RT @PDXjay Talked to LaMarcus Aldridge on the sideline @ Oregon/LSU game. Told me his agent pursuing deal to play overseas during lockout. TweetDeck • 9/5/11 1:47 PM Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk..... Cause I'm a balla'!
RT @PDXjay LA says competition in countries like Greece & Turkey is good enough to challenge him & help him improve his game. TweetDeck • 9/5/11 1:48 PM Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk..... Cause I'm a balla'!
Who could blame him. But we're seeing the NBA players are quickly becoming the "haves" and "have nots". The lesser players are being squeezed out.
I just don't want him getting hurt playing in some Beyond ThunderDome type gym in the mountain region of Eastern Turkey!
It seems to me that the lesser players are more likely to actually SIGN overseas than to just talk about it. We'll see if that changes as the lockout moves on, but we haven't seen many starting-level NBA players sign with other leagues just yet. I think it's much easier to talk about moving to Greece or Turkey than to actually do it. Ed O.
Money isn't the main motivator. Dedicated athletes are an abnormal species who crave physical activity. They schedule their whole day around the legal chemical supplements they concoct, and refuse any human presence if it interferes with their daily trip to the gym. If they stop this schedule, they are psychologically lost. It's their whole life, the mental structure keeping them sane. All this activity is for nought if they aren't in a league somewhere. Speaking of money, which is only the second motivator, I'm tired of reading, "They can't make as much there as here." It's still a thousand times what their friends make at the 7-11, and their friends remind them of it daily. It's still big, big bucks.
I think he needs to stay home with his family. That seems to be important to him, and rightfully so. So take advantage of the time off. Although I certainly would not blame if him he did want to experience playing in Europe. But I would be surprised if he did.
All I got from this was... he was on the sidelines at the Oregon/LSU game? Maybe we've converted him to an Oregonian! Yay!
I have a claim going with a recent NCAA all-american who went undrafted (although on some mock drafts he was listed as a late second round pick) and failed to hook up as a free agent. He's now in Turkey playing in their top pro league. Since I have full knowledge of his pay (for claims reasons), I can tell you it's less than $60K per season. So I think the vast amount of these leagues are paying very poorly.
An undrafted player is paid $60K and we're using that as a predictor for what an NBA starter like Aldridge would be paid? A better comparison for your client would be to ask what he'd be paid in the D-League, since that's where he be here. Looks like they pay a lot more in Europe than here. At the bottom of this page, it says http://www.insidehoops.com/nbdl.shtml
Interesting. I think that definitely stands to reason. Turkey has a per capita GDP of about 25% of the USA and there are only two basketball stadiums in Turkey that hold more than 5,000 fans. http://www.worldstadiums.com/middle_east/countries/turkey/marmara.shtml Add this to what is presumably a relatively weak corporate base and you get... crappy salaries Ed O.
Certainly better players would get more money, and famous ones might even get a premium, but the money just ain't there. There is no NBA-like machine creating revenues to pay players in Turkey. Ed O.
They offered Kobe Bryant over a million a month and he turned it down. Deron Williams is making something like $600K per month there. So even though they pay D-League quality players more than here, they pay NBA starters a quarter of what they make here. Big deal. It's still far more than any alternative lockout job. I answered it right here.
I don't see any evidence that international teams would be able to pay the majority of NBA starters a quarter (or more) of the average NBA starter salary. There are a few massively wealthy owners that will pay a player or two huge salaries, but that doesn't mean that there are jobs for dozens of quality NBA starters. Ed O.
You expanded my sample size from two (Willams and Kobe) to all NBA starters. I was talking about the two we have numbers for. And the quarter might be a fifth or third; I didn't look it up. The point is that the lower players seem to make more there than in the D-League, the big stars seem to make less (consistent with the U.S. being more capitalist), and whatever, it's still a lot more than they can otherwise make during the lockout at 7-11. Sportswriters keep saying that players should sit out this year because Europe doesn't pay as much as the NBA. It makes no sense.
