Europe is the new buzz word for NBA players. It is their great threat to the owners during this lockout: you won’t pay us to play basketball, we will go overseas, make our millions and make the NBA compete with Euroleague for players.
OK, maybe that is a little far fetched at this point. Players will make more money in the NBA than they can overseas and the fractured nature of European leagues does not guarantee elite competition.
But Deron Williams opened the door and made several big-name players at least think about signing deals overseas for the duration of the lockout. Whether players will actually start doing this in big numbers is uncertain. Just as uncertain is whether teams will accept players that could leave at any point during the season when the lockout ends. CSKA Moscow, as Brendan Bowers reported Tuesday, is not going to be one of those teams.
Deron Williams, much like Brandon Jennings and Jeremy Tyler before him, is the great American experiment in European basketball. Will locked out players be able to thrive in Europe or will they find the lifestyle not up to their standards?
There are plenty of perks to playing in Europe. First, you get to play and are not locked out. Second, European teams typically provide their players with a company car and an apartment. But those plane rides are not as comfortable and you are not always playing in the nicest stadiums in the world. Plus crowd control is not quite the same as in the NBA (even with the occasional unruly fan throwing beer onto the court).
Williams probably will not see many of the pitfalls that come with playing basketball overseas. But the team he is playing for is notorious among European players for not paying players and has a notoriously bad reputation.
“Besiktas is the most [messed] up team when it comes to this thing,” a Turkish player that requested anonymity told Jorge Sierra of HoopsHype. “They are supposed to be one of the best teams in Turkey and the last few years even though they had the best players, they didn’t win because the players were mentally messed up (for not getting paid).”
That is not a good sign for Williams. The player assures that a superstar like Williams will likely get paid and receive all the perks that typically come with Europe’s best teams. But he warns while Williams will be fine, other players on his team may not be in order to get Williams his money.
This would not be the first time Besiktas has been late or failed to pay a contracted player. The lesson for NBA players might be, if you want your opt-out clause, you might pay a larger price.
“Besiktas’ basketball branch always had problems when it comes to payments to players,” Turkish reporter Mete Aktas told HoopsHype. “I can’t remember a single season for the past 3-4 years that the players’ wages are paid on time and fully.
“There were several occasions last season and in 2009-10 where some of the players skipped practices and boycotted the team management. In the summer of 2010, the management prohibited three players who were under contract at the time to enter training facilities. Why? Because they had submitted an official protest note to the club to pay them their delayed payments.
“And currently Besiktas is trying to waive three players who are currently under contract for the 2011-12 season. Since the players don’t want to be waived, the management is trying to indimidate and daunt them by forcing the players to train three times a day… during the summer!”
Besiktas finished sixth in the Turkish Premier League and fourth in their group at Eurocup. If Sierra’s reports are right, Besiktas might have some serious problems.
But this is the team Deron Williams elected to join until the lockout ends. And this is the danger for NBA players thinking about going to Europe during the lockout.
Photo via DayLife.com.
