NBA in trouble? Does anyone think its time for the NBA to make some changes or is it simply too late and an inevitability. One would think competition and endorsement would be a factor, but you can't compete with more money for less time. Time for a removal of the luxury tax and less games. On the other hand, if more foreign players stay out of the NBA, from a development standpoint I think that's what had them behind in the first place.
It is a definite threat but I do not see the NBA losing a lot of premier players. Kobe & Lebron would lose so much endorsement money by doing that. I am not going to put it past anyone, but I think it is more of a ploy to raise or eliminate the salary cap.
The MLS wil also be the end of the European leagues. I mean they paid David Beckam 50 million to play here.
the end of the NBA as the unchallenged and undisputed accumulator of global basketball talent? sure. basketball is the 2nd most popular sport in the world, and therefore it is hard to imagine there not being some money somewhere else in the world to pay players with. if basketball continues to grow, the NBA simply can't make enough money to keep every single other league/team in the world from taking away a lower-level NBA player with a big-time payday. i don't know much about soccer, but there doesn't seem to be an NBA/NFL/MLB of soccer, where all the real talent is in one place. and i assume that's because soccer is big enough to be supported in many places. if other countries fans pour revenue into basketball leagues, they can start getting talent b/c we all know money talks and what walks. now the end of the NBA as the best basketball league in the world? that isn't even remotely close. think about the shift that would require. right now, the atlanta hawks 6th man is the highest paid international player, i believe by a good margin as well. the amount of nba-level talent overseas vs nba-level talent here is still miniscule. even if half of the NBA's talent went overseas, it would still be split up among several leagues. to have another league actually surpass the NBA would require a fiscally responsible league (i.e. no owners just throwing 50 million at kobe/lebron and suffering big losses just to have them on the team) with revenue surpassing the NBA's. and that would require countries that currently don't like basketball nearly as much as we do having fans that support it with as much money as American fans do. while it wouldn't be quite as tough to do in basketball, it would be kind of like asking if MLS is going to be #1 b/c we have beckham (i see i just got beat to that point). sure we got someone famous by throwing a crapload of money at them, but it's not a sustainable thing, we don't support the sport nearly as much, and the gap between other leagues is still enormous.
It is not the end of the NBA as the best basketball in the world. But it maybe the end of the NBA as the only quality basketball league in the world. The overseas leagues are closing the talent gap, to the point that they will have NBA caliber players now. I don't ever see them having a better overall talent level, but they may have some players that would be NBA all-stars. Basketball has grown in popularity that more than one league can be sucessful. The soccer comparison seems spot on.
Euro leagues have clauses in place that limit the number of foreign players (americans) on the team, usually 1 or 2. Teams have gotten around that however by getting their players to become citizens. Becky Hammon and JR Holden come to mind. Stern's dream is to expand the NBA to Europe, logistically thats not possible right now of course.
Whatever. They'll get a few decent players that can't make superstar money here. Over there, they'll be the best player on the team and make big money. They also may get 1 or 2 disgruntled stars, but that's it, and he'll be surrounded by scrubs. None of their teams will be able to compete with even the worst NBA team any time in the foreseeable future.
I suspect that some of the top Euro teams like Tau or CSKA could beat an NBA team like the Clippers or the Knicks.
What people are missing about this summer's rash of middling NBA players heading to Europe is this: Basically, from an owner standpoint, we're talking about four or five billionaires swinging their dicks around. They've got the dough to overpay for Jannero Pargo and Josh Childress ... but they aren't going to be signing Kobe and LeBron anytime soon. I'll even concede that one day, an NBA superstar signs overseas. But not enough to completely sink the NBA. I mean, there's money to be had in Europe right now ... but wait until the big-dick billionaires get tired of swining their dicks around.
its pretty simple guys... when was the last time Nike gave a European basketball player a 100M endorsement deal?...nope, not gonna happen
