Overseas basketball will be a trial for Brandon Jennings
It’s a strange thought. Laving the United States at age 18 to become a professional overseas.
This is the path before Brandon Jennings, an 18-year old basketball player who has committed to play basketball at the University of Arizona but has not earned a high enough standardized exam score to attend. His choice to play professionally overseas will force him to take a far more difficult test than any college professor could ever require.
At a US college Jennings would be treated like an idol. He could take 12 easy credits, use tutors, and then slack off second semester as the draft approached.
Coeds would flock to him, knowing him by reputation as an athlete and a future NBA millionaire. A tough coach could make his life somewhat difficult but in the end he would be surrounded by people his age and be the biggest name on his campus.
Instead he will take a different path.
In Europe he will be confronted with a far different situation. His teammates will be grown men and few will stand in awe of him. Europeans tend to root fiercely for teams and are not shy about ripping athletes they think are not performing well.
Coaches can be cold to American players, expecting them to deliver better results than their European counterparts. Team executives ands staff likewise tend to be less protective than NBA teams or college athletic departments.
In opposing stadiums he will be greeted with objects thrown from the stands (a favorite is coins heated up on cigarette lighters), and merciless boos. His travel and hotel accommodations will be below the standards of even some AAU teams, not to mention the rundown state of many of the gyms and facilities he will play in and use.
Beyond that, the transition into another culture should be quite jarring for the young man. Trying to complete simple tasks, like buying food and finding one’s way around, in a foreign language will be difficult. He will also be separated from family by a continent and an ocean, a long way for someone who has never lived away from home.
This move could easily break Jennings, sending him home mid-season, looking for the comforts of family and familiar surroundings and creating questions about his maturity.
Why then, one must wonder, should he try this? A junior college could provide an easier path to the NBA, providing the necessary buffer year between high school and pro basketball.
The answer to that question is that, while the risks are great, the payoff is so much greater.
The first benefit is the money that Jennings stands to make, probably better money than the salaries paid to US minor league ballplayers. The real reward however would come in the measure of Jennings’ character.
Too many times the NBA has seen young players washout due the pressures of money, travel and playing pro ball. Kwame Brown and Tracy McGrady were some of the many who struggled adjusting to the NBA where coaches were hard on them and living on their own is a new challenge.
The one year of college rule was instituted to help with this but it only does so much. College players are still protected by the bubble of the athletic department and further encased in the campus and student body.
Jennings in contrast will be thrown right into the fire. He will need to quickly adjust to the jump across the Atlantic, forced to play against far tougher teams than he has ever faced and learning to live as an adult at the same time.
If he survives all this, he will come out a stronger person and leave no question as to his readiness to become an NBA player.
His breadth of life experience will dwarf those of his fellow draftees and he will be better able to appreciate all the trappings of playing for the world’s top basketball league.
So for those who attack this choice, just stop. Brandon Jennings is taking a risk by playing abroad but if he gets through it, his success will radiate beyond athletics and making him a stronger and more complete person.
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7 Responses to “Overseas basketball will be a trial for Brandon Jennings”
July 11th, 2008 at 2:16 am
“His travel and hotel accommodations will be below the standards of even some AAU teams, not to mention the rundown state of many of the gyms and facilities he will play in and use.”
This is not true for all European teams. There are probably some teams that are like this, but many are not.
I’m sure he would go and look at the facilities, meet the coaches and players and basically check that everything is OK.
July 11th, 2008 at 7:54 am
I’ll cite this quote to counter that.
“[Overseas] they expect you to play whether you’re getting paid or not, they expect you to practice whether you’re in a heated gym or not. It’s grimy.”
Plus I’ve read about players playing in a haze of cigarette smoke and getting stiffed for pay checks at year’s end. Obviously some of the top teams are in pretty good shape but the quality is very uneven.
July 11th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
ESPN said that Jennings has a preference of Italy or Spain, but Israel is a possibility.
He will probably sign with one of the bigger, more well known teams, for obvious reasons, like getting exposure.
Italy, Spain and Israel are all modern countries. Basketball is popular in all of them.
There is an article on the European basketball blog ‘BallinEurope.com’ about the budgets of European clubs:
The figures are in US dollars.
http://www.ballineurope.com/european-basketball/euroleague/budgets-of-basketball-clubs-in-europe/
According to the article, these teams don’t spend like the NBA teams do, but they are certainly not poor:
Top Spanish clubs:
Real Madrid (Euroleague) 39,000,000
FC AXA Barcelona (Euroleague) 34,320,000
Tau Vitoria (Euroleague) 31,200,000
Badalona 12,480,000
Unicaja Malaga (Euroleague) 28,080,000
Two of the top Italian clubs:
Montepaschi Siena (Euroleague) 17,160,000
Virtus Bologna (Euroleague) 14,000,000
It also said that Maccabi Tel Aviv (best club in Israel and one of the top Euroleague teams) has a budget of 16,000,000.
July 11th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
If these clubs all have budgets of more than $10 000 000 a year, I’m sure they can afford good training facilities.
I don’t think anyone seriously believes that Jennings would play for some small club with crappy facilities in Turkey or Bosnia or wherever.
The Australian NBL (National Basketball League) teams have much smaller budgets than the European teams (salary cap in Aus. is less than $1 million per team), but they all train in gyms that are in good condition and they have access to stuff like weight rooms, physios etc.
If the Australian teams can afford to have these things then the European teams most definitely can.
July 12th, 2008 at 8:08 am
I was in fact aware of those numbers and facts. The point still stands that if he make it through his year overseas, it will make him a stronger, more mature and more worldly person. The pro teams won’t coddle him as a college team would.
The biggest question is what team he ends up with. I’m hoping Maccabi since I follow them during the year. Italy, Spain and Israel are all great countries and would provide interesting settings for his first year as a pro.
July 12th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Maccabi is actually my favorite European team as well, although I don’t follow Euroleague closely.
I think overall he would benefit from playing in Europe. He would probably dominate in college pretty easily. Jennings could be a very good player in Europe but it would definitely be harder than college.
This shouldn’t affect his draft stock, if anything, teams would be impressed that he was willing to do something that had not been done before. Being more mature from the experience would help his draft stock as well.
I’m still against any sort of age limit for the NBA draft. Players who are good enough for the NBA after high school deserve the chance to prove it.
Eventually more players are going to try this, and the NBA will have to change the rules.
July 15th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Ben,
Great article, I think that a year away from family and friends will help him more then hurt him. His ability to focus on basketball and only basketball is a plus, in my opinion. Brandon also plays a very streety game, and in Europe they work on fundamental passing and shooting alot, another thing that will help him.
Good job showing both sides of the coin.
Lastly, I think the Warriors have helped themselves this off-season. Losing Baron frees up a lot of shots for the youngsters, gotta keep Ellis though.
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