Cats' Boykins latest NBA player to bolt for Europe, signs $3.5 million deal
By Marc Stein
ESPN.com
(Archive)
Updated: August 6, 2008, 6:04 PM ET
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After a decade in the NBA, unrestricted free agent Earl Boykins has joined the growing legion of veteran role players unable to resist the lure of European riches.


Boykins' Cleveland-based agent, Mark Termini, announced Tuesday that Boykins has signed a one-year contract with Italy's Virtus Bologna. The deal, according to Termini, is worth more than $3.5 million for the 2008-09 season, which would make the 5-foot-5 guard Italy's highest-paid player.




Boykins


Since free agency began July 1, Boykins is the ninth player who worked in the NBA last season to bypass the tight free-agent market for role players at home and head overseas. Yet he's just the third -- following Josh Childress and Carlos Arroyo -- who played almost exclusively in the NBA before considering interest from abroad.


Childress spurned a five-year offer worth an estimated $33 million from the Atlanta Hawks to sign a three-year deal worth at least $20 million from Greek power Olympiacos. With the Orlando Magic signing Anthony Johnson as Jameer Nelson's new backup, Arroyo on Monday chose to sign a three-year deal with Israeli giants Maccabi Tel-Aviv that will pay him $2.5 million net per season, with Maccabi covering Arroyo's taxes.


Childress and Arroyo both have an escape provision in their contracts which enables them to return to the NBA after each of the next two seasons if they choose.


All of the other players to sign with European clubs in recent weeks -- Serbia's Nenad Krstic, Spain's Juan Carlos Navarro and Jorge Garbajosa, Argentina's Carlos Delfino and Slovenia's Bostjan Nachbar and Primoz Brezec -- played for top-level teams in Europe before coming to the NBA.

Boykins had a breakout season offensively in 2006-07, averaging nearly 15 points per game for Denver and Milwaukee. But an equally limited free-agent market for rotation players in the summer of 2007 -- after he opted out of the final year of his contract, worth $3 million, with the Bucks -- prompted Boykins, 32, to wait until late January before signing with the Charlotte Bobcats.

Boykins wound up playing in 36 games for the Bobcats, but he averaged just 5.1 points and shot below 40 percent from the floor (.355) for the first time since establishing himself as a full-time NBA player with the Los Angeles Clippers in 2001-02.

According to Termini and co-agent Andy Bountogianis, Boykins' deal includes income from Bologna's sponsorship and marketing arms, which is not an option for NBA players because of salary-cap restrictions.

Marc Stein is the senior NBA writer for ESPN.com. To e-mail him, click here.

Yeah son......forget the nba! get that money!

Interesting article


Should NBA fear a mass exodus of talent to Europe?
By MIKE CRANSTON, AP Sports Writer

It’s the summer of 2010 and LeBron James is trying to decide whether to stay in Cleveland, leave for New York—or accept a deal for $50 million a year to play in Italy.

Far-fetched? Impossible? Perhaps, but the steady stream this summer of American players heading to Europe, where the euro dwarfs the dollar, the salary cap doesn’t apply and the game is rapidly improving, has changed the dynamic of player movement in the NBA.

“The European market has been growing year by year and it’s certainly been a hope of ours that it would become a viable alternative for players,” agent Mark Bartelstein said Wednesday. “The luxury tax in the NBA has put a crimp on what teams can spend, so players are looking for alternatives.”

Josh Childress started the trend last month, when the restricted free agent grew tired of Atlanta’s bargaining and signed a three-year deal with Greek club Olympiakos worth about $20 million after taxes. Because the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement only applies to the league’s teams, the Hawks couldn’t match the offer. Atlanta lost its sixth man from last season and got nothing in return.


Since then Earl Boykins, Carlos Arroyo, Nenad Krstic, Carlos Delfino and Jorge Garbajosa have left the NBA for European teams. The 5-foot-5 Boykins, who played for the NBA minimum last season in Charlotte, signed a one-year, $3.5 million deal with Virtus Bologna of the Italian league Tuesday.

“We’re not terribly concerned,” said Joel Litvin, the NBA’s president of league and basketball operations. “In fact, we see this as a positive indication of how popular the sport of basketball is on a global basis.”

But the league would sure be alarmed if Kobe Bryant wasn’t joking when he told reporters after a pre-Olympic exhibition game: “Italy, Greece, Russia, $40 million a year? Yeah, I’m there, as simple as that.”

ESPN.com reported this week that an unidentified person close to James said the Cleveland Cavaliers superstar would consider playing in Europe for $50 million a year when he’s eligible to opt out of his contract after the 2009-10 season.

“If it happens, it happens. I’d be surprised if it did with players of that caliber,” Litvin said. “But certainly we would deal with it if it happened and I continue to think that the NBA will be the gold standard for the top players in the world for a long time to come.”

Under the collective bargaining agreement, James couldn’t make more than $20 million a year in the NBA. Plus, league teams face a dollar-for-dollar tax once they reach $71.15 million in total payroll.

European leagues face no salary cap and many are awash in cash because of the sinking dollar, which earlier this year reached a historic low against the euro. A euro was worth $1.54 Wednesday.

Throw in some creative tax loopholes and maybe James wearing a CSKA Moscow uniform isn’t an outrageous prospect.

“It just shows you what a global game basketball is that there are good leagues and leagues that are willing to pay for high caliber talent,” Charlotte Bobcats general manager Rod Higgins said. “But the NBA is the best.”

While the quality of play in European leagues continues to improve, the NBA remains superior. The influx of European players to the NBA, started many years ago, leaves the league with a stockpile of talent.

So NBA players will want to stay stateside for the competition, right?

“Ultimately, it’s about money,” Hawks GM Rick Sund said after losing Childress. “The more money they get the better they feel about the commitment.”

Bartelstein, who represents players in the NBA and overseas, believes European leagues could eventually be an option for the likes of James, Bryant, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh once the issue of guaranteed contracts is cleared up. Bartelstein said he’s had to go to court in the past to get teams to pay the full amount of deals to his clients.

“Without there being a players association and a collective bargaining agreement in Europe, there’s nothing behind the contract to enforce them other than to go to court,” Bartelstein said. “For Europe to truly get to the point where they can compete with the NBA for all kinds of players, they’re going to have to implement a system where there’s a lot more comfort that the contracts are truly guaranteed. Once that happens then I think you’ll truly see great competition for players.”

Higgins believes the European option will put extra pressure on NBA teams to lock up players before their four-year rookie contracts expire. The Bobcats had to wait before finally re-signing restricted free-agent Emeka Okafor to a six-year, $72 million last week, a year after he turned down a similar deal.

“We could have came to an agreement last year, so I think that’s the window of opportunity for a lot of teams,” Higgins said.

While Okafor said playing in Europe “never crossed my mind,” Bryant has at least thought about what trading in Los Angeles for a $40 million payday overseas would feel like.

“You cut the check,” Bryant said, “and I will bring my Nike checks.”

So far it is 2nd and 3rd tier players signing in Europe so the NBA is't too worried. But when the 1st all-star player signs in Europe, the NBA will freak out!

Stern should act now with some foresight and raise the cap and luxury tax level so teams can sign some of these players.

notice how the agent wants guaranteed contracts in europe- once they do that, or if they do that, they won't be able to sign players freely like they are now.

What the owners should do is offer to get rid of the cap, or add some kind of flexibility to it, but get the players to give back on contract guarantees.

Honestly, more upside for really good players, and guys like Jerome James, who don't belong in the league will be tossed out when they stop being worth the money.

Posted by playa2:

TKF now do you see the trend I was talking about ?

The same trend I mentioned. third tier players, it has been that way for a while. BTW: I didn't even know Boykins was in the NBA last year, that is how insignificant this move is.. and oh, tell me. where did luol deng go? yea, right to the bulls for 70 mil. Again, the good players will get their money. the lower tier players will be happy with the MLE money. It is guys who are in between that feel they are worth more that will be the problem, or guys barely hanging on that don't want to play for the vet minimum... of course this is good for boykins, he no longer had a place in the NBA.. simple and plain....

what trend are you talking about?

Posted by mattshaw78:

the culture shock will hit these guys. The money is blinding their logic.

What is the logic that is being blinded? It is logical to go with the people who are compensating you the best.

oohah

i'm assuming Boykins will be averaging 40ppg in the clearly inferior Euro Leagues

in retrospect, marbury saying he wanted to play in italy after his contract isn't really that crazy. assuming he can get a contract there...