Rumor: Pau Gasol considering playing for Team Spain in Eurobasket 2011

May 13, 2011

Pau and friend

Could Pau Gasol play for Team Spain in Eurobasket 2011? At least one website is speculating as such, despite the fact that the Los Angeles Laker hasn’t played in international competition since the 2008 Olympics. In 2010, Gasol announced he wouldn’t compete with Spain in the FIBA World Championship after “a grueling NBA season in which he has sustained the first two major muscle injuries of his career, ‘my body is calling for a temporary relief.’”

Today’s rumor about Gasol comes from Eurobasket.com, which cites ESPN Los Angeles and CBS Sports as sources, but BallinEurope can’t seem to locate the original speculation on these ‘sites. No matter: After seeing Gasol’s, shall we say, lackluster play during the Lakers’ series against the Dallas Mavericks last week, Team Spain may just decide to go forward with brother Marc in the middle instead.

May 13, 2011ballineurope

This post was published on May 13, 2011

Comments: 14

max
13 years ago
Pau gasol won eurobasket 2009 with spain, he has just missed eurobasket 2005 and worlds 2010. And I’d say it’s more probable that Pau plays this summer than his brother, who’s going to be more tired and in free agency, with a lockout looming the horizon. The good news are that Ibaka is likely to play as well, and that would be a terrific frontcourt =)
Reply Cancel
Team USA Dopes
13 years ago
Derrick Rose admitted that NBA players are doping.

In the May 16th issue of ESPN the Magazine on Page 50, Derrick Rose was asked:

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how big of an issue is illegal enhancing in the NBA?”

Derrick Rose: ” Seven. It’s huge and I think we need a level playing field where nobody has that advantage over the next person.”

All the people claiming Team USA dopes are now vindicated. All the people like Gabe can now forever be proven to be liars.
Reply Cancel
Phileus
13 years ago
Oh hey, it’s The Troll again! You do realize that the NBA is 20% foreign players, right? If anyone takes PEDs, I’m pretty sure it’s… YAO MING. We all know that he was genetically engineered by the Chinese government, and/or a cyborg created from alien technology. All the people claiming Team China cheats are now vindicated.

Anyway, it would be cool to see Gasol in action. I love high-level international competition and Team Spain has played beautiful basketball whenever I watched them. But (to max) you said Ibaka could play for Spain? Isn’t he from the Congo? I know he played a year in Spain but is that enough for him to represent Team Spain?
Reply Cancel
Team USA Dopes
13 years ago
http://insider.espn.go.com/insider/espnmag
Reply Cancel
Team USA Dopes
13 years ago
This Phileus guy is a riot.

Duncan, Ewing, Olajuwon, Wilkins, etc., etc., etc., Team USA invented using naturalized players, using foreign players, using foreign-born players, etc.

It’s OK for Team USA to use Africans like Olajuwon on their team, but god help if Spain dares to have the audacity to do it.

STFU.
Reply Cancel
Phileus
13 years ago
Cool story bro. I wasn’t criticizing Spain, just asking a question about how it worked. All those players you listed lived in the US for a while and went to college there, so it seemed more natural. Wilkins, by the way, was born a US citizen. And Duncan was, too – USVI is still an American territory 😉

By the way, I’m a foreign-born person who became a US citizen too. I quite like naturalization 🙂
Reply Cancel
Team USA Dopes
13 years ago
Like I said, it’s OK for Team to naturalize players and use foreign-born players, but it’s “tacky” if any other team does it.

You USA patriotic, flag waving morons are such a joke.
Reply Cancel
- Gabe
  13 years ago
  I think it’s pathetic that Ibaka would play for Spain. Of the people Team USA Dopes mentioned, Wilkins was born an American citizen(his father was an American soldier stationed in France), so was Duncan who was born in the US Virgin Islands whose citizens are American, Ewing was 11 when he moved to the United States. Olajuwon is the only one who you might have a point on but even he played college ball in the USA and was living in American for 16 years before playing for the national team. Ibaka lived in Spain for only TWO years inbetween the Congo and America. I mean maybe he should play for Britain because he had a layover in Heathrow Airport!! It’s one thing for Kaman to play for Germany because his great-grand parents were German and he wouldn’t have made Team USA but for Ibaka to forsake the Congo to play for #2 Spain is gutless. I mean it would be difficult to even get Congo into the Olympics but he should be a man like Romain Sato who is going to try and get the Central African Republic qualified. Soon the Olympics and other FIBA tournaments are going to look like NBA games, where players are divided according to their passports.
  Reply Cancel
Phileus
13 years ago
I have to disagree. I think that a lot of times, these players will naturally feel gratitude to countries where they made their first professional jumps. Ibaka could not have gone to the NBA straight from the Congo; he needed Spanish training on Spanish teams to develop his raw talent to get where he is today. So I can understand if he has a genuine feeling of gratitude to Spain and wants to play for them, bu I’m just not so sure the law will let him (which is what I was asking max)

I think cases like Ibaka or Deng are better candidates for naturalization than Kaman, though: the conscious decision to change citizenship is, to me, more powerful than having a thin genetic connection to a foreign country. I’m biased, though 🙂
Reply Cancel
- Gabe
  13 years ago
  It’s not so much the reasoning as the countries they are originally from. I am a fan of African basketball and think it’s a tragedy that Deng and Ibaka are skipping out on their homelands to plays for European countries where they lived for a fractions of their lives, basically just stop overs. The same goes for Olajuwon, the one nationalized player ever for team USA (even though as I said before he had been living in the USA for 16 before he suited up). Africa is rarely going to have a player go directly from Africa to the NBA. Does that mean that all the great African players should play for the European countries which are basically just a stop overs between Africa and the NBA? My hope is that Ibaka and Deng are not playing for their homeland because of political reasons (Ibaka’s father was jailed by Congo and Deng’s family left as refugees) than for the reason they would rather play for European countries that will give us more exposure than playing for Africa. Yes but Kaman is pretty pathetic too, even saying now he is only going to play for Germany if Nowitzki plays. That’s why I really respect Romain Sato (who was a starter on Panathinaikos the Euroleague champions) for playing for the Central African Republic this summer!
  Reply Cancel
Phileus
13 years ago
Yeah I feel you, but if you come from a country where the government is a mess and has nothing for you, why would you want to represent it? Especially in many African countries, where people associate with ancient ethnic groups more strongly than they do with recently-made nationalities, why would you choose to represent a government that has done nothing for you, instead of representing the country that gave you a chance?

I do respect Saito, and again I do see what you mean, but for some people I think it’s a very personal choice that reflects the trajectories their lives have taken – something that we might not be able to understand from player to player.
Reply Cancel
- Gabe
  13 years ago
  True that. I see what you are saying and can understand Ibaka playing for Spain. As for Sato the Central African Republic is ranked 46 so at least they have something while the Congo is ranked 75 and the Sudan is not even ranked. Speaking of national tournaments it is so unfair to be an American player since the talent pool in the USA is so deep, winning the last two global tournaments with completely different teams and a player like Zack Randolph does not even get to show his talents on the global stage because Team USA is so stacked. The USA can make a third team with no players from 2008 and 2010 and still be one of the favorites in 2012!
  Reply Cancel
Petros
13 years ago
http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=223184

[url]http://aol.sportingnews.com/nba/story/2011-05-16/sbj-nba-proposes-45-million-hard-salary-cap[/url]

[B]SBJ: NBA proposes $45 million [€31.6 million] hard salary cap[/B]

SportsBusiness Journal Sporting News

John Lombardo, SportsBusiness Journal

[B]The NBA’s initial proposal for a new collective-bargaining deal called for a $45 million [€31.6 million] per team hard salary cap along with non-guaranteed player contracts and significant cuts in annual salary increases.[/B]

David Stern and the NBA have reportedly sent the players an offer that includes a $45 million [€31.6 million] [B]hard salary cap[/B].

The memo’s most eye-popping element is the league’s proposed $45 million [€31.6 million] [B]hard cap, which cuts the current $58 million [€40.7 million] soft cap by nearly 25 percent[/B].

Hunter said in the memo that [B]the NBA projects the $45 million [€31.6 million] hard cap number with a team’s total salary not to exceed the cap for any reason.[/B] The proposed hard cap as outlined by Hunter also would eliminate the current luxury tax provision, which penalizes teams with a dollar-for-dollar tax for the amount spent on player payroll exceeding the salary cap.

[B]The inclusion of non-guaranteed player contracts[/B], while a negotiating point, also represents a radical shift for players who have long benefited from guaranteed deals.

The union confirmed the letter but refused to comment.

Hunter also alerts players to the league’s effort to alter the structure of current contracts while detailing the [B]owners’ proposal that no player contract be guaranteed for more than 50 percent for the first $8 million [€5.6 million] in salary and 25 percent for any amount above $8 million [€5.6 million].[/B]

The league also strikes directly at a team’s cap room to re-sign players at a maximum salary, known as the “Bird” exception, after hall of famer Larry Bird. [B]Annual contract increases would be no greater than 3 percent for players meeting the Bird rule, down significantly from the current 10.5 percent[/B] increase, according to the memo. [B]Owners also proposed that the Bird rule contract length be cut to four years from the current six-year length.[/B]

Non-Bird players, or [B]free agent players signing with new teams, would see their annual increases cut to 2 percent from the current 8 percent increase, with contract lengths cut to three years from the current five-year length.[/B]

The memo also explains that players would be put into one of four categories under a hard cap system, namely, Category A: a minimum salary player; Category B: a rookie wage scale player; Category C: a maximum salary player; and [B]Category D: a player “fighting for whatever room remains under the new hard salary cap after the three above categories are accounted for.”[/B]

[B]The union clearly is most concerned about the last category of players seeing major salary cuts.[/B] It uses, in the memo, as an example a player placed in the “D” category with his salary to be dictated by the team’s available salary cap. [B]The player is signed through 2013 for a total salary exceeding $9 million [€6.3 million].[/B] The memo shows that [B]under the initial league proposal, the player’s salary would drop to a total just over $8 million [€5.6 million][/B], demonstrating how [B]teams would be forced to cut salaries to remain under the hard cap[/B].

[B]“Under the hard cap proposal, a team’s total salary may not exceed the proposed hard salary cap for any reason,”[/B] Hunter said in the memo. [B]“The important part to keep in mind is that without exceptions provided in our current soft cap system, all players would have to squeeze tightly under a hard (and much lower) cap number.”[/B]

————————————————————————-

For comparison, the 5 highest budgets in the Euroleague 2010-11 season were:

1. Olympiacos – €32 million

2. CSKA – €28 million

3. Barcelona – €28 million

4. Panathinaikos – €25 million

5. Real Madrid – €24 million

And 4 of those clubs (Olympiacos – €38 million -€43 million, CSKA – €42 million, Panathinaikos – €28 million, Real Madrid – €30 million) have had higher budgets than that in the past. Under the NBA’s proposed new rules (which if the players refuse them – the league will shut down)…..[B]the MAXIMUM budget allowed at the current exchange rates will be €32 million.[/B]

And remember that when looking at the salaries of NBA players, that they are GROSS INCOME AMOUNTS (before taxes), not net income amounts (after taxes), like in most Euroleague clubs.
Reply Cancel
- Gabe
  13 years ago
  And this post is hilarious because he basically says the NBA can’t compete and shows as examples four teams under no salary cap constraints who spend significantly less than his ridiculous article that we all know is not going to occur (worst case player scenario). So if the NBA did its doomsday cap the teams would still spend more than unrestricted euro league teams.
  Also the money is important but the NBA gives their players the exposure and endorsement deals that just don’t happen in the Euroleague.
  Reply Cancel