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Like when the kid turns 18, say Barca or some big team offers him a deal that pays him more than a rookie NBA deal.

Basically a competitive offer that the kid would take for the first few years of his career.

Brandon Jennings went to the Euroleague straight from high school instead of college. That might not be such a bad idea for American kids that need the money right away.
I don't think that Euro teams will ever steal American prospects. Heck they can't even keep theirs so stealing is not something that we are going to see in the future.
Euro teams will remain as always picking up Euros (and sometimes Americans) that are not satisfied with their NBA roles and Americans that have managed to slip under the radar in college and got undrafted.

Well, its possible. Both parties has better alternatives though.

NBA rookie deal+ type of money can catch you a very solid, proven Euroleague player. So investing so much in a prospect doesn't make a lot of sense.
It should be a damn good prospect, but NBA warranted prospect would rather spend a year in college (college is the best place to keep your NBA stock high) and enter the NBA draft as soon as possible, because long term, he should make much more money in the NBA.

There are no players that age that would make impact for such teams in Europe to win championships and so they would not spend the money on them. Because it would probably be quite a bit of money also, and they can just spend that money on veteran European and American players in Europe that are ready to contribute now to help them win.

It's a basic economic and success model. So there is no reason for them to do so.

TheTrooper wrote:Brandon Jennings went to the Euroleague straight from high school instead of college. That might not be such a bad idea for American kids that need the money right away.
I don't think that Euro teams will ever steal American prospects. Heck they can't even keep theirs so stealing is not something that we are going to see in the future.
Euro teams will remain as always picking up Euros (and sometimes Americans) that are not satisfied with their NBA roles and Americans that have managed to slip under the radar in college and got undrafted.

Emmanuel Mudiay did this by going to China, it doesn't seem like it hurt his draft stock (although it's yet to be seen), but if it turns out to be the case I'd imagine it becoming a trend to go overseas for an immediate paycheck.

Many said it hurt Jennings draft stock as he should have been picked earlier than 10th, although it's been long enough now to determine that he was actually drafted exactly where he needed to be.

Jennings and Mudiay were not stolen. Because of age restriction, they couldn't go to the NBA straight out of highschool anyway, so they spent that indispensable year overseas. They were not stolen by an Euro team.
I think what OP meant, is to genuinely stole a young prospect for quite a few years. And Instead joining the NBA, just spent years in Europe instead, Fran Vazquez style.

As another poster said, it really doesn't make financial sense for a European team to spend the money that it would take to steal a US prospect from the NBA when they could just use that money to retain a top European player with less risk. I think that before we could ever talk about great US prospects playing in Europe, more top Euro prospects would need to stay and play in the European leagues. It happens now, but the best guys always come to the NBA (for obvious reasons).