FanHouse PanayiotisAngelopoulos

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."

Lo and behold, it took all of three days for the rumor mill to start churning. So what did it spit out? The SPORTSbyBROOKS headline says it all: Greek team to offer Kobe three year $83 million deal.

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.