There were various reasons to believe Josh Childress might be spending only one season in Greece. The forward, who signed with Olympiakos last summer after reaching an impasse with the rights-holding Hawks, is a quality player who belongs in the best league in the world, the NBA. He reportedly got the yips when the Greek league championship game fell victim to an assault of explosives thrown by fans. And all told, he didn't really set Europe on fire as hoped.
So that Childress is back in America talking turkey is not a big surprise. But the particular team he will first visit with -- the Milwaukee Bucks -- registers as a stunner.
So the two preeminent Greek basketball clubs, Olympiakos and Panathinaikos, got together for the opener of the best-of-five league finals in Athens. Visiting Panathinaikos took a 60-58 lead with two minutes left. The Olympiakos fans reacted, um, poorly. Here's video of the incident from Ball in Europe. (And yes, that's a lit flare thrown at the Panathinkaikos bench.)
It doesn't seem that long ago that the Southeast was an afterthought. I'm aware that sounds stupid as this division attempts to rise to serious L-bound prominence, but it's true -- before Dwight Howard and before Dwyane Wade and before Josh Smith and before Jeff McInnis ... what was there?
It doesn't particularly matter now; the division is still only an erstwhile powerhouse; you would never see a prediction coming that any one of these teams can contend for the NBA title right now, and that's what matters in these sort of things.
Of course, Orlando is a different story of sorts. Maybe. At least we have to wonder: Does Hedo Turkoglu Still Have the Special Sauce?
It was just this weekend that Panayiotis Angelopoulos, the Greek billionaire and co-owner of the Euroleague powerhouse Olympiacos, declared in an interview with the New York Times that he would continue to aggressively court NBA free agents. He signed Josh Childress this summer, and he let it be known he had his sights on bigger fish, as well:
"I think we'll see a day when a superstar player comes to Europe, but to Olympiacos, not to another team," he said. "That is my answer. Maybe it will be very soon. Maybe then you realize what I'm telling you is serious."
Before we get too excited, let's trace our sources: SbB references The Hoop, which references the Italian site BasketballCentral.it, which references TalkBasket.net. And now you're reading about it here, which means this has already gone through four filters, including one trip through Google Translate. What did the original rumor actually say?
Josh Childress is gone but not forgotten -- in case the trademark 'fro and the Greek uniform didn't tip you off, that's him in the video above (via Skeets) putting two on the board for Olympiacos. Childress was also the subject of a wide-ranging interview with Pete Thamel of the New York Times in which he discussed, among other things, why he made the jump overseas:
I did it because it was a better situation for me. Regardless of what people say. A lot of people said "he's not a competitor" or "he's going to the J.V. league." I read it all over the place. I think it was a lot of chat room stuff and in a few papers.
To those guys I would say, "I'm in situation where I get paid double, my role increases, I have no expenses and I move to a nice city." How many guys wouldn't do that, regardless if you're a lawyer or a doctor? In a business sense, if I were to tell people that I passed on that deal, I would be stupid.
5. Ball Don't Lie. One-time European player Dominique Wilkins thinks Josh Childress made a bad move this summer. Of course, 'Nique works for the Hawks ...
6. The Blowtorch. More life lessons with Brad Miller.
Al Horford didn't win rookie of the year. He didn't lead rookies in scoring. And he wasn't the media darling that some other rookies were. But while most of his rookie classmates were at home sipping piña coladas and getting caught in the rain, he was battling the eventual champion Celtics to seven games with the Atlanta Hawks.
Going into his second year, there are even more expectations on the 6-foot-10, 245-pound forward-center from the Dominican Republic. But after seeing how he embraced a leadership role as well as plugged in 10 points and nearly 10 rebounds per game (making him the only rookie to average a double-double), it's hard to bet against the former 3rd overall pick from the University of Florida.
We caught up with Al the other day just as training camp had started to ask him about last season's playoff run, the loss of Josh Childress, and his goals for his sophomore season.
NBA Essentials ranks our six favorite stories of the day.
1. TrueHoop. Spending a day with NBA referees. Tons of great notes in here. 2. Palm Beach Post. Michael Beasley comes ... err, clean: "And when asked if he was hiding in the hotel room when security first entered Beasley answered, 'Honestly, I don't know.' I'm not sure our young protagonist understands what that word means. 3. Ball in Europe. Highlights from Josh Childress' first preseason game in Greece. 4. OregonLive. Nate McMillan wants to dampen the high expectations facing the Blazers. Good luck.
Note to NBA players thinking of signing overseas: be sure to negotiate your salary in U.S. dollars. The strength of the euro is the biggest reason why European owners are able to throw lucrative contracts at NBA players, but when the economy shifts and the dollar regains strength, that salary isn't quite as attractive as it once was. As Ross Siler of the Salt Lake Tribunenotes, that's already started to happen:
Take [Josh] Childress, for example. His contract with the Greek club Olympiacos was reported as a three-year deal worth $20 million after taxes. That averages out to $6.7 million dollars a season or about 4.25 million euros, according to exchange rate July 23.
On the day Childress signed his headline-making deal, 1 dollar was worth 0.6366 euros, according to www.x-rates.com. As of Wednesday, the dollar had strengthened such that it now is worth 0.6821 euros.
That might not seem like much, unless you're owed millions of euros like Childress or the other American players. Those 4.25 million euros that Childress will make this season (if he's not guaranteed U.S. dollars) are now worth more like $6.23 million.
Elie Seckbach, the Embedded NBA Correspondent, brings his exclusive video reporting to FanHouse. Check back regularly for more videos.
In this video, we talk to Hawks assistant coach Larry Drew, as well as Lakers stars Vladi Radmanovic and Luke Walton, about what they think of NBA players heading overseas while still in their primes. Also, at the 1:40 mark, we talk to one of the leading high school players in the country, 15-year-old Landon Drew, who might be a pro player already ... if he lived in Europe.
There were various reasons to believe Josh Childress might be spending only one season in Greece. The forward, who signed with Olympiakos last summer after reaching an impasse with the rights-holding Hawks, is a quality player who belongs in the best league in the world, the NBA. He reportedly got the yips when the Greek league championship game fell victim to an assault of explosives thrown by fans. And all told, he didn't really set Europe on fire as hoped.
It was just this weekend that 
Note to NBA players thinking of signing overseas: be sure to negotiate your salary in U.S. dollars. The strength of the euro is the biggest reason why European owners are able to throw lucrative contracts at NBA players, but when the economy shifts and the dollar regains strength, that salary isn't quite as attractive as it once was. As
