Yahoo! Sports is reporting that Cavs‘ free agent Delonte West is strongly considering a 2-year, $10 million offer from Dynamo Moscow, the same club that just signed former Net Bostjan Nachbar. If I’m LeBron, I lose my mind if management lets Delonte walk to a Euro team offering him a few more bucks. West isn’t the best PG in the world, but he seemed to fit in well with the Cavs last season. Plus he’s definitely one of the best remaining options out there in terms of free agent point guards. If Cleveland loses him, where do they go for PG help?
And another question: is Russia ready for The G-Code?
Source: Yahoo! Sports
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July 25th, 2008 at 10:09 am
iain. says:
That biting Moscow wind would be terrible for Delonte’s skin condition. And he looks kinda like a Tajik/Kazakh so i’m not sure the locals would be too fond of him, the Russians dont play.
July 25th, 2008 at 10:11 am
fiyaman says:
tinsley
July 25th, 2008 at 10:23 am
MoxWestCoastRep says:
this is getting crazy. Now NBA teams have to believe that every player could go to Europe. Stern is going to have to address this by adjusting the salary caps or eliminating them like baseball. otherwise you will see a mass expdos and his game is gonna go down hill fast!
July 25th, 2008 at 10:23 am
don't matter who I am just read punks!! says:
Honestly, the Cavs need to stop trying to make Lebron happy and Just make good executive decisions. They were trying to make Lebron happy with the Wallace adn Wally world pickup and that was just a disaster. Now you have a 16 million dollar contract that’s worth 5 million a year and no perimeter defender.
It doesn’t matter who The cavs get as a point if they keep Mike Brown who believes in giving Lebron the ball up top and pushing the GO button. Danny Ferry is horrible and so is Mike Brown. I would restructure my management if I were the cleveland owner because he is doing a not so good job.
July 25th, 2008 at 10:29 am
hahns says:
i agree w/ mox, this is getting out of hand. i thought childress was a one-off thing, but now delonte??
i commented in the childress post that this was not the start of a new trend..but damn. maybe i was totally wrong.
childress and delonte are solid rotation players that could probably get burn for most teams in the league. not like dahnty jones or trajan langdon or something
July 25th, 2008 at 10:34 am
shake&bake says:
Maybe the Russians have developed a cure for his herpe sore on his mouth but they’ll only give it to him if he plays in Russia.
July 25th, 2008 at 10:36 am
don't matter who I am just read punks!! says:
Truth be told, more players need to bolt, maybe this will open sterns eyes up a bit. I hope some Euro team offers Lebron, wade and Carmelo like 50 million a year for 6 years. that would TOTALLY change everything!!!
July 25th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Celts Fan says:
@Post4, that actually wasn’t a terrible move, it was the move that made it necessary - Larry Hughes for $12M+ per - that was horrid and only done to make LeBron happy. That was blatant from the second it happened. They missed out on Ray Ray and Michael Redd, so they threw waaaaaaay too much money at Larry Hughes. The good news is that Wally’s deal expires this year (I think) so it’s a valuable chip, and Ben’s awful contract expires next year, so they should have some flexibility soon, it’s just a matter of whether it’ll be to improve around LeBron or start over in Seattle.
and Delonte’s pretty good. He’s good enough that he should at least be getting more interest on the market. Doesn’t seem like this is as big a deal as Childress’s, so hopefully an NBA team steps up. The kid can defend really well, is a solid shooter, and not a terrible PG. Solid fit on a contender. Cleveland should keep him.
July 25th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Arno says:
Honestly, being a European, this (very small) exodus to Europe, which could effectively jeopardize the league’s delicate equilibria, looks like what happened in Europe when our best players, like Drazen Petrovic and Sabo, started to play in America. At the moment, French fans can’t see their best players (Parker, Diaw, Turiaf, Petro, Diawara, Pietrus, Noah and now Batum and Ajinca), except on late night TV, because French ball clubs are unable to compete with NBA salaries.
We call it globalization and it’s no fun.
July 25th, 2008 at 10:58 am
MoxWestCoastRep says:
@Arno
….But we’re America!
LOL
July 25th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Prof. TX says:
This is where overpaying your roleplayers hurts you. The overpaid guys make the underpaid ones jealous. Your $5M player who is earning $12M has upset your $5M players who were earning $3M. So the underpaid guys that you want to keep will leave to chase the big money, and the overpaid guys just continue to suck and laugh at you all the way to the bank. Now you have a bunch of players who aren’t worth their money, and with a salary cap, are preventing you from adding anyone good.
Losing the salary cap won’t fix it though. The Lakers and Knicks would just become the new Yankees/RedSox and try to outspend each other while chasing a title. James Dolan could just buy the Olympic team as his new squad and clubs like Milwaukee or Charlotte would have to close up shop because they’d never be able to catch up and compete with the big market spenders.
July 25th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Imperial-Mel says:
lets have an NBA/Euro League Championship!!!
plus Delonte is a much better purchase than Wally to me, moabey no statistically but for overall comrodery
July 25th, 2008 at 11:10 am
bballinca says:
There is an article in today’s LA times that talks about Sasha possibly going to Europe as wel if he doesn’t get whan the deems is a fair contract from the lakers as no other teams have offered him yet.
July 25th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Luigi says:
man stern might be out as commish if he lets the player who makes his league [LBJ] leave 4 Euro or probly force the league 2 expand 2 europe. imagine one day ur playing in LA against the Lakers then the next day u have to play in Germany. imagine how TIRED n PISSED the players must feel
July 25th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Celts Fan says:
@Imperial. The NBA team would win EVERY time against a Euro-League team (and don’t use the scrimmages that are preseason games for the NBA and mid-season exhibitions for Euro-League teams as an example. That doesn’t count.) The only reason the US has lost in the Olympics, etc., has been a lack of chemistry from not playing together. Not trying to sound like a jerk, but if almost all of the top-tier talent comes over here, it only makes sense that our best TEAM (not a collection of talented individuals, but an actual NBA team like the Celtics or Pistons that’s been playing together all year) would beat the best team in Europe.
July 25th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Celts Fan says:
*Assuming we’re talking the champs of each league. If you put CSKA Moscow against the Grizzlies or something that might be different.
July 25th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Celts Fan says:
*just like the UEFA Champ would MURDER the MLS champion (only, basketball’s a high scoring game, so there’s MUCH less of a fluke factor. In soccer, you can get a lucky goal and win 1-0. It’s much tougher to luck into a 90-88 win and why there are so few legitimate upsets in the NBA Playoffs.)
July 25th, 2008 at 11:52 am
BxBaller says:
Damn this would suck as Delonte is one of my favorite players in the league. Oh well, get your paper Delonte, f the Cavs. Mike Brown is a clown who runs no offense (just give the ball to the BronBot), and they overpaid for Varejo. Plus I’m not to sure that Szcerbiak and a on the down hill Ben Wallace are that much of an upgrade that Hughes & Gooden.
July 25th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Jim says:
Celts you done riled up all the Houston people…if only they knew their team was the champs…
Anyway, this is a negotiation ploy. I think you will see it happen, but now that it’s a legitimate threat, every guy has an extra thing they can throw out there. I would be surprised if it really became that common.
The saddest part of this will never hearing home terribly unprepared announcers getting shocked when Nochbar dunks on somebody. “Where did that come from!?!”
July 25th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
jz_smoove says:
its part matketing ploy, its part reality. this is what we have at hand right now and its happened before in europe like previous posts suggest. what might eventually happen is the biggest star of the NBA bolts for europe. In the mold of Julius Erving, this star is the league and euroleugues will get bought out by the NBA and absorbs back all the talent it had.
July 25th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
bballinca says:
I don’t think the NBA could buyout the top Euroleague teams. There was an itneresting article in SI a few months back about this very subject. The article focused on CSKA Moscow, their owner and team. The team would easily be a low level team in the NBA.
July 25th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Richie Cunningham says:
Perhaps i’m an idealist, but don’t these guys care for competition?
I think we can all agree that night in, night out - no league in Europe/Asia can offer the same type of competition as the NBA. Its disappointing to see some of the best ballers in the world jumping over to Europe for money and playing out the best years of their careers against sub-par comp.
Throw in the huge differences in culture and language overseas, and now i’m really scratching my head. I see alot of these young guys not being able to drastically change their lifestyles to adapt to their new surroundings - which are going to be VERY different compared to their typical day in America.
July 25th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
doc says:
Its Delonte fucking West people.Let his ass go.Lebron aint going over there yall tripping.
July 25th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
doc says:
Now Delonte so good because he leaving.His Celtics stunk,his Sonics stunk,now he hopped on Bron back and hes a good player,please.
July 25th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Celts Fan says:
@Richie, sure, they probably want the competition, but just like in all of our jobs, if someone swoops in with an easier job and more money, you’d take it. This is just a much more high-profile version of it.
In terms of the adjustments, I’m sure they have a general idea of what they’re getting into (and their agents are filling in the rest for them.) Why couldn’t some of them want a change and get a new point of view in a different culture? We’re talking Greece, Italy, Spain, and Russia here (the first 3 + the defrosted areas of Russia are nice,) not like he’s going to Iraq to play. the top-tier Euro Leagues are in countries that have a lot of areas that could best be described as paradise, only in a foreign language (can’t win ‘em all.) Go get that paper, broaden your horizons, and maybe we’ll see you in a year or so…
July 25th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
the mamba says:
I think the nba will eventually effectively move their “d league” over to europe and let each club own a team. Which will offer up more revenue for the teams and the league. People over their will love to see NBA Europe over their. That would also give teams a better chance of developing their talent with the integration of european players/coaches. That way if a situation came up like with childress. The hawks farm team in sicily could offer him the same deal he took. He could go over there, be a star, sell some tickets, and then opt out in a yr or two when the american team had more salary flexibillity or cap space. I think something like this may be crazy enough to work cuz it would create a whole new buzz over there and people would pay to see our “mid level” talent.
July 25th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Celts Fan says:
Doc, you’re from Philly man, figured you’d be the last one to rip Delonte. He tore it up at St. Joes. Yes, he’s a role player and isn’t going to be THE guy that puts you over the top, but every good team needs a guy like him. He can shoot, defend, and play a little of both guard spots (though he’s not a natural point.) I was surprised the Sonics let him go and thought he played well in Cleveland…
July 25th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
don't matter who I am just read punks!! says:
So Doc could you lock up Delonte West?
July 25th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
don't matter who I am just read punks!! says:
@Doc
Okay? Let me just say what I’m really thinking.
I think Delonte a work you homie? I mean, like all game long, you would probably be like a ball in a pinball machine.
July 25th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
bballinca says:
Most everyone in our generation and the players speak english. Lifestyle is not that much of an issue. As much as they say they don’t like America they are primarily referring to our government and are really open to Americans.
July 25th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
bballinca says:
Doc, are you looking at playing in the D-League this year or overseas? Not sure if you ahve an agent or not but my old agent can easily hook you up with a job in Europe. You should get paid too!!!
July 25th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
doc says:
@bballinca,Im cool,I balled in Europe before and Im probaly gonna end up back.I get more bread than in the D-league over there.But Delonte nice if you want to say compared to the average baller but Im talking NBA terms and what was proven.It aint like he was gonna get that much better than he is anyway.And dont get it fucked up I been on courts with him since high school it aint like he’ll cook me, @dont matter because I got me cooking you on the court they’ll be calling you chicken dinner.
July 25th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Lady Luck says:
NBA players have gone to play in Europe for years. This is not new. Just last year Marbury mentioned it and Webber was offered a contract by Greece (I think). There are many Americans playing in leagues overseas. Childress, West, Sasha… these are legit players who are voluntarily looking at the contract and considering. But we have received many international players in the NBA as well, so I don’t think that it’s that far-fetched for a player to consider this as an option. Plus the opportunity to travel the world and live in a foreign country for awhile has its appeal. I applaud Childress for weighing his option and going against the grain. I hope that the Cavs however find a way to retain Delonte. He was the best piece received in the large trades from last season. It would be a shame to lose him.