Show Ricky the Money!
According to Marca.com, the #5 pick in the 2009 NBA Draft, Ricky Rubio, is now going to play for Regal Barcelona. The transaction will be the most expensive buyout in European basketball history valued around $5.3M (3.7 million Euro). It is a 6-year contract with an opt-out clause to play in the NBA. Most European basketball contracts include similar clauses for players to leave for the NBA.
It is assumed that after 2 years with Barcelona that Rubio’s buyout will be low enough for him to enter the NBA for the 2011-12 season. He has already picked up endorsement deals with Nike & Gillette (just to name a few) so hopefully we will see this YouTube sensation in the USA even earlier. Barcelona won the Spanish League Championship last season and finished third overall in the Euroleague.
Rubio is currently on the DKV Joventut team, which is also in Spain. His current contract with Joventut includes an $8.133M (5.7 million Euro) buyout clause for both this summer and next summer. The buyout drops to zero in the summer of 2011.
It will be interesting to see how the Minnesota Timberwolves, the team that drafted him, deal with the latest news. The T’Wolves President David Kahn has met with his top draft pick several times in Spain, which really says a lot about his commitment to get Rubio playing for him in the immediate future.
The first player born in the 90s to be drafted by the NBA will continue to receive international publicity as the circus surrounding his playing in the NBA will intensify with this latest news. I think it will be very interesting to see how this situation affects NBA policies and the stock of foreign players in the future. As a result of the current clause in the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement, an NBA team is only allowed to contribute up to $500,000 towards any international buyout. That needs to change.
The monetary aspect has never been this extreme of a problem in the past as many international stars have been drafted even higher than Rubio. Yao Ming of China was drafted #1 in 2002 by the Houston Rockets and had to overcome several hurdles before the draft to be released by the Chinese Basketball Association, but everything was cleared up before the season started. Andrew Bogut of Australia played two years of college ball in the United States before being selected as the #1 pick in 2005 and a year later Andrea Bargnani of Italy was selected with the top pick in the 2006 NBA Draft. Both Bogut & Bargnani suited up for their respective team’s opening games. That is how things should be.
Obviously, something needs to change. The NBA Draft is in place to help these struggling teams and if they select international stars and can’t bring them over to the States then what is the point? I must say that of course a consistently horrible franchise like the T’Wolves fell into this mess even if they do have some promise with young bigs Al Jefferson & Kevin Love locked in for the next several years. Had Rubio fallen to a team like the New York Knicks with such a huge market, I have to believe that he would have found a way to suit up this season.
Anyways, congrats to Ricky! Life must be good right now.
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The NBA needs to forget their arcaic international buyout limit and focus on bringing quality talent into the League. $500K might have been a suitable buyout limit in 1976, but that barely buys your family season tickets to the Sparks for the 2010 season. Grow up NBA, you’re getting competition from around the globe for players (remember Lebron and the rumblings of an acquisition by the Olympiakos?). Raising the buyout limit will make sure the NBA is still the only big-dog pissing on the tall weeds.
La Pistola brings the desire to play a team game, focusing on the team’s goals as opposed to his own. Maybe acquiring a few more respectable European players will overshadow the extensive list of NBA boners(ie Ricky Davis who shot at his own basket in order to get his fisrt triple-double).
Billy Wirth’s definitely looking forward to the “Rolling Earthquake” coming stateside.
Those are all great points. The NBA can’t be missing out on players like Rubio. He could change a franchise!
Nice site!