Jason Williams for Maccabi, Luol Deng for Panathinaikos

[freddy79]

The NBA has only lost Childress as quality player. It's far from being a disaster for them so far.

I'm not agree with you: Nachbar, Delfino, Navarro, Papaloukas could be ALL rotation players, and good ones, in a lot of NBA teams. Childress is better than them, but after all he's a rotation guy, not a starter. If we talk about starters, of course, no one starter went away from Europe, NOT YET...but, if Deng and Biedrins and West would go to Europe, this would be a huge signal, I think: not only for PRESENT, but also for future. Imagine this: if A Panathinakos, Olympiakos or CSKA knows that they can take a NBA starter, in the next years they would do it. These teams, in the past, never tried to do it, because they knew that they cannot do it. It's a USA-national team-like situation: until they did not lose first game, nobody believed they could ever lose one game. When they losed their first game, then everybody believed that was possible. Now that Childress came to Europe, every Euro-team will try to get a better American (for example: why taking Langdon for CSKA if you can have Ginobili? Why taking Batiste for Panathinaikos, if you can have Josh Smith?...that's just an example: it would be really hard to take these players right now...). Now a lot of Euro teams will try to get better players: and I'm sure that some very big name, someday, will go to Europe: NBA has to do something to stop this trend (a huge improvement of salary cap, or a total abolition, could help in this way...).

[Marcus Bryant]

Jason Williams going to Europe is quite believable. I don't think NBA teams are ready to throw a lot of money to him.

Deng ? We will see but you should keep in mind that Greek reports are highly unreliable. Most of these rumors are created to sell newspapers and are as reliable as Hoopsworld's ones.

Apparently all Greeks are unreliable and full of .

[Marcus Bryant]

The NBA has only lost Childress as quality player. It's far from being a disaster for them so far.

Right. Someone made Childress the highest paid player in the history of their league.

*shudder*

[ata]

And now also Delonte West and Sasha Vujacic have strong offers from Europe. The West one is official (from Dynamo Moscow), Vujacic is followed by a couple of Euro teams...that's so strange: this year already Garbajosa, Delfino, Navarro, Childress, Nachbar, Brezec went to Europe. Jason Williams, Krstic, Landry, West, Biedrins, Vujacic, Deng are thinking about the jump. Splitter and Pekovic, even if they WANTED to play in NBA, are staying. This is a landslide: all these guys are good rotation players; without ALL of them, NBA will be a little poorer (don't forget about Papaloukas, Spanoulis, Jasikevicius, all guys who could play in NBA, but take more money staying in Europe). If THIS is the trend, soon NBA sixth and seventh men will be weaker every year more: this means a weaker league, weaker teams. At this point, NBA HAS to do something: even if NOW there are only about 12-15 teams who can take these players, their number will grow. And don't forget that EVERY team can take 12 players: this could mean, one day, at least 5-6 NBA-like players that instead stay in Europe...after all, it's a HUGE number, I think. Very soon you'll have to count also Italian teams in the mix: Brezec contract is 900.000 Euros net x year. After taxes, it's something near to 2,5-3 million dollars...(I'm not sure: maybe there's someone who can "translate" better than me these numbers...). Don't forget that Gallinari wanted to go to NBA, but he had huge offer from bigger teams in Europe, better than in the NBA...

I am afraid that this baloon will pop in two years, teams with tradition will be in huge troubles (see ex Virtus Bologna). If this happens, european basketball will need 10 years to recover.

[wildbill2u]

The NBA is now in a bidding war with leagues worldwide and its salary policies and cap are designed as though they had no compe ion at all.

Stern and the owners will have to adjust. Or maybe this is what Stern meant when he stated a goal was to make pro BB a big-time worldwide sport.

[Kill_Bill_Pana]

Jason Williams going to Europe is quite believable. I don't think NBA teams are ready to throw a lot of money to him.

Deng ? We will see but you should keep in mind that Greek reports are highly unreliable. Most of these rumors are created to sell newspapers and are as reliable as Hoopsworld's ones.

Yes yes we all hear same craps about these "fake" offers to Childress. Just like everyone say offer to Anthony Parker is "fake". Nothing is fake he just not able to get out of Raptors contract just like nothing is fake about Childress offer.

Panathinaikos and Olympiacos have many haters from other sports clubs fans in Europe and is always these haters is saying these things like "Greek media makes everything up". They is just jealous because these teams have rich owners that do not care about their money being spent. They just care about make fans of teams happy.

All these reports is just "Greek media lies"

[T Park]

Apparently they are.

GTFO.

[Kori Ellis]

Apparently they are.

GTFO.

I don't know if they are lies (maybe exaggerations). Childress got a real offer and is gone. So, we'll see what happens with Deng, JWill and everyone else.

[tp2021]

Imagine an NBA in which all the team's benches consist of foreign players that the foreign leagues don't want...

Now that i think about it, if the euro teams concentrate on signing NBA players, some of the good euro players might slip through the cracks, and sign in the NBA...the euroleagues will have americans, and the NBA will have all foreigners!

[mrspurs]

money and honey......or shall i say, show them the money and the love will follow......who knows maybe we are amongst the few who will remember the days when the NBA used tobe the League......i mean take your average nba talented player and put him on a euro team and boom (hes a star, in his own, im mike.... and they treat me like it world)....i remember when the spurs came from the, ABA the (real league)