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I just thought I would give you guys a heads up. The general manager of the Houston Rockets Daryl Morey was in Athens at the Olympiacos Piraeus vs. Real Madrid Euroleague playoff game along with the director of Houston Rockets European scouting Artūras Karnišovas.

Apparently, they were there to scout the Greek big man Ioannis Bourousis in person. And supposedly (according to the rumors), his agent is talking with them.

Bourousis is a big who can shot and is not soft , intersting.

How does that work? Can we just sign him? or does he have to go into the draft first....?

He's 25, so he's not draft eligible.

On the other hand the Rockets have two draft picks signed w/teams in that region-Brad Newly in Greece and Maarty Leunen in Turkey. They could have been visiting them and decided to take in a Playoff game.
The Rockets seem to have really stepped up their presence in Europe. It may now be so big that they are seen as a credible team for European agents to use as a weapon to get better contracts for their clients from European teams.

tisbee wrote:On the other hand the Rockets have two draft picks signed w/teams in that region-Brad Newly in Greece and Maarty Leunen in Turkey. They could have been visiting them and decided to take in a Playoff game.
The Rockets seem to have really stepped up their presence in Europe. It may now be so big that they are seen as a credible team for European agents to use as a weapon to get better contracts for their clients from European teams.

That could be true. If you want some info, Brad Newly is a good player in a small club in Greece. In a small club in Greece he is probably the 3rd best player on his team.

From what I see of him he has good NBA potential. I actually would take him over Von Wafer. So I could see him as a possibility for the Rockets if Wafer leaves or to replace Barry when he retires. He has a small contract and I don't see him getting a big one anytime soon in Europe because he has not earned one yet. He hasn't even made it to the Euroleague level yet as a player, so he's a guy you could sign rather cheaply probably.

Leunen is a good player for his team but he plays in a really low level (no way comparable to the level of club or league Newley plays in). So I'm not sure what you can do to judge him. Maybe he will move to a bigger club next year but he's basically playing in a farm club right now in a mid level domestic league. It would be really hard to take much from how he is doing either good or bad playing in such a low level.

Bourousis on the other hand plays in maybe what is the biggest club in all of Europe at the moment. Jannero Pargo and Josh Childress are on the same team and they are role players. Bourousis is one of the key 3 players on Olympiacos, while Pargo is like a 10-15 minute per game type of backup and Childress is a defensive specialist and on offense he is really not a main option but a role player. Neither Pargo nor Childress really even play at the end of games.

Papaloukas plays at point guard to close games and Vasilopoulos usually plays over Childress to close games, and it's basically simply because they play better. While Bourousis is clearly one of the major stars of Olympiacos.

PocketRockets wrote:How does that work? Can we just sign him? or does he have to go into the draft first....?

He has a long term contract with Olympiacos. The way the contract works is he has a one time only opt out clause with a zero buy out cost. The only year he can opt out is this summer. If he does not opt out this summer then he is stuck in his contract for awhile.

His contract is small and he is making well below market value so it is very smart for him to opt out of it because if he does not he will stay earning less money. The reason for this is because he signed it long term when he was very young and a project. He never played basketball until age 18 believe it or not.

But there is a catch to this, he can only opt out of his contract if it is to sign with an NBA team. He cannot opt out of it to join another club anywhere in the world unless it is an NBA club. So for Bourousis and his agent it is very financially beneficial to sign with an NBA team, even if it is just for one year.

So basically, an NBA club can sign him for zero buyout outright as a free agent. The cost probably would not be much because his current salary is 200,000 euros net (after his taxes and agent's fees are paid he nets that much), so his current salary is something like = to an $532,000 per year NBA contract. Because NBA contracts are in dollars and before taxes and agent's fees.

So he would be stuck in that pay rate for awhile if he didn't join the NBA, where if he did join the NBA he would be free from that deal he signed as a young player. And I am sure that is a big issue for him and his agent because his market value as a free agent is probably something like 2 million euros net a year in Europe. I hope that helps.

talkbasket wrote:

PocketRockets wrote:How does that work? Can we just sign him? or does he have to go into the draft first....?

He has a long term contract with Olympiacos. The way the contract works is he has a one time only opt out clause with a zero buy out cost. The only year he can opt out is this summer. If he does not opt out this summer then he is stuck in his contract for awhile.

His contract is small and he is making well below market value so it is very smart for him to opt out of it because if he does not he will stay earning less money. The reason for this is because he signed it long term when he was very young and a project. He never played basketball until age 18 believe it or not.

But there is a catch to this, he can only opt out of his contract if it is to sign with an NBA team. He cannot opt out of it to join another club anywhere in the world unless it is an NBA club. So for Bourousis and his agent it is very financially beneficial to sign with an NBA team, even if it is just for one year.

So basically, an NBA club can sign him for zero buyout outright as a free agent. The cost probably would not be much because his current salary is 200,000 euros net (after his taxes and agent's fees are paid he nets that much), so his current salary is something like = to an $532,000 per year NBA contract. Because NBA contracts are in dollars and before taxes and agent's fees.

So he would be stuck in that pay rate for awhile if he didn't join the NBA, where if he did join the NBA he would be free from that deal he signed as a young player. And I am sure that is a big issue for him and his agent because his market value as a free agent is probably something like 2 million euros net a year in Europe. I hope that helps.

WOW very good. Thanks so much for clearing that up. Morey has a knack for finding hidden talent. Whatever happens, I'll be uber excited!!!

I looked for some clips of him in Youtube and unfortunately I could only find one mix tape of him. It doesn't really show all he's capable of but it's pretty good though.

I wish he had some more mix tapes, but apparently he just has one. Anyway, you can take a look at him:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfLG2bYlrrY&fmt=18

Get Newley in. If we can't get Patty Mills, (I know, we don't need him anyways) then Newley will bring the Aussie flavour needed in H-Town.

The downside, is he will insist on being eligible to play for Australia. (Yao Ming type deal)

We already had a Greek, and he was a bust. Get an Aussie in town!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the info. Bourousis looks like a guy who could definitely be helpful.....specifically, I'm thinking against the Jazz.

kam_soluusar wrote:Get Newley in. If we can't get Patty Mills, (I know, we don't need him anyways) then Newley will bring the Aussie flavour needed in H-Town.

The downside, is he will insist on being eligible to play for Australia. (Yao Ming type deal)

We already had a Greek, and he was a bust. Get an Aussie in town!!!!!!!!

As I said Newley has solid NBA potential. I personally think he would be better for the Rockets than Wafer is, however he can't really be compared to Bourousis. Bourousis is a much bigger player in Europe. You would not even put them in the same discussion to be truthful about it.

Talkbasket,
Sorry but I'm not really understanding his buyout. Does he have to pay 1 yr's salary to buy out his contract,or is it free so long as it's this summer and he signs w/an NBA team?
The max an NBA team can contribute towards a buyout is $500,000 and the Rockets would prob only offer a min contract of @ $430,000.
Would that be enough to bring him over and would he accept being a backup to Yao and maybe getting 10 minutes a game?

I wouldn't be too suprised if they brought Newley into camp this yr to find out what they really have. He,Wafer and White could then compete for 2 spots on Rocket bench.
While Leunen is in a less talented League,the Rockets wanted him to work on his game and his body. He has one thing none of the other Rocket bigs has-a legit outside jumper. So he'll prob be brought in for a close look as well.(Last summer a top Rocket official said Maarty could give the team spot minutes,so they think fairly highly of him.)

One thing to keep in mind when the Rockets come up is next season they only have some $5million they can spend on new players and they have at least 2-4 roster spots to fill. If they want to bring Artest back they have to find someone willing to take one of their players,so they will need inexpensive roster fill.

Since you seem to be pretty knowledgeable about European Basketball,have you heard anything new on Pablo Prigioni? Late last summer there were some stories he and the Rockets were in pretty serious talks about him coming over for next season. Heard anything?
And can he still play defense as he's not a youngster anymore?

Thanks for the insights.

tisbee wrote:Talkbasket,
Sorry but I'm not really understanding his buyout. Does he have to pay 1 yr's salary to buy out his contract,or is it free so long as it's this summer and he signs w/an NBA team?
The max an NBA team can contribute towards a buyout is $500,000 and the Rockets would prob only offer a min contract of @ $430,000.
Would that be enough to bring him over and would he accept being a backup to Yao and maybe getting 10 minutes a game?

I wouldn't be too suprised if they brought Newley into camp this yr to find out what they really have. He,Wafer and White could then compete for 2 spots on Rocket bench.
While Leunen is in a less talented League,the Rockets wanted him to work on his game and his body. He has one thing none of the other Rocket bigs has-a legit outside jumper. So he'll prob be brought in for a close look as well.(Last summer a top Rocket official said Maarty could give the team spot minutes,so they think fairly highly of him.)

One thing to keep in mind when the Rockets come up is next season they only have some $5million they can spend on new players and they have at least 2-4 roster spots to fill. If they want to bring Artest back they have to find someone willing to take one of their players,so they will need inexpensive roster fill.

Since you seem to be pretty knowledgeable about European Basketball,have you heard anything new on Pablo Prigioni? Late last summer there were some stories he and the Rockets were in pretty serious talks about him coming over for next season. Heard anything?
And can he still play defense as he's not a youngster anymore?

Thanks for the insights.

Bourousis has no buyout. He has an opt out clause for one time only this summer and it can only be to the NBA. That means there is no buyout. $430,000 would not get him, he makes more than that now with Olympiacos (about $532,000) and he's only making 1/10 of his current European market value. If that's all the Rockets would pay him, just about zero chance he would sign with them I would guess. Bourousis from what I hear would want about 10-15 minutes of playing time if he was to sign in the NBA. I've never seen Leunen play. He does have nice stats though even though like I said you can't judge it in the level he is in.

Brad Newley definitely has potential. He's not the prospect that Bourousis is, but I am sure he could probably make the Rockets right now without any trouble. Keep in mind that I have seen Newley and Bourousis play a lot and they are not near the player Spanoulis is. Spanoulis is much more talented than they are. Even though Bourousis is for sure a top 5 big man in the world that's not in the NBA, you can't put him in the ability of Spanoulis in any way. I mean Spanoulis is a hell of a lot better than Newley is for example.

So, while what I am saying is true that these guys are talented and good enough for the NBA and to be solid rotation contributors for the Rockets, that doesn't guarantee anything. Spanoulis is a good example of a guy with all the talent in the world and it didn't work out because he didn't have the right mindset. He couldn't adjust at all and his coach didn't like him either. Now I would assume that Adleman is easier to get along with than Van Gundy and he is better by far at developing players and is much more open minded about foreign players. Plus Newley is Australian so the cultural adjustment is not that big for him.

Also, Newley has already been playing in a foreign country in Greece and Bourousis played in a foreign country in Spain before. Spanoulis had never been out of Greece and he just could not handle it. So between the differences in personalities, life experiences, and coaches it might not be an issue. But I'm just saying always keep that in mind. Even a world class talent like Spanoulis can fail if they can't mentally adjust.

Prigioni is an unrestricted free agent this summer. TAU will try to re-sign him but their budget (although big for the Spanish league) is relatively small compared to big Euroleague clubs. He makes €600,000 euros net now, which is = to like a $1,600,000 per year NBA contract. TAU can probably only pay him about 1 million euros. They broke the bank to sign Tiago Splitter and he makes 1.4 million euros. Although, they paid Scola an insane amount so if they think the player is worth it they will pay him. I don't think Prigioni falls into that category. He's not a franchise player for them like Scola was or even somewhat of a franchise player like Splitter is.

I would guess they would offer him about 2 million euros for 2 years. FC Barcelona and Real Madrid would probably also go after him and they can offer way more than that. I would guess he can probably get about 2 million euros net a year from either of them, which is = to more than a full MLE contract in the NBA. But then again, he's about 32 I think so that might hurt his value a lot. So I'm not really sure about that.

Anyway, since he's making about $1.6 million NBA type deal per year already, and can make much more than that in Europe, I would guess it would take the LLE to sign him in the NBA. I'm sure he would consider giving up a big deal in Europe to play with Scola on the Rockets, but I would guess you would at least need to pay him what he was making in TAU already, where frankly he was underpaid.

Prigioni is good. Very good. He's still better than Ricky Rubio is at this point, although it's getting closer all the time. Prigioni could be a big help to the Rockets, I have no doubt about that. He's probably got about 2-3 years of good playing time left.

Talkbasket,
Thank-you.

So it would prob take an offer of around $2.5-3milllion to sign Prigioni. If both sides were interested a deal at $2.75/$3/$3.25mil w/a player option after 2 yrs would seem to be about right.

That would leave enough of the MLE to do another similar contract. Might not be what Bourousis wants,but enough to fof him to really think about it,esp for the one or two yrs.

tisbee wrote:Talkbasket,
Thank-you.

So it would prob take an offer of around $2.5-3milllion to sign Prigioni. If both sides were interested a deal at $2.75/$3/$3.25mil w/a player option after 2 yrs would seem to be about right.

That would leave enough of the MLE to do another similar contract. Might not be what Bourousis wants,but enough to fof him to really think about it,esp for the one or two yrs.

Well I'm not sure about what Bourousis would want financially from the NBA but I know he badly wants to play in the NBA. He's the only Greek player I know of that has any interest in the NBA.

talkbasketball you have some great info, thanks. About your comment about Greek basketball players and only Bourousis wanting to play in the NBA: why is that? is that after what happened with VSpan?

I think VSpan just wanted to be "The Man".
When he found out that he could not be T-Span in Houston, he decided to just quit and go to a team that needs him to be the superstar.

I actually liked what I heard about him but it all went downhill when he said he was T-Span or something in Greece...

I'm sure there are players in Greece that want to play in the NBA other than Bourousis. To discount the rest of the Greek players not wanting to play in the NBA is an overstatement. Nonetheless, talkbasketball, you are really something with all those info u have given. hats off to u. Outstanding.

teamny1 wrote:talkbasketball you have some great info, thanks. About your comment about Greek basketball players and only Bourousis wanting to play in the NBA: why is that? is that after what happened with VSpan?

Partly, yes. Papaloukas and Diamantidis both got numerous MLE offers from NBA teams that they wouldn't take them. They both cited the Spanoulis example. Diamantidis said that if you can ride the bench all year because you might have a coach that will make you sit during your adjustment time, rather than play through it, that's it's not worth it.\

He would be sacrificing a whole year of a career like Spanoulis did. Papaloukas said Spanoulis is the best greek player on the national team in practice and if he can't play in the NBA then no Greek player would get any PT so he didn't come to the NBA. he had like 12 teams offering him the MLE and he originally wanted to come but he changed his mind after how Spanoulis turned out.

But that's just part of it. Greek players have a totally different mind set than let's say for example Spanish players. In Spain all you are told and all you hear is "the best players play in the NBA, you must go to the NBA". In Greece you hardly hear anything about the NBA and it's not even popular and hardly anyone cares about it.

All the focus for a basketball career is making a big club like Panathinaikos or Olympiacos, making the national team and then trying to win Greek championships, Euroleague championships, and European championships with the national team. There's hardly any focus or care about the NBA.

So players that are interested in it are interested in mainly just for their own reasons and it's a lot less important to them than other European players. Like French players, Lithuanian players, Spanish players, Russian players, Italian players, Croatian players, Serbian players, Turkish players, Chinese players, Australian players, Canadian players, Argentinian players, etc. There's a lot more attention and emphasis on the NBA to them than in Greece, where the NBA is generally not watched or really followed by the vast majority of people.

And on top of that is the issue of Greek culture. It is a huge difference from Greek culture and lifestyle and general way of life compared to that in the US. It's an enormous life change and it's really hard for most Greek people. Some Greek can do it, but even then most Greeks in the US are really Americans. It's really hard to be raised in Greece and then live in the US. Spanoulis is a perfect example. By far most Greeks are just like him. And it's not just the US. Even moving to other European countries can be too much for most Greeks.

And then there are some personal things too like Papaloukas was finally pretty close to signing with the Lakers or Celtics just to give the NBA a try but he wanted a no fly clause in his deal and they wouldn't let him. He has a horrible fear of flying and in Europe he could get out of long flights. The NBA clubs would not agree to it. The guy is terrified of flying. So there's all kinds of reasons.

I think another one wold be Glyniadakis and Fotsis. They are in the very upper echelon of Greek players all time in terms of talent and they went to the NBA and didn't like it either. Same issues as Spanoulis, depressed, home sick, miserable, and letting it bother their play. Bourousis might have the same issues you never know. But he seems very set on the NBA. Spanoulis for example really wasn't. He would go there because the Rockets pursued him very heavily. He didn't make his own priority to go the NBA. Bourousis is, so i think his outlook is a little different.

YaoZaii wrote:I think VSpan just wanted to be "The Man".
When he found out that he could not be T-Span in Houston, he decided to just quit and go to a team that needs him to be the superstar.

I actually liked what I heard about him but it all went downhill when he said he was T-Span or something in Greece...

I'm sure there are players in Greece that want to play in the NBA other than Bourousis. To discount the rest of the Greek players not wanting to play in the NBA is an overstatement. Nonetheless, talkbasketball, you are really something with all those info u have given. hats off to u. Outstanding.

In Greece the NBA is not important. It gets very little attention and hardly anyone follows it or watches it. Back in the days of Jordan the NBA was popular in Greece but now it's just not. As for the whole Spanoulis-McGrady thing there was a big translation issue there and Jeff Van Gundy used that to sort of distort what he said.

He really never said that, he just said something in Greek like, "In Greece I would be allowed to run the pick and roll and make the post passes and the decisions on what plays and offense we would run, but here McGrady does that. Instead they have me stand still in a corner and wait to shoot spot jumpers. Back home I am in McGrady's role and here it's reversed. The coach uses the shooting guard like a point guard and he uses me as a shooting guard. Here the point guards are supposed to stand at the 3 point line and not run pick and roll or set up plays with dribble penetrations."

Then after the "I am T-Mac in Greece" thing in Houston he told Greek press in Greek, "We are not similar players at all. We are in no way comparable." Spanoulis had a very poor attitude I think with how he handled that situation with the Rockets and Van Gundy, but to be truthful and fair he never said he was T-Mac of Greece. On that one he got a very unfair deal from Van Gundy and the Houston media, even the fans. I am sure that was probably the final thing that sealed it that he would not play in the NBA ever again.

BTW, in case you guys are interested the same rumors that had the Rockets interested in Bourousis also had Morey apparently looking at Sergio Llull, Nihad Dedovic, and Ersan Ilyasova.