Possibilities of a Brook Lopez Slip

If he knows he’s slipping out of the top 10, why not just stay an extra year?

Let me point out something that’s intriguing too about this year’s draft.

More bad news for the San Antonio Spurs and European draft prospects. It looks like yet another top Euro prospect may spurn the NBA and stay in Europe. A few sources at the Orlando camp said that former Spurs first-round pick Tiago Splitter is leaning strongly toward signing a two-year deal with his current team, Tau Ceramica. According to those same sources, the contract won’t have an NBA buyout for two years.

The problem for the Spurs (and other NBA teams that draft European players late in the first round) is the NBA rookie salary cap. The Spurs, who drafted Splitter with the No. 30 pick in the 2007 draft, can’t pay Splitter more than $771,000 in Year 1 of his deal. Splitter is coming off an excellent year in Europe and can make significantly more money as a free agent in Europe.

This isn’t the first time this has happened. Spain’s Fran Vazquez spurned the Magic a few years ago in part because he could sign for more money in Spain. The Blazers’ Rudy Fernandez is struggling with the same dilemma.

The fact that the value of the U.S. dollar is low compared to the Euro isn’t helping things.

I hate highlighting this much text. Normally I wouldn’t, but while everyone was talking about how brilliant it was for the Blazers to draft Rudy Fernandez so low, it’s not in Fernandez’s best financial interest to come to the NBA. Because he wasn’t drafted as high there is a strong chance the buyout isn’t financially feasible for him to come over before it’s too late for Portland. What does this mean? Well a few things.

The biggest thing is that it will make teams like the Blazers reluctant to buy low 1st rounders from teams like the Suns for players they can’t get without a significant ability to use them at some point.

Another problem is that if these players stop entering the draft pool it will make the American pool that much tighter which is how the NBA dipped so poorly in talent in the mid 90’s to begin with. Without the world pool so deep, how can the NBA contend with a talent shortage? They can’t, and if they thought the mid 90’s competition was bad, I can only imagine what will happen when Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan leave the game. This is bad news bears for the NBA if the dollar vs euro trend continues.

A few things, from a Stanford student who’s covered basketball for the newspaper the last couple years.

First, I find it hard to believe he’ll drop that far. Ford has good sources in front offices, I’m sure, but his record of predicting draft order hasn’t been the greatest. But if we had a shot at Lopez we’d have to take him (I’d even like Geoff to try to trade up for him if we didn’t have to give up too much). I couldn’t imagine taking Love or Jordan before him. Some have concerns about his “upside” (a very problematic term) but Lopez will be solid, if not a bona fide stud.

Also, both Lopez twins signed with an agent, so there’s no going back. That wasn’t terribly surprising (although Robin would be a top 10 pick next year) as neither of them was terribly into school. Brook’s not as crazy as Ron. He went through a stretch where he got a few T’s last year, but he calmed down a bit this year. The Disney thing is a but unnerving, yes, but I think it’s more of a maturity thing than anything. Physically, he’s already there. He and Hawes would be a dream pairing.

I have Brook way down the list of prospects on my draft rankings system. I even have him just barely making the solid starter range so I am not surprised to hear of his falling interest.

As an econ major and someone who works with foreign currency, its good to see this mentioned. Pookey outlines a pretty clear dilema. But what does the NBA do about it? Theres been some talk of adding a NBA league in Europe. While adding teams would further dilute the talent pool, its likely that it’s league could become the more popular of all the European leagues. While this still doesn’t solve the fact that these players are getting paid more in these other leagues, it would be hard to imagine these players wanting to play for a second tier league. IDK, kind of mix of many variables, but just my quick 2 cents.