NBA and George's Injury

[Monster]

Not taking this tournament seriously is shortsighted imo. Will it become the World cup like soccer? No obviously not but international tournaments are going to grow more relavent as sports become increasingly global. You are telling me significant exposure playing these tournaments don't help players brands? Really? You don't think picking up international fans might help owners? Think about this at some point the NBA has potential to expand TV deals into markets beyond the US and that's going to be a decent chunk of money even if its not a very big deal at first. I'd love to see the owners try and restrict players from playing in these tourneys. The owners doing that would look bad for a number of reasons and I'm sure the players association would be thrilled.

Should some guys not play for their country? That's a tough question. Yao Ming is a great example there. For his career he may have been better off skipping out on as least 1 appearance in international play towards the end of his career but it mean a great deal to him to play. What was truly the right call? Would taking that time off really have helped prolong his career that much? Idk but I think some national pride in playing for your country is something to be proud of.

[mjs34]

I don't think the teams should be able to restrict the players, but apparently that is what SAS just did with Manu. I believe it is up to the players to get insurance against injury though. I remember there being a problem the last couple of years for some over seas teams not being able to afford it, and so the players couldn't join them.

If a player gets hurt though, I don't see the difference in that and being hurt training in the off season (unless it involves a moped).

[Monster]

I don't think the teams should be able to restrict the players, but apparently that is what SAS just did with Manu. I believe it is up to the players to get insurance against injury though. I remember there being a problem the last couple of years for some over seas teams not being able to afford it, and so the players couldn't join them.

If a player gets hurt though, I don't see the difference in that and being hurt training in the off season (unless it involves a moped).

FIBA allows teams to restrict players if there is a legit injury concern which was the case with Manu. I don't remember the injury but Stein or someone like that tweeted about it in the last week.

[foye2smith [enjin:6593248]]

Horrible news.

If I am an NBA owner of these guaranteed contracts I would want an opt out for injury caused during international competition. I wouldn't want the injury effecting my team and cap for years to come.

My thoughts are players should be limited to 4 year commitments. I wonder how a team of D-Leaguers and College players would compete. Would they be able to compete with more practice and training time? Would we still be able to attract a coach of Coach K's level?

I disagree. We should be moving toward being more serious about these international tournaments not finding ways to get out of guys playing in them. What's the increased percentage of guys getting hurt over them doing their usual offseason activities? Are you going to ban them from playing pickup games at UCLA or whatever and participating in a Pro Am event? These guys are basketball players.

I agree with you Monster. I mean the Wolves lost Kevin Love for a majority of 2012-2013 from working out by himself. Injuries are random and you're only going to be able to protect these players if you put them in a bubble in the offseason.

[Monster]

This sounds cheesy but does anyone else think the George injury could give the USA team something to play for you know win in for Paul George type thing? It worked for Louisville and I see Ware has showed his support already.

[bleedspeed]

I'm looking at it from an owners, GM, and coaches POV not a fans. I would love it for my player have the opportunity, but at some point I think there is no gain in doing it.

[m4gor [enjin:6667447]]

It is really unfurtunate situation around Paul George, i wish him the best.

I guess that NBA should make some moves in future to adress the issues connected with international starts of players.
A.) Players should be insured so if they suffer an injury the salary is covered by that so NBA team dont go 20 mil into the red because of that (I actually think that something like that is working with NHL players as i think our Czech National Team pays substantial amount of money to insure all NHL players starting on World Championships or Olympic games)
B.) There should be an option to sign an injured player off with his injury so his start would not be allowed in that season anymore, with an affect that his salary would count only partialy against the cap, so for example 20 mil contract would have 10 mil cap hold and the team would also get some sort of trade exception so teams with injured supertars would not be crippled the way they are now (it actually does not matter where and when they get injured)

I actually dont expect that NBA players would not start internationally, because americans love to win and kids from NCAA are not good enough to win international competitions. Even those star national teams might not be enough if they come together like 3 days before competition starts, thats why US basketball came up with basketball camps to prepare players.

One big aspect of international starts of US basketball team is helping to set NBA brand as a global brand, and I think that this is a big part of future succes of NBA, for example I am from mid Europe but i am spending a lot of money on NBA as i love it and because of internet i have an opportunity to do so, like 10 years back i could watch like 5 NBA games a year on special channel at 2AM :-D. Now i have 100mb download and can watch any game i want any time i want.

[bleedspeed]

M4GOR,

Does the world look at Team USA as NBA?

[m4gor [enjin:6667447]]

M4GOR,

Does the world look at Team USA as NBA?

Well this is obviously interisting question, as i stated NBA games start at 1-3AM for european time zone so i would definitely say that a lot of people watch international basketball first and after falling in love in to it and figuring out that you can watch NBA games any time you want (thanks to international League Pass) they start to follow NBA also.

When US teams stomp the competition it definitely helps to advertise NBA as best basketball league on the planet, despite the fact that NBA is a lot more show than we are used to in european sport leagues.

We have much worse players in here but if they dont give you 100proc on both ends they might end up sacked after few games, also worst teams are relegated from leagues so players are playing for their checks for next season, as if you are relegated and not lucky enough to be transfered to a good team, your paycheck goes down significantly.

[bleedspeed]

This has me thinking. The All-Star weekend it should be like hockey. US vs World. Best US player against the best European players in the league. Would be interesting.

The thing I don't know is. Do we really put as much time into this as other countries? Do we prep as much as them?