Dickau ponders European options
Dan Dickau could face a dilemma. Take less money and play in the NBA or possibly earn more money and play in Europe.
The decision by Josh Childress to leave the Atlanta Hawks and sign with a European team last week has changed the way some players view playing overseas. European leagues have increased salaries, added perks and improved competition, giving Childress, Dickau and a growing number of experienced NBA players enough reasons to seriously consider playing overseas.
“I’d have to consider it if I got a good offer,” said Dickau, the ex-Gonzaga University player. “My first preference is to play in the NBA, but if you’re able to extend your career and possibly make a little more money in Europe, you’d have to take a long, long look at it.”
The trend could make contract negotiations more complex for professional basketball players.
“This is a whole new world for the NBA,” said Marc Fleisher, former agent of former Blazers player Viktor Khryapa and pioneering European players Vlade Divac and Sarunas Marciulionis. “Now teams who used to think they could sit back and do nothing and sort of dare the player to go out and find a (contract) offer … are now in a position where they could lose a player for nothing.”
That’s what happened to Atlanta after Childress signed a three-year deal for up to $32.5 million with the Greek club, Olympiakos, on July 23.
Many former NBA players end up playing in Europe, usually at the end of their careers when they’re no longer good enough to play in the NBA. But Childress’ decision was significant because he was the first well-known, U.S.-born player in the prime of his career to reject an NBA team’s contract offer and sign with a European club.
“It has to make NBA teams wary, because they are definitely vulnerable now,” Fleisher said. “Particularly for the guys who they thought would get at or around the midlevel (exception contract), because it’s easy for the best European clubs to exceed the (NBA) midlevel in their bids.”
The midlevel exception this season is a maximum of $5.585 million a year.
According to Realgm.com, Unics Kazan, a team in the Russian Basketball Super League, has offered to pay Dickau $4 million a season for two years. Dickau, 29, averaged 5.3 points and 2.6 assists while playing in 67 games for the Los Angeles Clippers last season. Dickau, an ex-Blazers player who is from Vancouver, earned $770,610 last season and is an unrestricted free agent.
Dickau’s agent, Mark Bartlestein, said a number of NBA and European teams are interested in the point guard.
“There’s some folks we’ve spoken to in Russia,” Bartlestein said. “There are a number of high-level teams that are pursuing him.”
The money associated with Dickau reflects the aggressiveness shown by relatively unknown Russian teams, backed by billionaire owners willing to throw serious money at NBA players.