has gone back up and there are classy, professional players in high-profile markets once again that’s what they are selling. Don’t think that there are any fewer Iversons out there now, they still exist in large percentages, it’s just that they have more positive images that sell better now so you don’t see them anymore.
As for the NBA guys to Europe thing, no the NBA would not be screwed if it’s players went to Europe. The NCAA wasn’t killed when the best players started jumping straight to the Pros. The NFL wasn’t killed when many of the best players were going to the USFL. Fans are cheering for the uniforms. If LeBron and Kobe were in Europe then Chris Paul, Kevin Garnett and Deron Williams would be the most popular players in the league. If they all went overseas then the most popular players would be Dwayne Wade and Steve Nash and so on. The most popular players in the NBA, the STARS, are just the best players in the league at that moment. There’s enough talent to go around and “stars” going overseas would do nothing except change who gets labeled as a “star”.
More importantly, it’s simply not an issue. The only reason it’s even remotely a concern is because the US Dollar is at a major low point. There’s little reason to think that it’ll remain as low as it is now for an extended period of time. Teams in Europe can only now afford to offer competitive contracts to the NBA players because they are getting almost twice the value for their money, but in 18 months that probably won’t be the case. If Kobe went to Milan for $50 Mil (€33 Million) and the rate went to where it was 5 years ago how do you think Kobe would feel about “losing” $15 Million. If the exchange rate continues on it’s current rate then we might have something to worry about, but I don’t think that’s likely.
The exchange rate is a big factor in what’s going on right now, but the way you phrased it is a little off. It’s not about paying them in Euros, it’s about the strength of the Euro relative to the dollar. That’s why RickJay said what he saud,