Foreign Players Make Out Big In Mass Exodus Overseas

By Krystina Lucido

The NBA has officially been in lockout for 29 days, and instead of coverage heard during the NFL lockout about positions, demands and time expectancies, NBA players are taking a stand, showing league executives they don’t need an in-home league to play ball.

Starting with Deron Williams signing with Besiktas, a small mass of players followed, either signing contracts with international teams or at least considering the possibility should the lockout continue into the season as expected.

Keeping your face out there, continuing to make money playing a game you love, avoiding the loss of momentum -- there are plenty of reasons to play overseas as opposed to waiting out the inevitable here in the States. But who makes out best in his scenario?

Basketball made a huge outburst internationally, especially since the previous NBA lockout, which took place before the 1998-99 season. In 12 years, NBA Global boasts representation in countries including Africa, the UK, China, Canada and more. Though it has made such progress, international pride still holds more weight in most of these countries than anything else.

Players hailing from foreign countries have an advantage in the current mass exodus to international basketball waters. They stand to gain the most financially and in notoriety. It will be interesting to see when the tables turn and Serge Ibaka is the most popular player on the floor over Dwight Howard.

Paul Shirley understands what playing in Europe is all about. Author of the book, Can I Keep My Jersey?, this self-proclaimed basketball vagabond played for 11 teams in nine years, seven of which were international. Even though he never quite reached the status of a Kobe Bryant, his knowledge of the international basketball culture is well-documented.

"As far as the treatment of the players goes, it is true that if you're in Russia, I think (Andrei) Kirilenko is going to be a bigger name than whoever might go, Chris Paul or something like that," Shirley said. "I guess if the players are big enough, if by some miracle Dwight Howard wanted to play in Europe, I suppose he would be a big enough name that he would be the star there. But there is a lot of nationalism and loyalty to a home-grown talent and I don’t know if Americans can compete with that."

NBA commissioner David Stern has always pushed for a basketball culture to grow internationally, but the business aspects of the game in foreign countries are vastly different than what American athletes are accustomed to. Besiktas, for example, was already found to be involved in a futbol-fixing scandal and their funds were frozen as a result. Any player that previously played for an international team knows the luxuries are not nearly the same as the ones given to the basketball elite back in the States.

In his book, Shirley recounted multiple stints with international teams who housed him in small, unseemly living quarters and were late making payments for his services. The grass is certainly not greener across the Atlantic.

"I'm still owed like $53,000 from that team in Greece and another $15,000 by the team in Spain," Shirley said. "A lot of the money that's bandied about is theoretical. It's kind of like talking about the debt crisis, none of this is real. So it comes to actually getting teams to pay up; I think it will harder than people realize."

However, international players know this and are comfortable with it for three reasons. One, they are most likely not the culprit, since they are from these countries and would be treated well by their brethren. They are also reaping the benefits of already being internationally known and respected in their countries for playing in the NBA, which means if they return to actually play in their country, they are heroes. And they don’t even have to worry about making it onto a team.

American players are the ones who should be concerned. There is a cap on the number of American players that can be on one team, usually capped at two, though some teams extended that rule to three.

"I wouldn’t be surprised if that gets relaxed a little bit, maybe this year," Shirley said. "But in general, I've been watching carefully to see who gets these jobs because there just aren’t very many jobs. It's not necessarily fair, but it makes sense. The leagues want local interest in the game. If they just shipped over 12 Americans, there wouldn’t be as much interest, but it does cut down on the availability of jobs pretty quickly."

International clubs will not have nearly the amount of resources necessary to absorb 32 NBA teams into their coffers, but even the ones they do will be experiencing immense pay cuts. The face time players will get for their personal brands will prosper, but most of the tangible benefits they are used to receiving will remain unattainable.

Read my full interview with Paul Shirley.