Imports come with a price

Sporting News, The, Oct 6, 2003 by Sean Deveney

Nuggets center Nene nearly wound up in Europe. He was a teenager in Brazil considering a seven-year contract offer from a team in Spain for about $100,000 per year. He was to sign the following day when an associate of Mike Coyne, now Nene's agent, talked him out of it. "We told him not to sign anything," Coyne says. "We thought he could get to the NBA, but we knew there would be a problem if there was a long-term contract overseas."

Darko Milicic was not so lucky. He was just 15 and eager to help his family when he signed a contract with Hemofarm, a Yugoslavian team, in 2000. Unaware of the consequences, Milicic signed through 2009. Thus, after the Pistons chose Milicic second in file draft this summer, Hemofarm demanded an eight-figure buyout. The Pistons, by NBA rules, could pay only $350,000, so the buyout came from Milicic's pocket. Since Hemofarm still had Milicic under contract, the team got a lucrative buyout spread over at least four years.

The NBA has made wonderful progress boosting its global profile recently, and international flair is one of the selling points of the game. But there is a slimy underbelly to this, and the league must recognize it: Teams around the globe are locking up talented, naive teenagers as young as 14, to absurd long-term deals, knowing big money can be made from an NBA buyout. The longer the contract, the bigger the buyout.

"The problem is not the buyout; it's the length of contract," says Marc Cornstein, who became Milicic's agent well after the 10-year deal with Hemofarm was signed. "If you have somebody signed for six more years, how do you figure out what the buyout is? At what point is it negotiation? At what point is it extortion?"

For now, the NBA sees international buyouts as a problem for FIBA, basketball's international governing body. "Obviously, there is a problem when a 14-year-old signs a contract for 10 years," says NBA deputy commissioner Russ Granik. "But there is nothing we can do. Perhaps FIBA can, or perhaps it is something that should be handled as a European legal issue. But we can't get involved in a worldwide lawsuit."

Granik is right--there is, ostensibly, nothing the league can do. NBA teams have no right to raid the rosters of international teams, and folks who sign contracts should uphold them. But let's use common sense here. How can a kid who signs a contract at age 14, without proper representation, be legally bound by that contract? This is not a matter of teams wanting to keep players for competitive reasons. It's a matter of, as Cornstein says, "using players as assets to be sold."

"Most of these kids are from hard backgrounds," says Keith Kreiter, who represents the Knicks' Maciej Lampe, another rookie who had a difficult buyout situation over the summer. "You put a piece of paper in front of them and tell them to sign it, they're going to. And it holds up as a contract? That's ridiculous."

FIBA is an unwieldy bureaucracy that is not much concerned with policing its teams. The NBA has the wealth and might to nudge FIBA into doing the right thing--the league did it 14 years ago when draftees such as Danny Ferry and Brian Shaw used Italian teams as negotiating tools. It has more nudging to do on this. There must be a sane buyout system for contracts worldwide, to prevent teams from exploiting teenagers. The NBA can increase the amount that its teams can pitch in for a buyout, but FIBA needs to limit the length of contracts signed by adolescent players and establish buyout caps.

"This is the next big issue," Cornstein says. "Players are getting hurt by this, and eventually the league will get hurt by this, too. The writing is on the wall."

SPEED READ

* New Hawks owner Steve Belkin lost out on the expansion team in Charlotte and on a potential purchase of the Celtics. He's finally in, but he will regret it soon. The Hawks are stuck in a rut of being bad enough to miss the playoffs but not bad enough to end up with a franchise player in the draft.

INSIDE DISH

Last summer, Warriors PF Troy Murphy bulked up and worked on his game, and it paid off. Murphy averaged 11.7 points and 10.2 rebounds. This summer, Murphy is working with Warriors special assistant Chris Mullin to add a 3-pointer to his game. Murphy is 6-for-23 from the arc in his career, but Mullin says the shot is coming along. "It's not something he's going to shoot 10 times a game," Mullin says. "But it forces defenders to come out to the perimeter. It makes him a tougher matchup." ... Word is that 6-9 SF Josh Smith, who attends Oak Hill Academy in Virginia, should and will skip college and head to the NBA. Smith is a skilled wing player and a tremendous athlete in a draft that will be lacking in topflight athletes. But he's only 210 pounds and has committed to Indiana. "He'd never get the chance to show what he can do in the Big Ten," says one scout. "It's way too physical for him.... He'll be a lottery pick if he comes out, and I think he will." ... Kings PF Lawrence Funderburke played in just 27 games last season, so file news that he will miss six months with an Achilles' injury is no death blow to the team. But it exacerbates an already thin position behind Chris Webber, whose rehabilitation from knee surgery makes his stares uncertain. On the bench, the Kings have only PFs Darius Songaila and Tony Massenburg but may use Cs Brad Miller and Vlade Divac at the same time.... Marc Cornstein, the agent for Serbia and Montenegro PF Ognjen Askrabic, says there still is a chance Askrabic will sign with an NBA team. Askrabic is a 6-9 swingman who can shoot and has good ballhandling skills. The Mavericks had been interested in Askrabic but are unlikely to have room for him now.--S.D.