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The 10-year NBA veteran hopes for a repeat final against the Lakers and, beyond that, may take the chance to familiarize himself with teams in Spain for his post-NBA days. He already toured the football stadium at Real Madrid, which also has a successful basketball club.
"I don't know the teams," Pierce said. "[But] I thought about playing, once I'm done with the Celtics, overseas and maybe this could be a great place."
“In the next four or five years, could I end up playing over there?” Kidd wondered. “Hey, why wouldn’t I play in Italy or somewhere (else)? That might be a great experience. “It’s a legitimate option now with Childress going over there.” Yahoo! Sports
Lakers’ Sasha Vujacic also has been contacted by several European clubs, according to a Slovenian newspaper. (Probably a good move for him considering no NBA clubs have expressed interest in signing the restricted free agent).
Kobe Bryant said he wouldn’t be surprised if Vujacic takes the money and runs to Europe (if the rumors are true) considering the Lakers aren’t offering him more than a qualifying one-year deal worth $2.6 million.
“It depends on how much money they’re throwing at him,” Bryant said. “You got rules (NBA’s salary cap), so you’re playing with an uneven playing field. So if they want to throw a boatload of money at him.”
This time, the overseas revolution of outbidding NBA teams for restricted free agents advances with Dynamo Moscow discussing a two-year, $10 million offer with Delonte West, a source close to West said on Thursday.
Clearly, Dynamo is a franchise with the resources to be taken seriously. Just a week ago, it lured New Jersey Nets forward Bostjan Nachbar with a three-year, $14.3 million contract.
Nachbar’s contract turned into a prelude to Atlanta Hawks free agent Josh Childress signing a groundbreaking three-year, $20 million deal with Olympiakos of Greece. So far this summer, four international players with NBA résumés – Jorge Garbajosa, Juan Carlos Navarro, Carlos Delfino and Pops Mensah-Bonsu – have taken substantial offers in Europe.
As with most restricted free agents, West has few options right now. He could sign a $2.76 million qualifying offer for the 2008-09 season and become an unrestricted free agent next year. General manager Danny Ferry has considered sign-and-trade possibilities for West but ultimately has wanted to keep West.
Europe has traditionally been a destination for NBA players on the tail ends of their careers, as well as for fringe players who came out of college undrafted or failed to make it out of NBA teams' training camps.
But the landscape is changing, and Arizona recruit Brandon Jennings made headlines last week when he decided to play overseas rather than spend one year with the Wildcats before becoming eligible for the NBA draft -- a move other high school graduates may follow as a result of the NBA's increased age limit removing the preps-to-NBA option that was available to players until 2005.
But one prominent player agent told ESPN.com that he does not believe the Childress signing will become a trend because there are not enough European clubs willing to spend money on an NBA level.
Another big spender is Russian powerhouse CSKA Moscow, whose players celebrated their Euroleague title this spring by spraying $650 bottles of Cristal champagne on each other, and there are at least a half-dozen teams -- Efes Pilsen in Istanbul, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Dynamo Moscow and Khimki Moscow, along with Panathinaikos, that have loosened their purse strings considerably in the past two years to compete for American players they believe would be a good fit for their system.
But Olympiacos has clearly been the team most willing to make a major splash, and it did so with the Childress signing.
bonsaiflipflops wrote:Never mind. Sasha Vujacic just agreed to a new contract to return to the Lakers.
Premiata Montegranaro is interested in Mavs forward Gerald Green. Eurosport
