The Euroleague is no joke. It's the second best basketball league in the world.
See, it's this I disagree with. The Euroleague level of competition is about equal to top 25 college basketball and the G League. It's level of competition isn't anywhere close to the NBA. So though you may call it the 2nd best league in the world, it's like saying Ryan Arcidiacono(Euroleague) is the 2nd best point guard in the room when the other point guards are Brad Wanamaker(G League), Tremont Waters(NCAA basketball) and Magic Johnson(the NBA)
A 17 year old could never dominate the NBA. The greatest of the greatest NBA players really didn't dominate the NBA until they were 20-21 years old, minimum.
There is definitely a big gape, but it's not as big as you portray it to be. In fact, I'd take plenty of Euroleague players over our current players: Mirotic, Larkin (former Celtic), Nando De Colo, Jan Vesely, Cory Higgins (deadly shooter, great defender), Alexey Shved just to name a few. Most of these players (if not all of them) have had offers from NBA teams but they prefer to play in the Euroleague cause they earn more money there.
The minimum salary in the NBA goes like this:
0 years of NBA experience: $898,310
1 year: $1,445,697
2 years: $1,620,564
3 years: $1,678,854
etc
Top Euroleague teams offer their star players more money than that. Mind you, the above figures are before taxes. US based players pay up to 37% of their income in federal tax. For instance, a player making $900K in the US would pay around $300K in federal tax, hence he'll end up with about $600K. That's without counting the state tax, which varies from one state to another (in Massachusetts it's a flat 5.1% tax).
Btw, most teams in Europe operate under a different system: It's the teams that pay the tax on behalf of the players. What this means is, whenever you read about a contract offer from a Euroleague team, the whole sum of that money goes to the player. To put it another way, a reported offer of $1.5 million from an NBA team equals less money for the player than a reported offer of $1 million from a Euroleague team.
Anyway, I got off topic. My point is that there are plenty of good players around Europe. No wonder Danny has signed 4 players from Europe in recent years (Theis, Larkin, Wanamaker, Poirier).
It's level of competition isn't anywhere close to the NBA.
Obviously, the NBA has the best players in the world. Having said that, the top european leagues are super competitive. If you ask me, they are more competitive than the NBA.
The greatest of the greatest NBA players really didn't dominate the NBA until they were 20-21 years old, minimum.
Most of ''the greatest of the greatest NBA players'' didn't play in the NBA till they were 21-22 years old, cause they were staying 3-4 years in college.