Opinion| A lot of quality players are still free-agents [by Kris SANTIAGO] -

The recession stroked hard on the economy in the last months and in every country around the world. It did as well on the transfer market of the NBA, the Euroleague, the Eurocup and every major national basketball league that is known to the vivid basketball-fan. With that in mind, certain demands of players for higher salaries (even after a successful season) did not sit too well with general managers of the leading professional teams across the globe.
In the past years, most NBA teams tended to keep up to 15 players on their roster, while this upcoming season, teams are carefully looking at the numbers (read: salaries) and are releasing a lot of bench players in an effort to save money and to get under the luxury tax imposed years ago by the NBA to punish teams that are over the salary cap.

In many cases, players waited too long for a good offer and are up to this very moment free agents on the market with no chance getting the salary they demanded earlier the year, when teams reached out for them, no matter if it was a NBA-team or a team in Europe or elsewhere. Some took the risk by trying to make it to the NBA with a non-guaranteed contract instead of signing for guaranteed money in Europe. Look at Carlos Arroyo, who recently signed a non-guaranteed minimum deal with the Miami Heat after playing the waiting game.

He is even one of the luckier guys in the business, as guys like Thomas Kelati (waived by the Lakers) should be loosing a lot of money after taking a chance on jumping on the NBA-wagon. Goran Suton comes into my mind as well, as he got offers to play in Europe and even for the national-teams of Croatia and Bosnia in the European Championships but got some bad advice by sticking with the Jazz, who released him just a few days ago.

These recent developments are a chance for teams that do have the money and/or want to change players in an effort to boost their performances on the court. So, especially Euroleague-teams will be scouring the market to strengthen their rosters, as some of them may still have the financial power to act even if their season already began.

Here are some of the well-known names that would be nice additions to struggling teams like Cibona Zagreb (Euroleague) or Unicaja Malaga (ACB) in the Euroleague or other teams in the financially-stronger leagues in Europe:
Spencer Nelson, Larry Ayuso, Maceo Baston, Milt Palacio, Dan Dickau, Loren Woods, James White, Melvin Ely, Juan Dixon, Mike Wilks, Rob Kurz, Mustafa Shakur, Andre Brown, Gerald Green, Chris Mihm, Robert Swift, Gabe Pruitt, Mickael Gelabale, Andre Barrett, Joseph Forte, Jake Voskuhl, Branko Milisavljevic, Andrea Pecile, Marton Bader, Mile Ilic, Ryan Stack, Dejan Tomasevic, Marcus Goree, Marcus Fizer, Horace Jenkins, Sam Hoskin, Maurice Taylor, Fred House, Earl Boykins and Tyrone Grant are all available from what I was able to gather from different sources on the web.

Then you got guys that certainly won't make the long trip over the ocean like these here: Brevin Knight, Jacque Vaughn, Jerry Stackhouse, Stromile Swift, Greg Buckner, Steve Francis, Jeff McInnis, Austin Croshere, Greg Ostertag, Scott Pollard, Aaron Williams and Wally Szczerbiak (who would rather retire then move to Madrid). Also, count out famous head-cases like: Stephon "Barbie-Girl" Marbury, Jamaal Tinsley, Bonzi Wells, Darius Miles and Antoine "Gambler" Walker. If a team really want to gamble (No, not on Walker), then they should pick up J.R. Rider who announced his return to pro-hoops by signing with the North Texas Fresh (ABA), being 38-years old...wow !

So many common names are out there somewhere and preparing to play for a pro-team no matter what, so the salaries are going to be radically lower for the left-overs and teams will be saving also money by waiving players they previously signed but are less-skilled then the ones that are now on the market. Be prepared to hear a lot of those names above being mentioned in the upcoming transfer-market news in the next weeks, as a lot of teams did obviously their math and are now paying little money for high quality.

I'm out like sitting at home and playing 2K10.

Info: Krist Santiago/FIBA
Photos: edited by alsaINTERACTIVEMEDIA

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