Our American friends from http://netscoutsbasketball.com are examining how the Bosman Rule in 1993 is affecting NCAA and European teams nowadays.

Back in 1993 a case involving a Belgian soccer player named Jean-Marc Bosman created the “Bosman Rule” which is having a major effect on collegiate basketball 16 years later. The case banned restrictions of foreign European Union members within the national leagues and allowed professional soccer players in the EU to move to another club at the end of their term of contract with their present team.

As a consequence, many athletes (soccer or basketball) born outside of Europe now take advantage of EU naturalisation rules to obtain a passport of an EU member country, (by for example investigating whether they had any European ancestors), to enhance their employability across Europe. As an example, many basketball players from Brazil gain status in Portugal or like Tiago Splitter, Spain. Argentine players often gain Spanish or Italian nationality, for example Luis Scola who qualifies as Spanish or Manu Ginobili who has Argentine and Italian dual citizenship.

Calathes leaving Florida

20-year old Florida Sophomore PG Nick Calathes is leaving the school early to play professional basketball. This wouldn’t be a major surprise if it were guaranteed that he was a Lottery Pick or even a high First-Round pick with a high guaranteed salary.  However, Calathes will utilize his dual American/Greek citizenship to play for Panathinaikos in Greece after signing a 3 year deal for $2 Million per year in addition to a home, car, tax benefits, and endorsements. In the end, Calathes will make something similar to that of a lottery pick in the NBA.  PAO is the current EuroLeague Champion and also won the Greek League and Greek Cup Championship to make it a triple crown sweep.  After 2 years of development (assuming he has an NBA-out clause) Calathes should get his NBA shot, he is a terrific passer and has great size as a 6′5 (198cm) Point Guard.  If not, he’ll make lots of Euros playing in Athens.

The issue here is that college coaches like Billy Donovan now have to recruit every year like they have open scholarships whether they do or not because the pool just got larger.  It used to be that Coach Donovan and his staff could look at their roster and depth chart and as they develop their younger bench players they prepare to lose the seniors on roster and any talented lower-classmen who were good enough to crack the 30 team NBA.  Now, they’d better consider losing guys to another 24-36 EL or EuroCup squads who could potentially pay well enough to make it worthwhile to leave college.

Tigers losing sharp-shooter

Terrence Oglesby, a 6′2 (189) shooting guard from Clemson, is using his dual American/Norwegian citizenship to hit Europe after just his sophomore season as well.  The difference here is that Oglesby has no shot at the NBA at the moment and it’s doubtful he ever will but apparently over a dozen teams from Italy and Spain have inquired about his services and feel he’s worth the money now and he won’t count against the “foreign limit” with his EU Bosman status.