Claver and Rudy are apples and oranges. Rudy was good enough to come over right away and that's what we wanted him to do. Only contract problems stopped it (of course without those problems he would have been drafted higher). Claver, OTOH, was not good enough to join the team right away - he had/has what KP believes to be "great potential." We'll see - or if multiple posters here are right, we won't. I agree that we should have drafted Blair + Casspi, but I do really like Cunningham.
nonsense. Larry Coon NBA CBA Basically, you can sign a Eurostash to the MLE after three years. The current largest contract in Europe (Childress) is worth $20m over three years, the current max MLE is $17.4m over three years (5.8*3). I have a hard time seeing any worthwhile player giving up $2.6m to play in a lesser league, especially when you consider potential earnings on the second contract. My conclusion is that the Eurostash is still a very viable option for NBA teams, and that with enough patience, nothing is going to prevent an NBA team from luring in a foreign player.
Thank you. I was about to post the same thing. Stashing players in Europe can still be a successful way to build a team. It just takes patience. We'll begin to see the fruits to this approach this offseason, or the next, with our own eligible Euro, Freeland.
its actually more than that as you can also add 10% raises to the first and subsequent years. sheed just signed 6.5/6.3/6.7 =18.8, also nba is guaranteed. claver is a special talent, 6'10" or so, slam dunk champ, nice outside game, he is only 21, very athletic, 8th in acb in defensive rebounds, hes a beast. if the biggest problem is, "hes gonna be too good to come here for cheap" i can live with that for a couple years until we can MLE him. i really like casspi too, but its not like i couldnt imagine claver putting up 12/5 in 29 minutes a game on the kings.
All true. But, salaries in the NBA are going down rather dramatically, which means the MLE will go down by a comparable amount over the next three years. Salaries in Europe are going up. Thus the delta between what we can offer Claver and what he can get in Europe will grow between now and when the three year rookie scale provision expires. It also means we need to use our MLE to sign a player we already have rights to. So, that player cost us both a 1st round pick AND the ability to sign another player. This, of course, assumes the Blazers will be over the cap. They will be due to the extensions Roy and Aldridge signed and the ones Oden, Batum, Fernandez, etc. will likely sign. BNM
Nailed it. What player in their right mind would want to go to a foreign country, take less money, play less and put up with battling for table scraps (which pretty much makes it impossible to get a second big contract when they can just stay at home, make more money, take less of a pounding and be a bigger star? Not everybody is motivated by playing for a ring, especially young players who are mostly motivated by playing for their first free agent contract.
Claver was a first round pick. There is no rookie pay scale for 2nd round picks. So, using a 2nd round pick for a Eurostash can make more sense than using a first round pick. BNM
If he's really that good, he'll likely be locked up to a long term contract in Europe before the 3-year rookie scale provision expires. And even if he's not, will the shrinking MLE be enough to lure him away for a more lucrative offer to stay in Europe? Players in Europe often get a lot of very valuable perks in addition to their salary (housing, cars, favorable tax situtations, etc.) that make the true value of their contracts much greater than their base salary indicates. BNM
Link? I was under the impression European salaries have declined more than the NBA in the last year or so.
Incorrect. "Agent Jim Tanner said Wednesday the three-year deal was worth about $20 million after taxes. The money is guaranteed, and Childress can opt out of the contract after each year." Which means, by the time you pay state, federal and FICA taxes, Childress' contract is worth about $40 million USD. What will the MLE be 3 years from now, maybe $5 million? If Claver is good, as in REALLY good, he would still likely forfeit well in excess of $10 million in salary and benefits to play for the Blazers compared to what he could get in Europe. BNM
yeah, you keep saying that. the easy counter argument is... why dont all americans go play there if it is so superior? because they are scared of being away from their mommies? "its scary there, i dont want a shitload of money" claver declared for the draft, i think that is a clue he wants to come here. nicola pekovic and tiago splitter, the consensus two best euro players, have both been rumored to come over this summer. not sure why though, they can just stay there and be heros with free cars.
why did rudy come here? why did batum come here? casspi? Jerebko? marc gasol was the acb MVP im sure he had some great offers. i literally could go ON and ON.
They come over when there is the potential to get plugged into the lineup. Now if LMA is traded or leaves in free agency at some point, then maybe there is more of a reason for Claver to leave and come here. Right now though? Claver is a 3/4 which means competing with either LaMarcus or Nic for minutes and within 2 years do you really think either of those guys are going to be ceding many minutes to a 24 year old Spanish 'rookie'? I sure don't.
I don't have a link to those exact items, but here's alink to an older article that explains how a European 2 million euro salary is equal to a $5.5 million MLE salary. The two factors are exchange rate and European salaries are reported as net, after tax income. The exchange rate has dropped since that article, but Childress' 4.5 million euro salary is worth almost 2x the MLE. BNM
When Batum came over, there was no expectation that he'd be "plugged into the lineup." There was even a lot of speculation that he'd be in the D-League. That he worked his way into the lineup was a big upset (and one of the first signs that he may have special talent). So I don't think players only come over when it seems likely they'll make the rotation.
yeah me neither, although it cant hurt in negotiations. like i said, if the worst thing about him becomes that he is too good to come here, ill take it.
Rudy was a rare exception - a player who forfeited a ton of money to realize his dream to play in the NBA. Don't assume because Pritchard sweet talked Rudy into giving up millions he'll be able to do the same to any other established european player. The others you mentioned were not established stars in Europe, or were 2nd round picks not subject to the rookie salary scale. As I said in my other posts, if you draft a euro late in the first round, you better bring them over right away (Batum), and you are better using a 2nd round pick (Gasol) on a eurostash. Gasol, for example was picked later in the draft than Rudy, but is making 3x as much money (no rookie salary scale for 2nd rounders). Again, my point wasn't to NOT draft European players. The point was that if you draft them late in the first round, you better bring them over right away (not stash them and let them develop in Europe) - or if you do plan to stash a young euro, you're better off using a 2nd round pick than a late first rounder. BNM
Why not declare. It gives him more options and a negotiating chip. Splitter was expected to be a high lottery pick for 3 years in a row, but kept pulling out of the draft. He was finally drafted 28th by the Spurs in 2007 - when he was automatically eligible for the draft (due to being over 22 years old). His current contract expires at the end of this season. It will be interesting to see if the Spurs will be able to convince him to come over, or if he'll take more money to stay in Europe. BNM
so chris wallace was able to convince marc gasol of the same thing...doest actually seem so rare. after 3 years, the rookie scale is irrelevant, i really dont understand why you keep mentioning that. while it may be theoretically better to draft them in the 2nd round, doest it then make some sense to grab them in the 1st before someone else does? its not a perfect world, we cant always have exactly what we want, and we have to adapt. i know you arent saying NOT to draft euros, that would be rediculous. tiago splitter was a late 1st by the spurs and is now a star in europe and one of the best players. and will likely come over to the spurs this summer. the only reason that claver will not come to the nba is if he isnt good enough.
