By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Five players left Europe during the 2020-21 season and ended up signing in the NBA. Facundo Campazzo, Gabriel Deck, Mike James, Luka Vildoza, and Elijah Bryant started the season playing in EuroLeague, however, they are ending it as NBA players.
While this is clearly a new trend that may continue in the coming years, those five cases with the exception of the transfers of Deck and Vildoza, are totally different and have only one key connection, the financial resources of the NBA franchises that eclipse those of Europe.
Eurohoops presents the details and tries to shed some light on what may have been a result of the calendar changes due to the pandemic, or not…
Campazzo was already gone for an unprecedented buy-out
A clear result of the COVID pandemic was how the transfer of Facundo Campazzo was completed. It was the worst kept secret in European basketball that Campazzo had decided to continue his career in the NBA and before ending up in Denver, he was linked for a long time with Minnesota. The connection with the Timberwolves is quite obvious since Argentinian legend Pablo Prigioni is currently an assistant with the Wolves.
Real Madrid also knew that and was ready to part ways with the player getting a monster-like 6 million euros buy-out. That number is an unprecedented milestone, and practically more than the annual budget of a mid-tier European club. There was no similar deal in the past and it’s hard to imagine that more than a handful of players who are currently signed in Europe have a similar buy-out clause on their contracts.
With the Denver Nuggets being able to offer just $750.000 according to the CBA it was up to the Spanish agent of Campazzo and Octagon Europe senior director David Carro together with the Argentinian agent Claudio Villanueva to negotiate the terms of the buy-out payment. “The deal of Campazzo was considered almost an impossible deal from all the people around him, because of the 6 million euros buy-out”, Carro explains to Eurohoops. “That’s the biggest buy-out clause in the history of European basketball but we are here to do the impossible”, he adds with a smile.
With the pandemic delaying the NBA free agency after the start of the EuroLeague season, Campazzo ultimately left Real Madrid in November, having played during the first two months of the season in Spain and using his salaries as part of the buy-out, while staying in top shape, ready to make the NBA jump.
Yes, that’s right. Campazzo’s payments from Real Madrid for the 2020-21 season were used to pay part of the buy-out, so while he was already considering himself an NBA player, he was “renting” his services to Real Madrid.
“We have promised to the player that we were going to fulfill his dream and we did everything we could in order to make it happen”, Carro explains. “Of course, it was a dogfight, we had to find the way to cover the buy-out. It was a very complicated deal financial-wise and that’s why we have such a big company like Octagon which was able to make it happen”.
It’s obvious that all this wouldn’t have happened if the NBA start of the season was not delayed due to COVID and that makes the Campazzo deal one of a kind and one of the most difficult to navigate operations ever in getting a player from Europe to the NBA.
The Deck shock
Like it happened with Campazzo, his fellow Real Madrid teammate Gabriel Deck, was in the NBA radars. And his buy-out clause with Real Madrid, as it happened with Campazzo, didn’t include any deadline.
That proved to be a blessing for him and an issue for Real Madrid, which lost the player in the most crucial turn of the season, just before the start of the EuroLeague playoffs. Deck’s buy-out was $1,5 million, just a quarter of Campazzo’s buy-out, and it’s simple to understand why. He had just $500.000 annual salary and he was also willing to leave Europe behind him. While Deck was the glue guy of Real Madrid, he hasn’t achieved the star status of other EuroLeague players and financially a move to the NBA even with a minimum contract, more than made sense.
And then, OKC appeared with $4 million to spend. The Thunder were below the salary cup floor – the minimum amount of money that an NBA team has to pay for players’ salaries – and if those $4 million were not spent, according to the NBA CBA, they would be shared by their current players as bonuses.
So Deck got the chance to get those $4 million, pay the buy-out to Real Madrid, and get an audition with the Thunder at the end of the season for more money than he was getting annually in Madrid. If he succeeds, then the rest of the deal will become guaranteed. And while on the court Madrid lost, on the business side of the deal they got a big buy-out for an expiring contract.
The Mike James case
The decision of CSKA Moscow to let Mike James play for the Nets was practically a happy accident for the player and the Russian club. With James being suspended by CSKA‘s coach Dimitris Itoudis, while having two seasons left on his contract with the “Army Team”, James got the permission to find an NBA deal.
The Nets‘ deal was a gift from the heavens for all sides involved. James is getting the chance to showcase his talent as a member of elite NBA contenders that need guards. And CSKA on the other hand is willing to let James continue his career in the NBA – and not end up signing with a European rival – while negotiating with him in the upcoming summer his release and saving some, if not all, the money from the rest of his deal, which includes $5 million in salaries until the summer of 2023.
Of course, both sides are keeping their options open, so don’t be surprised if you see Mike James somehow returning to CSKA. And that makes this whole transfer more unique and peculiar than any other. Practically Mike James is currently “loaned” to the Nets by CSKA Moscow. There’s no buy-out involved and an educated guess can be that CSKA already saved the money from Mike James’ salaries for the last few months of the 2020-21 season. As for how James got a deal with the Nets, here’s the inside report.
The Vildoza sell
Baskonia is a club that gets by from selling players and that was the plan all along with Luca Vildoza. Sooner or later the Argentinian would have been sold to the highest bidder either in Europe or in the NBA and then the Knicks come along. They had also $2,75 million to spend, because like OKC they were below the salary floor and ultimately have to give $3,5 million in order to get the player and cover for Baskonia a solid $2 million buy-out. Vildoza has to give from his salary to Baskonia $1,25 million and the Knicks according to the NBA CBA are able to spend also an extra $750.00 which will pay part of his buy-out.
Vildoza will get his audition and if he succeeds, like in Decks’ case, the rest of his deal will be guaranteed. It has to be noted that with the NBA regular season at its end, Vildoza practically got a deal that will pay him $2,25 million until the end of 2020-21 season just for the Knicks to secure his rights for the future, having already signed him for the long term with a total deal of $13,5 million which is not yet guaranteed.
“The Knicks were following Vildoza for quite some time, together with some other NBA franchises”, explains Carro. “Vildoza already had an NBA deal on the table last summer, but it was not the proper time to do it. This time, however, everything was making sense And yes, he was on the Knicks’ radar because all the NBA teams are scouting the best EuroLeague players. Vildoza is among them and considering the fact that there are fewer and fewer top-level point guards, this is the most difficult position to find a player alongside the centers”.
One may assume that since Vildoza already played outside his country, as an Argentinian who moved to Europe, made his transition easier compared to local European stars who might prefer staying in their homeland. According to Carro, that’s not the case: “It doesn’t matter where you are from. The NBA looks for top talent and in this case, Argentina has one more golden generation with players like Campazzo, Vildoza, and Deck. So it’s just normal that they will end up in the NBA”.
It has also to be noted that while Baskonia is still playing for the Spanish League, their EuroLeague season is over without making it to the playoffs and that made it even easier to part ways with Vildoza.
The Bryant lottery
Elijah Bryant was for a long time on the Bucks‘ radar, having played for them in the 2019 summer league. Maccabi‘s EuroLeague season has also ended and the Israeli powerhouse has to fight for the domestic trophies, but even without Bryant remains the favorite.
So when the Bucks came calling for the player, and while, initially, Maccabi was not eager to part ways with him, it made more than sense to accommodate him and get a buy-out for an expiring contract. And while Bryant’s deal with Maccabi didn’t include a buy-out clause, so the Israeli could ask whatever they wanted, the fact that the Bucks are over the salary cap didn’t let them get much and ended up with a $500.000 buy-out.
Still, Maccabi wasn’t expecting to keep the player past this summer and it has to be noted that due to the lack of ticketing revenues, Maccabi is probably the EuroLeague club that took the biggest financial hit due to COVID.
The NBA can’t be denied
You can easily understand why those five cases have few similarities. To be exact only in the transfers of Gabriel Deck and Luca Vildoza the NBA teams had the ability to overspend. But on the other hand, you can’t deny two obvious facts. Most if not all the players want to play in the NBA, even if they have to make a financial sacrifice – like in Campazzo’s case – and also the NBA teams have resources that are unparallel with any other basketball teams around the globe.
So it only makes sense for European clubs to be really hard sellers and adjust their buy-out clause. A few years ago, a $2 million buy-out was considered a bonanza, but especially after the Campazzo transfer, maybe $5 million should be the new norm. And if FIBA wants to build a bridge especially with the EuroLeague clubs, then there should be a united front between them asking for bigger buy-outs to be part of the official NBA CBA.
However, that would not be an easy sell to anyone, especially to the players and their agents. “Nobody will sign that”, says Carro, “that would mean that you make it more difficult for the player to fulfill his dream and the dream for basketball players remains the NBA. That kind of a buy-out must also be linked to the salary, so no player with NBA potential would agree to such a clause without having a really big contract in Europe. The Campazzo situation was an extraordinary situation after signing a five-year contract for 15 million (ed. note: most deals in Europe even for local stars don’t extend to more than three years). There are few contracts in EuroLeague on that level”.
Still, Carro agrees that there’s big money to be made by European clubs selling players to the NBA, even if the league will not just give up money: “The NBA has money to spend and also will try to find other solutions as it happened with the two-way contracts. Initially, there was a limit of 45 days of NBA action to those players, but now the rule has changed and there’s no limit. They will change the rules in order to win. They are the big shark and even if European basketball can be also considered a shark, it’s definitely not a white shark. The white shark in basketball is the USA. So the players and the agents will not accept that kind of a raise in buy-outs unless the salaries in Europe become astronomical”.
So what can Europe do? As Carro says: “I believe that FIBA, the EuroLeague, and the local leagues in Europe must sit down with the NBA and create some common ground, different than in the past, and agree on a more modern agreement in order to protect basketball on both sides of the Atlantic. It’s the same issue with the NBA always sitting down with the NCAA in order to see what they can do together or not. It’s something that needs to be done and that’s one more reason why the fight between EuroLeague and FIBA must stop. We are divided and that makes the NBA even stronger”.