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oh, KBP!!!“I’ve gotten paid on time once this year,” Jennings said in an e-mail message.
By RAY GLIER
Published: January 23, 2009
Perhaps white sails will one day appear on the horizon behind Brandon Jennings, a flotilla of high school basketball stars trailing him to Europe eager for a payday. But Jennings does not want anyone to get shipwrecked overseas just because he made the trip.
Benvegnù-Guaitoli for The New York Times
Brandon Jennings was regarded as the nation’s best high school guard a year ago but decided to play in Italy.
He issued that warning this week from Italy, where he is playing for Lottomatica Virtus Roma, a top professional team. He fears that top high school players may be seduced by visions of instant riches, fame and success in Spain, France, Italy, Greece or some other destination.
“I’ve gotten paid on time once this year,” Jennings said in an e-mail message. “They treat me like I’m a little kid. They don’t see me as a man. If you get on a good team, you might not play a lot. Some nights you’ll play a lot; some nights you won’t play at all. That’s just how it is.”
Jennings, a 6-foot-2 point guard who was regarded as the nation’s best high school player at his position a year ago, signed a $1.2 million deal in salary and endorsements to head to Europe in August instead of staying in the United States to play college basketball. Some analysts suggested that other elite players would follow the same path because of the rules requiring prospects to be a year removed from high school before becoming eligible for the N.B.A. draft.
The deal for Jennings allowed his mother and his half brother to live with him in Italy, and he said it still made economic sense. Yet he said he wanted others to know about his experience.
“I don’t see too many kids doing it,” his e-mail message said. “It’s tough man, I’ll tell you that. It can break you.”
Lottomatica Virtus Roma officials did not respond to requests for comment submitted through Francesca Mei, the team’s media director.
Jennings does not resemble the pioneer some envisioned when he left for Europe as a dynamic player who could create his own shots and score 20 points or more a game. In Italy, he said, he has been stifled offensively. He is averaging 8 points a game.
“My role is to play D and take open shots — that’s it,” he said. “And I’ve accepted that role.”
He acknowledged that the journey had helped him mature, and he said the rigors of playing in Europe may benefit others.
An N.B.A. assistant coach who has been to Europe and has watched Jennings play said his potential draft standing had not been harmed. The coach requested anonymity because he was discussing a player currently ineligible for the draft.
“I think it is good for him,” he said. “He was getting a defensive component that he needed. If I was a scout and I needed a point guard, I would be extremely impressed with what he has done over there.”
Several of the top-rated players in the high school class of 2009 said they would not follow Jennings to Europe:
¶Derrick Favors, a 6-9 forward from South Atlanta High School in Georgia who is considered by some to be the nation’s top prospect, has announced he will sign with Georgia Tech this spring. “I’m definitely going to college,” he said.
¶DeMarcus Cousins, a 6-10 forward who plays for LeFlore Magnet High in Mobile, Ala., said he also would attend college. His father, Jessie Cousins, said the family had not had contact with European teams.
¶Renardo Sidney, a 6-10 forward at Fairfax High in Los Angeles, intends to play in college, said Harvey Kitani, his coach.
¶Lance Stephenson, a 6-5 guard at Abraham Lincoln High in Brooklyn, wants to play in college, according to his coach, Dwayne Morton.
¶And Xavier Henry, a 6-6 guard at Putnam City High in Oklahoma, has announced he will attend Memphis.
Bob Gibbons, a North Carolina-based recruiting analyst, said all of those players would be considered N.B.A. draft prospects this year were it not for the league’s eligibility requirements. That does not mean they should rush to audition for European teams, he said.
“Myself, among others, thought there would be a revolution and players going to Europe,” Gibbons said. “I’m not so sure now after what I have been hearing with Jennings and all the cultural obstacles there are.”
Michael Red , who coaches Favors at South Atlanta, described Europe as “a man’s league.”
“There are a lot of things you have to consider to do something like that,” Red said. “I played over there 12 years, and it is not easy.”
Paul Hewitt, the Georgia Tech coach, said high school players needed to understand the cultural differences, including language barriers, and the challenges of being homesick and of having to manage daily affairs. If a high school star does skip college for the pros in Europe, Hewitt said, he should negotiate for the team to pay for college in case of an injury or lack of development.
Sonny Vaccaro, the former sneaker company executive who brokered Jennings’s deals with Lottomatica and the sponsor Under Armour, said he had been in contact with high school players and their parents who were interested in Europe.
But Vaccaro said there had been a change from last summer, when he worked on the deals for Jennings. Economic conditions in Europe are just as difficult as they are in the United States, and he said he underestimated the emotional strength a player needed to compete overseas.
“A less-driven kid would have come home,” Vaccaro said. “They practice twice a day, and the Europeans play everybody. It is not like one of these silly college games where the same seven guys play every minute of every game. When it’s over, the fact he was able to handle it is going to be more landmark than him just going over there.”
Pete Bab , the former general manager of the Atlanta Hawks and the Denver Nuggets, said high school players in the United States had grown up watching college basketball. Their dreams are to play for those programs, he said, not in obscurity in Europe.
“There is not going to be a mass exodus,” said Bab , now a scout for the Cleveland Cavaliers. “I don’t see it happening.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/24/sp...tml?ref=sports
oh, KBP!!!“I’ve gotten paid on time once this year,” Jennings said in an e-mail message.
When he comes back over here he's going to dominate like no other rookie. OJ Mayo will look like a shadow of Jennings. It'll be like someone opened the bottle and let the monster out.
Maybe had he gotten to play for Spain he would not have been offensively hamstrung the way he has. Rubio is younger than him but at least they let the guy play ball. It has to be the coach.
Maybe UA wouldn't be so disappointing if this stupid just went to college like every other high school all American.
Thats just it. He was too stupid to score high enough to get into college like every other basketball player. What do you have to get anyway? GPA of 2.0 and a combined minimum SAT score of 820 I think a trained chimpanzee coulda gotten that.
Actually, he took it the first time and didn't get it. The 2nd time he got a nearly perfect score and obviously cheated lol. 3rd time I think he intentionally ed up so he didn't even have the option of college.
really cant talk negatively about a person for skipping college to take care of his family...
I really don't think the 4th most profitable NCAA b-ball program was going to let his family starve to death.
On first thought i found his decision to go to Europe a mature and well thought one. But now i just think he took the easy way to the nba and he only went to Italy for the cash and becuz he didn't need to use his head. Got more respect for Wade who had the same difficulties and had some struggles in high school and college, but battled through it. Jennings just seems to run away..
Well Inda is here, where is his other half?
DD
prol laughing at your stupidd @$$
sayanora idiot
BMoney
Contributing Member
Since: Feb 2004
Posts: 3,515
Member: #15857
Quote:
Originally Posted by pmac
So it doesn't really matter what anyone says, you are going to believe whatever you want to?
Since when has DD bothered with facts?
the reason why he couldnt go here was because of his grades right? because talent alone doesnt cut it. you have to be smart too, not necessarily grade smart but that helps.
lol as usual American player gets benched for poor play and within short time is ESPN article stating "I am not paid"This is just hilarious by now to anyone that knows better.
So many NBA fans this summer "Jennings will dominate"
Now you idiots can see that a top 10 player of his whole age group in US will simply struggles playing in Euroleague level club. And yet so many American make re ed claims about how best college players would dominate Euroleague.
Jennings is just upset because he came to Roma in first few games and was hogging the ball and thought he would dominate everyone as he was told this by all other fans and media in US.
Once he realize how good players were in Euroleague he realized he was in trouble. Now he just sounds like a stupid fool. they already fired their coach because he complained about his playing time and now he does so with the new coachMaybe he should stop acting like a little kid if he does not want to be treat like one.
Dejan Bodiroga is Gm of Roma and he is one of greatest players that ever lived. He will not continue to take such crap from Jennings just because he believes all this crap ESPN and US fans say.
Rubios is extremely overrated by US hype machines. He cannot score in top level in Europe. he is not even close to being able to score yet at Euroleague level. Jennings is right now MUCH better player than Rubio is.
Dejan Bodiroga >>>>>>>> Jordan
You got to be ing kidding me.
It's amazing to me how the story of one of the country's best high school basketball players essentially getting busted cheating on his college entrance exams is a story that just went away. Jennings really had no choice in deciding to not attend the University of Arizona: he scored below 820 the first time he took the SATs, then scored a 1300 the second time, which raised red flags. Forced to take a third test, he never released the score, because it was obvious that he hadn't passed or come close to 1300 again. And the punishment for being a cheater is he gets to live in Europe for a year (and about it the whole time), and then come back next year to be drafted and made a millionaire. That's some lesson for other high-schoolers that are watching.Brandon Jennings was regarded as the nation’s best high school guard a year ago but decided to play in Italy.
You're crazy. Jennings can't run an offense to save his life and he's a turnover machine. He has a very fast dribble but that's pretty much all. If he wasn't so hyped, he would have been fired in order to allow Roma to hire another guy already. Rubio is a top-3 point-guard in Europe. Can't score? He's far from being a scorer, but he averaged 18 points per 40 minutes in the ACB last season...
Rubio is very overrated right now. He cannot score in Euroleague level. And everyone knows ACB league has very soft defense. Now fans is making up same lies about as they did about Fernandez.
Just because they can score in ACB with no defense does not make them talented scorers. Now NBA fans is finally realize how overrated Fernandez was in his offense. Very one dimensional and not skilled in offense.
Rubios is extremely good play maker, EXTREMELY good but cannot score worth crap right now. But he is only 18 so I think this will come for him in time.
weird SAT scores for high school ballers is nothing new
same thing happened to DeShawn Stevenson in 2000
"The Jayhawks lost their future star when a surprisingly impressive jump in his SAT score caught the attention of the Educational Testing Service, which "red-flagged" it, making him temporarily ineligible to play. DeShawn could have appealed and explained how he had managed to improve his score from 450 as a sop re to 1,150 as a senior. Or he could have retaken it in hopes of scoring the NCAA minimum of 820"
I think in the long run playing in Europe will help with the maturation process. The reality these days is that college doesn't breed maturity. Its the same deal when these guys go to college they have the whole entire world sucking up to them giving them everything they desire. There is no life lessons learned in college. He's getting an education up there simply because nobody is giving him anything and everything he gets is hard earned. I think because of the experience he will be more prepared to play in the nba then a guy who went to college.
The Truth About Jennings
Who knew getting paid to improve your Draft status could be a cautionary tale?
by Ryan Jones
The, um, “news” broke Friday in a New York Times story headlined “Brandon Jennings Sends Home a Warning From Europe.” The gist, if you haven’t seen it, is that Jennings has some regrets about skipping college and jumping to Italy for a year of pre-NBA professional hoops. Specifically, Jennings laments:
“I’ve gotten paid on time once this year… They treat me like I’m a little kid. They don’t see me as a man. If you get on a good team, you might not play a lot. Some nights you’ll play a lot; some nights you won’t play at all. That’s just how it is… I don’t see too many kids doing it. It’s tough man, I’ll tell you that. It can break you.”
Well, fair points, and, as they’ve come straight from the player’s mouth, none I can argue with. If you care to, you might remember that I came out pretty hard (twice, actually) in support of Brandon making this jump, which put me firmly in the minority among media folk. As such, I guess I should be feeling a little humbled by this news. But I find I’m not. Not really.
The one thing I’ll cop to is giving European basketball teams (or this one, at least) too much credit for being able to CTC on time. I knew the rep of Euro teams frustrating their players with late (or non-existent) payments, but I guess I was convinced by the fact that this deal got so much publicity—not to mention the benefit of Sonny Vaccaro’s involvement—that the folks at Lottomatica Virtus Roma would’ve stepped up. Apparently they haven’t, which seems awfully short-sighted for them as a club, and for European hoops in general. If they were handling things better, it might’ve made Europe a much more attractive destination for the kids in the Class of ‘09 and beyond who will, and still might, consider following Brandon’s lead.
So, my bad on trusting some Romans to pay their bills (I also didn’t foresee the global financial crisis that would bring the Euro down to the level of the weak dollar, thus making the decision a lot less lucrative — but then, hey, neither did Alan f*cking Greenspan). Otherwise, though, this latest blurb in the Brandon Jennings story has only reinforced for me how much someone, anyone needed to challenge the NCAA. I had it in mind Friday night when I watched ‘09 stud Renardo Sidney (one of the kids who had been pretty seriously considering the Euro option, although he apparently isn’t now) and his Fairfax squad run through 2010 Louisville signee Jeremy Tyler and San Diego High on ESPN. Sidney, of course, is the insanely skilled big man who’s on the Amar’e Stoudemire pace for career high school stops, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him (with Sonny’s blessing) give Europe a try. That he probably won’t now is fine; if he finds a college situation he’s happy with, and if a year or two in the NCAA helps him prepare for the NBA, more power to him.
Then came Saturday night, when I sat in the press room before the Penn State-Iowa game and saw ESPN scrolling the Jennings’ “warning” as some sort of breaking news along their bottom-line feed. This was during the broadcast of a college basketball game (Wisconsin-Illinois, I think) so it made such beautiful sense for the network of universal coach apologists like ie V (who I mostly like, honest) and Big Monday and everything else to run snippets of Jennings’ quotes. If you didn’t actually read the Times story, and only saw the ticker (or read the follow-up gloating of some national columnists), you’d think Jennings was on the next boat home, a miserable, apologetic prodigal son.
Except, here’s what the ESPN crawl didn’t mention, and what the Times story sort of buried:
Jennings acknowledged that the journey had helped him mature, and he said the rigors of playing in Europe may benefit others…
An N.B.A. assistant coach who has been to Europe and has watched Jennings play said his potential draft standing had not been harmed. “I think it is good for him. He was getting a defensive component that he needed. If I was a scout and I needed a point guard, I would be extremely impressed with what he has done over there.”
So he’s homesick, and he’s had to accept a different role than he was used to, and his coach doesn’t respect him, and his playing time isn’t guaranteed. I imagine all of that sucks. I’d also point out that those are exactly the same reasons why dozens of D1 kids each year transfer from one school to another, or drop out altogether, but I digress — and I give Brandon credit both for surviving it, and manning up enough to admit it. I didn’t need more reasons to like the kid, but there you go.
But then, oh, by the way: Jennings acknowledged that the journey had helped him mature. Well, that’s something, right? And then, the NBA assistant, saying he was “extremely impressed” by what Jennings has done in Europe. If I’m following this correctly, Jennings will come back from eight or nine months in Europe a more mature person and a more well-rounded player — AND he got paid (even if it wasn’t always on time) something like $1 million for his trouble? That doesn’t actually sound so horrible, does it? I hope I’m not the only one who’s offended by a predictably one-sided take on this.
Listen, I love college basketball. I don’t want to see the sport collapse, and I know there’s plenty of value (both tangible and intangible) in kids going to school and playing ball. I don’t want to see the best American high school kids playing in Europe. But I am immovable in my certainty that the NCAA takes advantage of many of these kids, that college coaches and entire programs sell their players a bill of goods and then don’t follow through (ask Eric Gordon how he liked his year at Indiana), and that anything that challenges the system is, and remains, a good thing.
Oh, and I wish the media didn’t suck. But I know better.
http://slamonline.com/online/college...ndon-jennings/
From Jennings official statement about lie from US reporter that claim he was not paid.
“Concerning the statements in yesterday’s news reports, I didn’t mean to be critical of the team. The point I was trying to make was how challenging this new experience has been for me. But I feel I’m growing and learning. As far as my payment, I know there have been some delays due to wiring issues from bank to bank, but my contract is being fully honored. The team has treated my family and me very well. I have no regrets in coming to Rome and I feel that this will make me a better basketball player and a stronger person throughout my career. At this point, I just want to get back to the business of playing basketball.”
These are Eye-talians we're talking about, KBP. They invented the cross; they formed the Inquisition. You can't really take anything people might be saying about them under duress seriously.
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