Europe Competing with the NBA for Talent

"Affluent European teams tempting NBAers"
TheStar.com, Toronto Star
September 30, 2007
By Dave Feschuk

TREVISO, Italy

So here it is, the NBA's annual take-over-the-world tour. And maybe the Raptors' two-week jaunt through Italy and Spain inches the roundball globe just a little closer to what some have long considered its manifest destiny, a European Division for David Stern's mighty league.

Judging from this past summer, though, Europe's basketball power brokers aren't pining to be colonized. Instead, they're suddenly competing with the NBA for the kind of players that European teams, not long ago, had little chance at landing. And they're doing it with impressive stacks of euros, the high-flying currency that, as of yesterday, was worth $1.42 U.S.

So while some have scoffed at the Europe-bound threats of Andrei Kirilenko and Anderson Varejao, disgruntled NBA forwards who have both talked of the option of leaving the NBA for Europe, this summer has seen a flow of trans-Atlantic traffic in a heretofore unusual direction. And the movement, now that Chris Webber is reported to be considering a two-year deal with Greece's Olympiacos, could continue.

The prospective terms of the Webber deal – two years and a net takeaway of $10 to $12 million (all figures U.S.) for the 34-year-old free agent – are the latest set of stunning figures to be tossed around the Continent. Sarunas Jasikevicius, the Lithuanian point guard slated to make $4 million with the Golden State Warriors this season, agreed to a buyout and signed with Olympiacos's Greek-league rival Panathinaikos for a deal that that will pay him a net salary more than $4 million a year. Factoring in the exchange rate – and the fact his NBA salary was a pre-tax figure while his European salary is quoted in take-home pay – Jasikevicius would have had to sign an NBA deal worth about $8 or $9 million to bank the same amount.

The prospect of NBA-calibre players heading back to Europe, once essentially idle chatter, is now "a concrete threat," said Maurizio Gherardini, the Raptors' Italian-born assistant general manager.

"No one was expecting Europe to become such a quality alternative over these past two or three years," Gherardini said.

"I think the NBA teams need to understand that the European teams can put on the table some good contracts, something that, a few years ago, you couldn't even think of."

Most of the gains are at the bottom of the NBA food chain. Uros Slokar, the Slovenian forward who spent last season riding the bench for the Raptors, has found impressively gainful employment in the Russian league, more than tripling his take-home pay after earning $412,000 in the NBA last season. And the list goes on.

Maceo Baston, the Raptors forward from Dallas who has spent the majority of his nine-year pro career playing for teams in Italy, Spain and Israel, said that when piled atop the traditional benefits of playing on the old side of the Atlantic – the apartment and the car that are automatic throw-ins in most contracts – the deals are "surprising."

Where are these teams getting the money? The best-in-Europe Spanish league is booming. The Russian league counts among its owners a handful of mega-rich businessmen. Same goes for the Greek-league powers and a couple of teams in Istanbul, Turkey. The top team in Israel, Maccabi Tel Aviv, isn't averse to paying top dollar to secure talent. Even the comparatively modest salaries in the Italian league are on the rise.

"I still believe that there will never be enough money to attract the true superstars (to Europe)," Gherardini said. "But for an average player, if he has a true offer from Europe, you do not want to underestimate that. You have to respect he growth of basketball in Europe, because people love basketball and it's getting better and better."

http://www.thestar.com/Sports/article/261956