Kobe Bryant talks of playing in Europe

NBA players are notorious “trend followers” and after LeBron James’ made it known that he’d be willing to ball in Europe for a few years—at $50 million per—the league’s other big superstar in China for the Olympics had to outdo him. For that reason Kobe Bryant suggested that he’d consider buying a European team—and playing for it.

Whether Kobe was driven by business acumen or a desire to “one up” LeBron, its actually a pretty good idea and particularly with the Euro so strong relative to the dollar. Buy a European hoop team which, depending on your choice of team and location, could be had fairly inexpensively. Then, if you’re a superstar of Kobe’s level, you go play for “your” team for free. That gives you money to sign other talent, making “your” team competitive. A competitive team led by one of the NBA’s top stars would be a huge revenue generator, and all of that revenue—in Euros—would go right into your pocket.

NBA Commissioner David Stern—a guy so stubborn when he makes his mind up about something that he makes UFC President Dana White look like a compromiser by comparison—could face a huge problem that is partially of his own making. In all fairness, his motives in wanting to spread the game outside of the US were good. The problem now is that the world macro-economy is such that many nations are in a position, either due to strong currency relative to the dollar or oil generated wealth (like Russia), to outbid even the richest NBA teams.

Realistically, it would be difficult for European basketball to cause a mass exodus of American players. Of course, they really wouldn’t *have* to attract a large number of players across the ocean to have an impact—just a couple of big names like, say, Kobe and LeBron. Even if these were the only two players to leave the NBA for Europe, the loss of arguably the two biggest stars in the game wouldn’t look good for the league.

Some are suggesting that David Stern has only two options, neither of which he seems particularly inclined to pursue. First, he could eliminate or significantly increase the salary cap to allow the NBA teams to compete with their European counterparts for top tier talent. According to sources close to Stern, there’s no way this is going to happen.

The second alternative is to placate the European market’s interest in the NBA product by expanding to their continent—in essence, beating them at their own game. This sounds easy enough in theory, but is a logistical nightmare. Furthermore, with a number of NBA teams losing money its not like they’d want to undertake the transportation costs alone not to mention the convoluted accounting situation that would result from introducing multiple currencies into the NBA’s revenue pie. There have been times that the Canadian dollar’s worth relative to the US dollar has caused problems for Toronto (and Vancouver prior to their move to Memphis). The can of worms that would be opened by adding Euros, Pounds Sterling, and other currencies to the mix are downright mind boggling.

For now, the NBA is taking the position that the talk of their big name superstars taking their game to Europe or elsewhere is just idle speculation. At least that’s their public position, but one would assume that they’re trying to cook up a contingency plan to deal with the situation should it arise.