This is the first baller I actually care about to defect. The others could be chalked up to culling the herd, and I really don’t care about having them on an NBA team, but Childress is a very nice up an coming talent.

I have also noticed that the summer league seems to have far less American players, who played in Europe and are now trying to make the NBA, than previous years. That surely has something with the weak dollar and the increasing overseas salaries. Why bust your ass to be a team’s 12th man and earn under a mill per year when you can chill in Europe for a far greater salary?

..but if you scrolled down a lil bit, you would see that Fox Sports (and I) had mentioned this earlier.

I don’t know how attached Manu is to San Antonio; I’d like to think he is, but he played for years in Italy before that. Maybe he’s always thought he’d go back at some point.

Nightmare scenario for Spurs fans: the Spurs are probably going to offer Manu an extension at, say, 10-12 million dollars per year. That works out to about $7 million after state and federal taxes (Texas doesn’t have a state tax, but he pays state income tax for games played in states with income tax). For comparison, THAT’S HOW MUCH JOSH CHILDRESS IS GETTING FROM OLYMPIAKOS!

If J-Chill can get that much, how much would Manu, the returning, conquering hero, two-time EuroLeague champion and MVP, command in, say, Spain or Italy?

Oh my goodness, this is freaking me out more than CMoney’s movie. If only I’d read ahead in that hitchhiker’s book I’d know for sure if Manu was going to retire a Spur.

http://www.draftexpress.com/article/Thoughts-on-the-Euro-Fever-2971/

It confirms what I suspected, that there is no real revenue to back up these signings. Apparently there are just 5 teams to worry about. There are 5 Euro teams with billionaire owners who will sign players on a lark, but the author doesn’t think they will throw away enough money to compete with NBA max contracts*, and doesn’t think that this is the start of a trend.

It has been a while since I have been to mainland Europe (I mostly go to Scandinavia these days), but when I lived in Madrid, Spain, professional basketball was never talked about, rarely seen, and rarely written about. You wouldn’t see someone proudly sporting a Real Madrid jersey, unless of course it was for futbol. Maybe basketball has picked up a bit, but I find it hard to believe that it will be competitive with the NBA (in terms of filling arenas and merchandising) anytime soon.

• Note that you have to pay quite a bit more to get a player to compete in relative obscurity in Europe.

BTW, Garbajosa signed with a Khimki Moscow.

Biedrins, Vujadick, Delonte West, and Landry are all threatening to sign with foreign teams. It is smart of their agents to capitalize on the foreign hype right now. The threats may be legit, or they may just be a way to parley their way to larger NBA contracts.

Of course, I will not shed any tears if Vujadick takes his annoying ways overseas. I also wouldn’t mind if our rival down the interstate loses Landry.

If Golden State loses Biedrins, they will be very thin up front. They will have a team with a bunch of shooting guards and small forwards. Even their power forwards are 6’9” finesse guys (Harrington and Turiaf). With their only centers and point guards lacking both experience and talent, they should be headed for the lottery next season.