Many NBA Players Going To Europe
By Angelo | Related entries in NBA ReflectionsI’ve been keeping track of the player movement this offseason for quite a while now and I noticed something about it that got my attention. A LOT of NBA players went to sign with a team in Europe and there are more rumored to go still. Over the past few days alone, guys like Tony Delk, Lonny Baxter and Michael Bradley signed a contract in Europe. The Nets also said their farewell to Zoran Planinic and the Bucks to Jiri Welsch. Is it a case of more players finding opportunites there this offseason or the news is just more public now?
A lot of these guys are still pretty young and foreign competition is no longer inferior to that of US basketball. We’ve seen that in the past Olympics and even now in the FIBA World Championships. So playing in Europe and other leagues around the world is not necessarily a huge downgrade from the NBA competition. It would be nice for these guys to hone their skills and possibly make an NBA comeback sometime in the future just like Anthony Parker of the Raptors who came back to the NBA after many years playing in the Euroleague.
August 19th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
Maybe this blog should make a poll of which country will bring home the bacon, given the number of really skilled NBA players over there in Japan. Someone said that as many as 50 NBA players are involved, not counting those who display their skills in Europe and other leagues. That’s 1 out of 6 players!