Josh Childress: NBA Players Taking Big Risks Heading Overseas

Josh Childress played in Greece for a couple of years, but taking all risks into consideration, he doesn’t understand why anyone with a solid NBA deal would head overseas during the current lockout. From ESPN: “Phoenix Suns swingman Josh Childress returned to the NBA this season after spending the previous two playing for the Grecian version of the Boston Celtics, Olympiacos. Now that he’s back in the NBA, I asked if he’d consider returning to Europe to play during the lockout and jeopardize the last four years of his five-year, $33 million deal. ‘No, I wouldn’t,’ he says. ‘And I don’t know why guys would. I understand that guys really want to play. But you sometimes have to look at what you have and treat this as a business. The only way I could see it making sense is if you’re a player from a particular country going back. But for an American player with a good-sized guaranteed deal here, I can’t see why you’d do it.’ One great misnomer is that a player is just as at risk of a contract-voiding injury playing at Pauley Pavilion or in some other offseason pick-up game as playing overseas.”