Okay, now that we’ve seen that the Josh Childress/Greecian Team deal is actually worth 32.5M over three years, there’s only one question everyone in and/or around basketball needs to ask:
What happens when some EuroTeam offers LeBron $50M a year in 2010?
Why wouldn’t he go? That’s more than he makes in 3 years here, and he’d probably make another $50M in endorsements – he’d be like the tallest, coolest, most popular person in all of Europe, and they’d all be salivating in their snails and crumpets and chips because they stole an American icon.
Factor in the tax (or non-tax) implications, and it’s an easy one-year money grab.
MJ took a sabbatical from the NBA, so why not LeBron? Especially to basically make a bonus $100M, win a Euro-league title, and do stuff with all kinds of Greek ladies.
LeBron’s stated goals:
1) Become global icon.
2) Become as rich as possible.
3) See all the big summer movies.
4) Basketball related things.
This is a huge issue, and more people should be talking about it, cause it’s gonna happen. Might not be LeBron particularly, but someone big is gonna go.
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What about if a certain movie is released in Europe instead of here in the good ol’ USA? Will the Euros find it funnier? Could they understand it’s humor?
Tell you what, LeBron may be too big, but what about someone who never really made it to superstar status in the NBA? Someone like Jermaine O’Neal, TJ Ford, Calderon, Nene, Camby… even Carmelo… Prince, Hamilton even. This opens a new door to a lot of people. A LOT. Will get interesting sooner rather than later.
Marblebury floated it awhile ago as a post-retirement option, as well.
David Beckham left millions on the table to come play in America for more millions. The Knife cuts both ways.
what about kobe? he has a bigger recognizable factor than Lebron and he’s the best in the league. Imagine some big time Euro league team owner offering KB about 90 million Euro over 5 years to sign with an Euro team. He’d get endorsements which might be nother 30-40 million euro if not more. at minimum that’d be 120 million Euro with less taxes and that will leave him with about 100 million Euro for himself, about 150 million US dollars. now thats crazy!!!!
NBA should be very scared. Now should they offer those contracts to Lebron, Kobe and Wade at the same time??? the league as we know it would be over.
It only takes a small rock to start and avalanche. The first thing I thought of when I saw that was… if they are willing to pay that amount of money for an over-rated scrub, then what will they pay a legitimate talent to leave the NBA?
This could get real ugly really quick…
Childress is not overrated or a scrub. He came off the bench because they just had a better player in front of him. He shot 57%-in euro it’ll probably be like 65%.
One more thing-the exodus could start happening this year. A team in Russia just gave 14.3 mil tax-free to Bostjan muthafucking Nachbar over three years.
My money is on Ben Gordon to go next. The Bulls clearly don’t want him and undersized high scoring guards are highly valuable in Europe. Barcelona, Maccabi Tel Aviv, or the Russians will put a significant offer on the table now that they see that it won’t be a waste of their time.
really?
everyone’s scared of europe stealing NBA stars?
a player here or there may do it, but don’t expect some kinda mass migration across the atlantic.
especially concerning lebron-level players. don’t underestimate the power of fame. no matter what, a star basketball player won’t be as popular as a star soccer player.
now, kids opting for a year or two in europe instead of going to ‘college?’ that’s more likely to keep happening.
Thought I should point out that Chad Ford is thinking the same thing I was:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=ford_chad&page=FreeAgents-080629
“Gordon might be better off taking the Bulls’ one-year tender offer or looking to Europe for a similar deal to Childress’.”
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