Hi betweentheeyes,

I agree with you that this is a bargaining ploy. Joventut will have to consider if they want to have an unhappy player in the locker room, potentially destabilizing even if they win the case.

Ricky Rubio’s clause this year is 4.7 million Euros. Less than the 5 million Euros that was considered fair in Zubiaurre’s case. His salary right now is higher than Zubiaurre’s at the time.

Regarding to your point that in the States this would be considered financial hostage taking, I’m afraid that many people in Spain have a different point of view.

Their point is that to get a “Rubio”- if they are lucky, they need to train and invest in thousands of players. In order to do that, they need to keep in place a huge infrastructure which is a big financial burden.

They think it is unfair that the NBA reaps the benefits but invests nothing in player development.

The judge in Zubiaurre’s case decided that 5 million Euros was the fair clause for all the investment that the club does to develop the players.

Hi phuturekings,

You are right. Spain is not a common law country. Although, Jurisprudence when is established by the Supreme Court has some weigh.

In this case there is no Supreme Court ruling, that means that as you said, the judge will follow his own criteria but we can be sure that Joventut lawyers´ will use Zubiaurre´s sentence arguments to defend their case.

Hi Ristlin,

Very good point.

You said ¨the judge will compare the rescision clause in Rubio’s contract with the other rescision clauses in spanish basketball, not spanish soccer. Spanish basketball rescision clauses are way lower compared to the salaries than in soccer.¨

That´s a valid point and that will be probably Ricky´s defense.

However, the clauses in soccer used to be much lower for young players not many years ago. Nowadays, anyone playing in the youth leagues has a standard contract of a 30 million Euros clause, even if 99.99% of them won´t be never Kaka or Ronaldo nor they won´t ever play even with the first professional team.

Why did professional soccer go from very low clauses for young players to stratospheric clauses?

The reason is because quite a few Ricky Rubio cases happened in soccer. What seemed unthinkable happened and powerful soccer clubs such as Barcelona, Real Madrid, Arsenal, etc…started to get very young superpromising players as young as 14 paying very little or nothing to their former Clubs . As a result soccer clubs were hurt – including the powerful ones when they started to steal young promises to each other damaging their development programs.

The NBA is in this case the powerful Real Madrid, Barcelona or Arsenal at the time. The unthinkable. A young 18 year old Spanish player ending in the top 5 draft . The clauses are lower in basketball because everybody knows that no local team has the pockets to pay a high clause.

Joventut had the prevision to know that the unthinkable could happen and put a very high clause to protect themselves.

We will see what the judge says. However, if Joventut wants to play hard ball they know that the sentence will take more than a year and they can even appeal that and delay more the outcome.

Hi between the eyes,

I don’t think that sentence would be available sooner than January 2010 but Joventut could appeal to the bitter end and then it would take much, much longer as much as two years more in my opinion

As long as he knew the terms when he signed it, a buyout of 10 Trillion Euros would be fair as far as I’m concerned. If he thought it was unfair, then he shouldn’t have signed it. Claiming that he’s a hostage implies that he was forced into the situation against his will. This just seems strange. I mean, can the Maloofs now take Kenny Thomas to court because his deal is unfair? I certainly think it is.

Is the lawsuit simply based on the fact that he was only 15 when the contract was signed and he didn’t actually have a say in the structuring of the contract? If that’s the case, then does that mean any contract involving a minor can be reevaluated once the kid turns 18? And is it up to the courts to unilaterally decide what is or isn’t fair? If that’s the case, I’d think signing a minor to any contract extending beyond 18 would be pointless.

I’m definitely rooting for Ricky to get out of this deal, but I guess I just need somebody to explain to me why a deal that he agreed to is now unfair.

but regardless of the whether DKV J has the upper hand or not, isnt it in their interests to give in a little for the sake of image?

Whatever happens, this will change the perception the team has for any prospective players who might be looking sign to DKV Joventut with the hopes of going to the NBA later on.

I have zero knowledge of how it all works over there. . but my guess is that if DKV J play nice with RR, then any up and coming player looking to use the euro league as a springboard for the NBA will more likely want to play for them . . .

and of course, vice versa, if DKV J play real hardball with RR, then if you’re in Euro and looking to head to the NBA, would you risk signing with DKV J? And of course every other team is going to say, “Sign with us, dont bother with DKV J, u want another RR situation?”

For the 99.99% young players that are not Ricky Rubio and never will be, it is a privilege to sign a contract with Joventut or any other professional team and I think it will continue that way. The young player knows that if they have the first chance to play, maybe they will have the opportunity to sign a better contract later in their careers once they earn a reputation

I don’t think that Joventut is worried about their image. Joventut DKV is a professional club and therefore run like a business. They will try to get as much as they can the same way that Petrie would try to get the best deal for Sacramento in any given situation. Would Petrie deal a player let’s say to Lakers or Knicks for image considerations? or would Petrie say you need to stick to the black letter of the contract?

The judge will decide if the clause is excessive or not.

Ricky was minor when he signed the contract but the contract was signed by his parents and they had the authority to do that. In that sense the contract is legal

for them.

100% Rubio comes over this year.

Joventut’s president is really pissed…

Here are some translated nuggets from this article

http://www.20minutos.es/noticia/473027/0/villacampa/joventut/rubio/

- We move ourselves by principles and an unbreakable youth development policy. We wouldn’t exist if we didn’t invest in player development and didn’t protect ourselves with this kind of clauses.
- We are not here to give free gifts, one thing is negotiation and another one is to give gifts.
- We are going to fight to defend our philosophy and protect our interests.
- Both sides were absolutely convinced and happy when the contract was signed.
- Now it seems that he signed the contract under a gun. But he didn’t come alone and lost here.
- We gave him the opportunity to become a professional player, to grow as a player, to be an Olympic medalist.
- The contract is what it was signed and we are going to defend that.
- We have tripled Ricky’s salary unilaterally without asking anything in return. He earns now more than 200,000 Euros
- I had three meetings with his parents after the Olympics. First, they told me that they would respect the contract entirely. They changed their opinion later and said that they would like to change the clause in 2010. Then, Dan Fegan came and told me that the decision was already taken to leave.
- They have the right to sue us but this is not ethical.
- This is morally wrong. They are just looking for their own interests.
- They don’t take into consideration what was signed.
- We offered him to reduce the clause in half to 3 million in 2010 but they don’t offer anything.
- I don’t know if it is ethically correct that a player who is suing us can continue playing with us. That’s sounds weird to me.
- Rudy Fernandez was intelligent. He chose to stay one year more with us and he helped us to win three tournaments. He matured as a player and now he has a bright future in the NBA.
- We offered the same thing to Rubio. We will lower your clause if you stay one year more but he doesn’t want to give anything in return.