FanHouse Euroleague

And now for the flip side of the smiley Brandon Jennings narrative. Jeremy Tyler, a stand-out big man from San Diego, followed Jennings's European plan with a twist: Tyler decided to not just spend one post-high school season overseas before entering the NBA draft, but to spend his senior season of high school there as well. Tyler signed on with Israeli club Haifa.

Experts agreed that Tyler lacked the maturity or social structure to make it work in a foreign land. And lo! Pete Thamel of the New York Times, after a visit to Tyler's team, writes that the worst fears are being realized.

Elie Seckbach, the Embedded Correspondent, brings his exclusive video reporting to FanHouse. Check back regularly for more videos.

When the Sacramento Kings opened the season against the Oklahoma City Thunder earlier this week, rookie Omri Casspi officially entered the NBA history books as the first Israeli player to play in the NBA. In his first game, Casspi looked good, dropping 15 points (7-9 from the field) in just 19 minutes of action. In this FanHouse video we talk to Caspi and several of his former teammates from Israel's champion Maccabi Tel Aviv. We also hear from Tony Gaffney, who now plays in Israel and worked out with Casspi all summer, about Casspi's competitive nature.

Check out the video after the jump.

There's Israeli basketball news more shocking than Pini Gershon's Bobby Knight moment on the floor of Madison Square Garden this morning. Reports are surfacing that Moni Fanan, considered the face of Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball and the man who built Israel's pre-eminent franchise over the 1990s and 2000s, has been found dead in his apartment. Authorities believe Fanan commited suicide.

Fanan served as the team's general manager from 1992 to 2008, a period in which Maccabi dominated Israeli basketball and competed well in Euroleague, boasting foreign stars like Sarunas Jasikevicius, Anthony Parker, and Beno Udrih but also with homegrown studs like Tal Burstein, Omri Casspi, Yotam Halperin and Lior Eliyahu. Fanan's death comes as Maccabi's current team tours the United States to play exhibitions against NBA teams.

I don't believe David Stern has jurisdiction over the entire basketball world; it just seems like that's the case occasionally. It'd be silly to think, however, that Stern won't have words with leaders of Euroleague and the Israeli Basketball Association after Maccabi Tel Aviv coach Pini Gershon held up his team's exhibition game against the Knicks in Madison Square Garden for nearly 10 minutes by refusing to leave the court when an NBA replacement referee ejected him.

Elie Seckbach, the Embedded Correspondent, brings his exclusive video reporting to FanHouse. Check back regularly for more videos.

For the most part, NBA preseason games don't carry much weight, but on Oct. 20, the Los Angeles Clippers will take the Staples Center court to face one of the best teams in Europe when they meet Maccabi Tel-Aviv.

It will be the game of the year for thousands of children as the Clippers are donating all the money generated from that night to the world's largest orphanage, Migdal Ohr. Based in Northern Israel, Migdal Ohr takes care of more than 7,000 orphans. But the Clippers are not the only ones doing amazing things for the orphanage. Two days prior to the Clippers' game, the New York Knicks will host a similar event to benefit Migdal Ohr.

Check out the video after the jump.

As European clubs do every season, Greek powerhouse Olympiakos (featuring Josh Childress) will visit the United States this preseason to play in some exhibitions and see the lovely sights in beautiful towns such as Cleveland. There is a problem, though, reports Brian Windhorst of the Cleveland Plain Dealer: Olympiakos is on the lam.

Apparently, the club owes an American agent $400,000 after a U.S. judge ruled a former Olympiakos player was unfairly denied his salary after being cut due to injury. Olympiakos has not paid up (even though the judgment is several years old), and the Greek team falls outside American jurisdiction. But since the team will be visiting the States next Monday for a preseason game against the Cavaliers, the agent went to court to get clearance to have the team's assets (which Windhorst reports could include the jet they fly in on and the team's petty cash) seized by U.S. Marshals.

I think I have a solution: deputize Shaquille O'Neal. He'll handle it.

Every preseason when a handful of NBA teams jump the pond to play ball in the Old Word's great cities, NBA commissioner David Stern discusses his dream of bringing a real life NBA franchise to Europe. Globalizing the game has been one of Stern's most impressive victories, and introducing the "London Gobsmackers" or some such would be some serious icing.

But Stern is now dampening expectations for when this all might happen. The commish told Bill Wilson of BBC News that while the league would like to schedule a regular season game at London's (reportedly spectacular) O2 Arena before the 2012 Olympics, placing a franchise in Europe will take at least another decade. The logistics, Stern admits, are nightmarish. I'd also note that so long as there are domestic arenas in want of NBA tenants (such as Kansas City's Sprint Center), American expansion might be a more pragmatic move in the near term.

Largely, Timberwolves general manager David Kahn's final statement on L'Affair Ricky Rubio is concillatory. Kahn echoes the assertion that Rubio will actually become a better basketball player by competing in the world's No. 2 league for the next two years instead of getting 25 minutes a night in the NBA. He says he understands and even endorses Rubio's decision.

But before he gets to all that Kumbaya, he lets the world know that Rubio, DKV Joventut and the Wolves had a handshake deal Saturday night to bring Ricky to the NBA immediately ... and that Rubio backed out on Monday.

UPDATE: Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! and Chris Mannix of SI both tweet that a deal is not in place. I recommend Ben Golliver's reaction.

Spanish newspaper Marca is reporting (via RealGM/Skeets) that Ricky Rubio has sorted out his plans for next season. The paper reports that Regal FC Barcelona has worked out a deal with Rubio and his former team, DKV Joventut.

Joventut will receive more than $5 million (or 3.7 million Euros) for the rights to Ricky. There's no word on how much Barcelona will pay Rubio, though I imagine it will be more than the rookie scale contract La Pistola would have earned with Minnesota ($5.6 million over two years). For reference, Juan Carlos Navarro became the richest player in FC Barcelona history last summer when he inked a five-year, $23 million deal. I would hazard a guess Rubio's pay will be even more.

Sonny Vaccaro and B.J. Armstrong aren't advising Jeremy Tyler. They are exploiting him for their own gain.

Tyler is the 18-year-old San Diego youngster who is trying to become the first American-born student to leave high school early to play professional basketball overseas. He signed a one-year contract worth $140,000 Wednesday to play with Maccabi Haifa of the Israeli Premier League.

While everyone else in his class is getting ready to start his senior year of high school, Tyler is being led down a path to a nightmare.