Playing in Europe during lockout isn't savvy, it's dangerous
What a cruel or delicious turn of events it would be, depending on your perspective, if the NBA's mother of all lockouts were derailed by the international outreach program undertaken by the league's infamously globetrotting commissioner.
What a story it would be if some rogue owner and idealistic coach in Istanbul sent the dominoes tumbling and opened the floodgates for NBA superstars to take their talents to Europe, Asia and points unknown, effectively planting their thumbs in the eyes of owners who thought they were so tough when they locked players out and shut down the NBA.
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If only it could happen that way. It would be a great idea, a killer move on the bargaining chessboard.
Let me point out that Thursday was the first, but definitely not the last day when it becomes clear that the NBA lockout is going to be no dead time, no vacation for anybody. It will make the NFL lockout look like child's play; will become something you'll want to pay attention to, more interesting than some of the games and even more hectic than the NBA's usual offseason hijinks.
These players are a proud, powerful bunch, athletes who've spent most of their lives in the spotlight, not to mention the lap of luxury. They will not take the owners' threats and David Stern's obtuse lecturing sitting down.
They are not going to let the owners bully them, publicly embarrass them, without at least making them sweat.
So on Thursday came the news that the Nets' Deron Williams, one of the NBA's brightest stars, had a deal to spend the lockout luxuriating in glorious Istanbul for the Turkish team Besiktas -- a team that most casual sports fans have only heard of because former All-Star Allen Iverson played there briefly last season after he could no longer find employment in an NBA that had passed him by.
But Williams is no washed-up former star; he is a point guard of potentially Hall of Fame repute, a dynamic presence at the height of his powers who, in two years, will run the game of NBA free agency with his buddy, Chris Paul, and Dwight Howard the way LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh ran the summer of 2010.
Until then, Williams has nowhere to play basketball because owners like the Nets' Mikhail Prokhorov have decided they are going to prove to the players once and for all that the people with the most money make the decisions around here, not the employees.
Well, what a story it would be if the owners had simply picked on the wrong employees this time. What a treat it would be if the stars of basketball could tell Stern and his army of lawyers and spin-masters to take their lockout and shove it. And what irony would envelope all of that if it were the very international stage that Stern so stubbornly has cultivated -- draining millions from the NBA's evidently empty coffers to promote the product overseas while Sacramento and New Orleans wither and die -- that snapped the owners back to reality.
Alas, the first question that leapt through the lips of a high-profile agent Thursday when I asked him about this D-Will surprise was this: "How much is the contract for?" Oh, details, details, the Devil is thy roommate. One report had it at $5 million for the season, while others pegged it at $200,000 a month, including a driver, security guard, and a 24-hour personal assistant.
Wait, D-Will doesn't already have a 24-hour personal assistant? Didn't he attend the LeBron James Skills Academy to learn that's just what you do?
Anyway, the question becomes this: How many tens of millions is Williams willing to risk to prove a point? Because going to Turkey -- beautiful as it is, by all accounts -- would not be about banking a few million bucks. It would be about the greater good -- creating leverage in the players' fight against the owners, who have threatened to bully them into submission with this lockout and their laughable demands.
Besiktas coach Ergin Ataman told every media outlet that would listen Thursday that his next target would be Kobe Bryant. OK, sounds like a plan. But let's be honest about this: As great as it would be for Williams, Bryant, Paul, Howard, LeBron, Wade, etc., to go on some barnstorming tour of Europe, could this really happen?
In all likelihood, nope.
"They won't all go," a prominent longtime agent told me. "There's not enough money there. This notion that there's all this money over there is simply not true. It's dangerous to do this."
Dangerous because, while the agreement between the NBA and FIBA to approve the poaching of each other's players evidently is suspended during the lockout, the difficulty in getting contracts like Williams' deal with Besiktas insured remains a serious impediment. Williams, 27, is due $34 million on the final two years of his current NBA contract, including a player option for 2012-13. Depending on what the new collective bargaining agreement allows, he'll make upwards of $70 million-plus on his next one.
"He's going to risk that to make a few million dollars?" another high-profile agent said. "What if he gets hurt?"
Would the Euro teams insure the contracts and foot the bill? They might, one of the agents said. But these are teams with a history of reneging on contracts worth a few hundred thousand dollars. In February, the New York Times detailed a litany of American players who had to go through a FIBA arbitration tribunal to force teams in Europe, Asia and Latin America to honor their contracts. Former NBA player Lonny Baxter's case against Besiktas was settled for $181,000 just weeks before the Turkish team signed Iverson to a two-year, $4 million deal last fall.
"Clubs tend to not respect the contracts they make," FIBA legal adviser Dirk-Reiner Martens told the Times for that story.
Or, as one of the prominent agents said Thursday of Williams' foray into Turkey, "It's all about nothing. It's gobbledygook."
If the NBA's biggest stars could find a legitimate alternative to playing in the NBA next season, it would be a game-changing event in the lockout to end all lockouts. Maybe someone -- a TV network, corporate sponsors, Russians just as rich as Prokhorov -- will come up with something. But until then, the idea of Kobe teaming up with D-Will in Turkey is just as pie-in-the-sky as the owners' demands in the bargaining talks.
But mark my words: The NBA lockout is going to be filled with days like this. There will be no dull moments, no shortage of efforts on the part of the players' part to flex their considerable muscle. It's enough to make you wonder what it would take for the owners to notice.
