He was pain from the start. Saying he wont play for Memphis. Not being open to teams. It was mystery of when and if he'd show up to interviews.
He's not obligated to play in the NBA, you can't force anyone to do that.
But when **** around with everyones time and money if you're not going to play? Why did he enter the draft?
It's not like when the C's drafted Bird, and they knew he'd be in college one more year. With Rubio, you have no idea.
Imagine if Griffin did the same thing? It'll make the draft a complete joke - and the bad teams will forever be bad, if the player gain that much power to demand trades before they even sign.
What you are ignoring is that he is not an American college kid. Which means two things:
- he already has a contract with a professional team
- in terms of childhood dreams, taking the hometown team to the euro league probably ranks as high up there as playing in the nba.
So you can't really compare his decision making process to that of an American college player.
Another thing that people need to understand is that becoming draft eligible is in no way a promise to play in the nba (just like the nba team can stash him overseas if it so chooses). International players are automatically considered eligible at a certain age, he just entered it earlier.
And this seems like a [dang]ed if you do, [dang]ed if you don't type of situation. He outlines the conditions he would need to make a contract buyout advantageous enough to do so before the draft, and people slam him for being picky. Then those conditions fail to materialize and people slam him for failing to play for his drafted team.
Here is the basics of his contract situation: he makes 300 k euro net until 2011. This translates roughly to close to 500k dollars tax free. Add to this his ad revenue being a major player in a major european league and he makes quite a bit of dough.
As a 5th pick, he would make slightly more than 2.5 million dollars, minus taxes. Not only that, he would have to pay 6 million dollars out of his own pocket to buy his contract out from Europe.
So never mind the weather and the smaller mid west town: he would be making significantly less money playing for Minnesota (being in deep debt for at least 2 years). Add to that the fact that he would be playing in a tougher league (both talent and schedule wise), in a crappy franchise who drafted 2 other players in his position, in a city with significantly less ad revenue potential. Being in New York at least negates a lot of that difference in his income through endorsements and the potential of playing with a major star next year.
Why would any sane person choose that? Why would he essentially pay to go from being one of the top stars in a Spanish playoff team in a major metropolitan area in his home country while making more money to a situation where he would fight for minutes in a joke of a franchise in a situation where he wont be competing for anything for years and will be severely limited in endorsements due to location?
He made it known ahead of time that he would be willing to spend more time in Spain if certain conditions werent met. Now people are surprised that he is following through with that?
Topic: Rubio may stay in Spain according to his father (Read 14653 times)