By Lefteris Moutis
The “Jeremy Lin” phenomenon has changed among everything else in NBA, the rules of the game. Ιn normal circumstances, a player cannot get all of the lights just because his team have won – a game against -the champs (Mavs), one of most prominent teams (let’s say the Heat), or a rising power (Bulls). Unless its Lin’s Knicks.
So, Ersan Ilyasova made headlines, when he scored 26 points and a clutch shot in the win of the Milwaukee Bucks against the New Yorkers last night. His performance of course, entitled as “Ersan beat Lin”. Don’t forget that media frenzy for the Taiwanese is above all…
After that game, the Turkish forward was the… new Er-sanity. After all there are no geographic boundaries to “sanities” at the NBA which this year is an international league, more than ever. Check the numbers: over than 50% of NBA.com’s visitors come from outside North America, and Turkey has become the third largest fan base on the NBA’s Facebook page -after the U.S. and Philippines. And Turkish communities in the U.S. never forget to cheer for Ilyasova: he has at least 1000… followers to each game!
Now you can understand the buzz that was created after Bucks’s forward said that next year he will play for whoever gives him more money. And he doesn’t care if this team plays at the NBA or not. This article is about five European teams wanting to sign him, with CSKA and Barcelona having already made an offer to him. What is the best that Milwaukee Bucks can do for their free agent? Give him more than $ 2.5 million per year, but reports say there is a European superpower which can reach about $5.000.000!
With everything that’s going on in Europe (read: economical crisis), actually there is just one country capable to provide this amount of money: Russia. And of course, you have always his home country, where he can get more than what the Bucks can give, unless they decide to change their plans and be more… giving – because unless they get crazy, they will not want to lose Ilyasova.