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Foreign-Born NBA Player Salaries By Country

January 30th, 2015 at 7:49pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The globalization of the NBA continues to increase with each passing season. A foreign-born player used to be a rarity in the league, but no longer is that the case. There are currently 99 players on NBA rosters who weren’t born in the continental United States, which is roughly 22% of the league. This is a trend that shows no sign of letting up anytime soon, as teams will continue to comb the Earth to find players who can help them compete for championships.

Foreign-born players will rake in upward of $448,767,759 in cap hits for this season, which is good for an average take of $4,533,007. The highest-paid player born overseas is Marc Gasol of Spain, who is raking in an impressive $15,829,688 this season, a number that will almost certainly increase when he hits the free agent market this summer.

The top five non-U.S. countries for total player earnings are:

  1. Brazil $36,090,828
  2. Spain $36,085,358
  3. Canada $30,511,748
  4. Australia $29,332,962
  5. Italy $29,182,969

Canada holds the distinction of being the foreign country with the most players currently in the NBA, with 10, followed by Australia and France, which both have seven. The highest average salary goes to the Republic of the Congo, thanks to Serge Ibaka‘s $12.35MM salary for the 2014/15 campaign, and the fact that he’s the nation’s lone NBA export. The highest mean cap hit for a country with multiple players in the league is owned by Spain, as Spanish-native hoopsters cost their teams an average $7,217,072.

Below is a complete list, arranged alphabetically by country, of every foreign-born player currently in the NBA and their respective cap hits. Please note that the list reflects each player’s country of birth, and not necessarily his current citizenship.

Argentina

Total Salary=$14,531,460 /Average Salary=$4,843,820

Australia

Total Salary=$29,332,962 /Average Salary=$4,190,423

Belgium

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Total Salary=$9,525,262 /Average Salary=$2,381,316

Brazil

Total Salary=$36,090,828 /Average Salary=$6,010,138

Cameroon

Total Salary=$8,810,215 /Average Salary=$4,405,108

Canada

Total Salary=$30,511,748 /Average Salary=$3,051,175

Croatia

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Dominican Republic

England

Total Salary=$7,513,512 /Average Salary=$3,756,756

France

Total Salary=$28,177,904 /Average Salary=$4,025,415

French Guiana

Georgia

Germany

Total Salary=$12,916,162 /Average Salary=$4,305,387

Greece

Total Salary=$6,670,864 /Average Salary=$3,335,432

Israel

Italy

Total Salary=$29,182,969 /Average Salary=$5,836,594

Jamaica

Lithuania

Total Salary=$5,162,280 /Average Salary=$2,581,140

Republic of Macedonia

Mexico

Montenegro

Total Salary=$17,405,000 /Average Salary=$8,702,500

New Zealand

Total Salary=$4,261,960 /Average Salary=$2,130,980

Nigeria

Poland

Puerto Rico

Republic of the Congo

Russia

Total Salary=$12,792,132 /Average Salary=$3,198,033

Senegal

Slovenia

Total Salary=$11,283,250 /Average Salary=$3,761,083

South Africa

Spain

Total Salary=$36,085,358 /Average Salary=$7,217,072

South Sudan

Sweden

Total Salary=$5,415,243 /Average Salary=$2,707,622

Switzerland

Total Salary=$13,815,134 /Average Salary=$3,453,784

Turkey

Total Salary=$20,153,121 /Average Salary=$5,038,280

Ukraine

Venezuela

Virgin Islands

The Basketball Insiders Salary Pages were used in the creation of this post.

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Pistons Notes: Point Guards, Jerebko, Van Gundy

January 30th, 2015 at 5:47pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Pistons president of basketball operations Stan Van Gundy needs to add another point guard to the roster in the wake of the injury to Brandon Jennings, but he wants to wait to find the right fit instead of rushing to sign a player, Keith Langlois of NBA.com writes. “Being honest, preferably we’d like to get somebody with NBA experience. There are some of those guys in the D-League,” Van Gundy said. “But the overriding thing is we want the best player. If we think one of those guys is better, we will do that. There are D-League guys we’ve looked at and talked about.”

Here’s more from Motown:

  • Van Gundy will also look to the trade market for a point guard, but he isn’t keen on taking on a player whose contract extends past this season, Langlois adds. “That becomes a complicating factor, too, because depending on Brandon’s recovery, you would very well have three point guards under contract and still need another for next year,” Van Gundy said. “So to be tied into another one from this year – unless he’s a guy you know you want to go forward with – you could be at five point guards. That’s not going to work. We may have to carry four early in the year, which is a lot, but you certainly don’t want to be in a situation with five. It’s not like we can just go out and trade for anyone. We can’t.“
  • The Pistons not having yet brought in any players on 10-day contracts this season will work to the team’s advantage, Langlois notes. “[Two 10-day contracts] will take us to the trade deadline, which I think is an advantage,” Van Gundy said. “We could do two 10 days, the trade deadline and then if nothing materializes, we’ve got a guy who’s been with us for three weeks, and if it does, then we make a move. That’s part of the timing issue of it, too.“
  • Despite having had previous success playing overseas, Pistons forward Jonas Jerebko is adamant that he has no plans to leave the NBA when he becomes an unrestricted free agent this summer, Lang Greene of Basketball Insiders writes. “No, I’m in the NBA,” Jerebko told Greene. “That’s it. I’m not even considering going overseas right now. The NBA is where I want to be. I want to stay in this league. The summer is the summer and I’ll evaluate [free agency] when it comes, you know.”
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Trade Candidate: Norris Cole

January 30th, 2015 at 3:45pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Heat were hearing from no shortage of teams interested in trading for Norris Cole two days shy of last year’s trade deadline, but Miami issued a firm “no” to his suitors, as Shams Charania of RealGM reported then. It appears the point guard is again drawing a heavy volume of interest, but so much has changed in the past 11 and a half months.

NBA: Cleveland Cavaliers at Miami HeatCircumstances surrounding the Heat are certainly much different. LeBron James left town this summer, taking any reasonable shot at winning the championship with him. Cleveland is where James once more resides, and it’s also where Cole went to college. Cole hired Cleveland-based Rich Paul of Klutch Sports this summer, signing up with the same agent who represents James. A few months later, Cole and the Heat failed to come to terms on a rookie scale extension, setting him up for restricted free agency in the summer ahead.

It’d be a stretch to presume that Cole would have signed an extension if he were still with former agent Joel Bell or any representative other than Paul. Cole had ascended into the Heat’s starting lineup at the start of the season, but rookie scale extensions rarely happen for players who don’t have at least some measure of star potential, and Cole doesn’t fit the bill. Plus, the Heat have been wary of committing any money beyond next season, so they probably would have been reluctant to do an extension even with a player a step or two above Cole’s level.

The lack of an extension nonetheless seemed another sign that Cole isn’t a permanent fixture on South Beach, an idea further emphasized in the wake of a report around draft time that the Heat were dangling Cole in trade talk. Miami came away from the draft with No. 24 overall pick Shabazz Napier, a point guard who was a LeBron favorite. The Heat also re-signed Mario Chalmers later in the offseason, setting themselves up with depth at the point guard position that perhaps made Cole expendable. It hardly seemed that way earlier this season, when Cole became a starter, at times sharing the backcourt with Dwyane Wade, or Chalmers if Wade was injured. But the starting role didn’t last. Cole, who’d shot 34.9% from three-point range the previous season, saw that rate dip to just 24.6% in games he started. The Heat naturally struggled to win nearly as much as they did when James was around, but by Christmas, Cole was out of the starting lineup. His outside shot has only been worse since his benching. He’s connected on only 23.5% of his three-point attempts as a reserve for a team that no longer has the outside shooting it did during the LeBron era.

Cole was a healthy scratch Sunday against the Bulls, but he returned to play 25 minutes off the bench Tuesday in the absence of Wade, who might be out of action for a few weeks. Regardless, Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio reported earlier this month that Cole is once more on the block, writing that the 26-year-old “pretty much knows” the Heat want to trade him. That came shortly after Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports wrote that Miami had made Cole part of a proposal to the Nets for Brook Lopez. Riley last week denied that he made such a proposal and insisted that the Heat haven’t offered any players to anyone. However, he did indicate that he would listen, and a couple of teams soon found themselves in need of a point guard.

The Hornets have Cole and Ramon Sessions on their radar, Wojnarowski reported Monday in the wake of an injury to Kemba Walker that will keep him out at least six weeks. The Pistons are looking into trading for Cole, too, now that Brandon Jennings is lost for the year, as Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group wrote Tuesday. Still, neither club appears anxious to give up much in return to plug their gaps, and both are competing with the Heat for playoff position in the Eastern Conference.

The prospect of trading Cole to the Pistons or the Hornets might be more palatable to Riley than trading him to Cleveland. The Cavs have never been linked to Cole as a legitimate trade suitor, though the Cavs are reportedly seeking a backup point guard as well. They had a brief flirtation with the idea of signing Jordan Farmar before backing off, and they’re among the clubs interested in signing Will Bynum once he makes it back from China, according to reports. The Cavs are more likely to sign a point guard than trade for one, Amico wrote, but the notion that Cleveland would seek to fill a need with a client of the agent who represents LeBron would certainly be a logical idea.

It’d also be reasonable to suspect that Riley has no desire to help James win a championship so soon after he left Miami, so perhaps the Cavs are focusing on other targets for good reason. In any case, it wouldn’t be at all surprising to see Riley try to swing a deal to reap some sort of return for Cole, given his expiring contract. The Heat have the right to match offers when he becomes a free agent this summer if they extend a qualifying offer, which will be worth close to $3.037MM assuming he doesn’t return to the starting lineup and trigger the starter criteria. Chances are that any team interested in Cole this summer knows that the Heat don’t want to commit money past next season, so a multiyear offer sheet might make it easy to pry him away.

There’s a market for Cole now, even as his shot has deserted him, and Riley and the Heat may not have a better chance to make the most of one of the remaining vestiges of their decorated LeBron era. Trading Cole to the Cavs or one of the other Eastern Conference playoff contenders might not be an exciting proposition, but unless the Heat can find a Western Conference team willing to give them a better return, Riley ought to swallow hard and make the move.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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Pacific Notes: Kobe, McAdoo, Terrence Williams

January 30th, 2015 at 1:59pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Lakers picked up a rare with Thursday night, but it cost them in the Reverse Standings, where they’re four games back of the No. 2 position. They have to finish with either the worst or second-worst record in the league to assure themselves of retaining their first-round pick this year, which goes to the Suns if it falls out of the top five. The Lakers currently sit fourth in the order, but if a couple of other teams get lucky in the lottery, that would bump L.A. out of the pick’s protected range. There’s more on next year for the purple-and-gold amid the latest from the Pacific Division:

  • Kobe Bryant confirms that he plans to return next season and be ready to take part in Lakers training camp, as he told Baxter Holmes of ESPNLosAngeles.com. Bryant admitted shortly before he tore his rotator cuff that he had considered retiring after this season. Recovery from the injury is supposed to keep him out for nine months, which would force him to miss nearly all of the 2015/16 preseason.
  • The Warriors like what they see in James McAdoo and hope that he’s a part of the team’s future, coach Steve Kerr says, as Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group tweets. Golden State nonetheless appears to have opted against re-signing McAdoo for now, since he rejoined the team’s D-League affiliate Thursday following the expiration of his 10-day contract with the big club.
  • Israel’s Maccabi Ashdod has decided to release former lottery pick Terrence Williams, sources tell David Pick of Basketball Insiders. Williams worked out for the Kings in July and again in late October. He’s in talks with teams from Puerto Rico and the Philippines, Pick hears.
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Eastern Notes: Vaughn, Pistons, Bucks, Knicks

January 30th, 2015 at 1:00pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Magic believed as recently as a month ago that youth and inexperience were to blame for the team’s struggles, but it’s no longer that the Magic are losing that troubles club officials; it’s how they’re losing, writes Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel. Still, Jacque Vaughn remains unmoved amid reports he’s close to losing his job.

“I do my job every day,” Vaughn said today. “I don’t abide by the tyranny of other people’s attitudes and moods. I’m ready to rock ‘n’ roll.”

There’s more on the Magic amid the latest around the Eastern Conference:

  • The Pistons view a trade as their preferred method to find a point guard to compensate for the loss of the injured Brandon Jennings, tweets David Mayo of MLive. Signing a D-Leaguer is Plan B, Mayo adds. Stan Van Gundy is now saying Monday is the earliest day the team would make any such move as he keeps pushing back the timeline, Mayo notes.
  • Coach Jason Kidd has offered Kenyon Martin a chance to remain with the Bucks for next year as an assistant coach, a source tells David Alarcón of HoopsHype (Twitter link; translation via HoopsHype). Martin signed a deal Thursday that keeps him with Milwaukee as a player through the end of the season.
  • Some of the Magic‘s veteran acquisitions from this past offseason began questioning the on-court decision-making, and the doubt spread to some of Orlando’s younger players as the team failed to gain confidence in Vaughn, writes Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders. Vaughn didn’t earn his team’s trust, Kyler believes, but the Magic nonetheless dealt the coach a losing hand, as Kyler also opines.
  • The Knicks have sent Cleanthony Early to the D-League, the team announced. The assignment is to allow the rookie to work on his conditioning following knee surgery, but he’s expected back with the big club by Sunday, according to Marc Berman of the New York Post (Twitter links).
  • The Celtics recalled Andre Dawkins from the D-League on Thursday only to quickly send him down again, the team announced in a pair of tweets. The team brought the 10-day signee up to Boston merely for a practice, as Chris Forsberg of ESPNBoston.com details.
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Knicks Sign Lou Amundson For Rest Of Season

January 30th, 2015 at 12:10pm CST by Chuck Myron

FRIDAY, 12:10pm: The signing is official, the team announced (on Twitter).

THURSDAY, 10:18am: The Knicks will re-sign Lou Amundson to a deal that covers the rest of the season, a league source tells Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). His second 10-day contract with New York expires at night’s end. It’s not clear whether his new pact will have an additional season tacked on, but it’ll be for the minimum salary, since that’s all the Knicks can hand out. He’ll join Lance Thomas, whom the Knicks are also reportedly set to re-sign for the season, and Langston Galloway, who signed a two-year deal Tuesday with the Knicks, to give the Knicks a full 15-man roster.

Amundson came off the bench in his Knicks debut, but he has since made five straight starts, and the Knicks have gone 4-1 in those games. New York was just 5-36 before Amundson entered the starting lineup, and on Wednesday coach Derek Fisher publicly implored the front office to re-sign the big man. The ninth-year veteran has scored only 4.7 points in 23.2 minutes per game in New York, but he’s averaging 6.5 boards per night. He, like Thomas, came to the Knicks in a three-team trade earlier this month, and the Knicks signed both to consecutive 10-day contracts after waiving them shortly after the swap to buy some time before guaranteeing their minimum salaries for the rest of the season.

The 32-year-old Amundson, a Mark Bartelstein client, has signed 10-day contracts with four different teams throughout his career, as our 10-Day Contract Tracker shows. Only once before did he parlay a 10-day contract into a deal for the rest of the season, having done so with the Sixers in his rookie season.

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Mannix’s Latest: Allen, Lopez, Nuggets, Thunder

January 30th, 2015 at 11:17am CST by Chuck Myron

People around the league increasingly believe that Ray Allen already knows the team he would like to play for this season, and that he’s simply deciding whether he wants to play at all, Chris Mannix of SI.com writes. Allen has hinted within the past two weeks that he’s coming back to the NBA, but another more recent report indicated that he’s enjoying time with his family. Mannix has a ton of noteworthy items in his latest weekly column, many of them with a Thunder-centric theme, and we’ll hit the highlights here.

  • The Nuggets are still trying to pry Brook Lopez from the Nets with a package centered on JaVale McGee, according to Mannix. Still, Denver doesn’t want to put Ty Lawson, Kenneth Faried, Jusuf Nurkic or Wilson Chandler into any deal, Mannix cautions.
  • The Thunder are willing to go deep into the luxury tax this season to acquire Lopez, the SI.com scribe writes. Oklahoma City is unwilling to give up any of its top present-day talent, nor will the team make a move that damages its future as the Thunder look for trade partners who are “desperate,” an opposing GM tells Mannix.
  • Reggie Jackson turned down an extension offer from Oklahoma City that would have made him the most highly paid backup in the NBA, a source tells Mannix. Just what sort of salary that would have meant is unclear, since Amar’e Stoudemire has made more appearances off the bench than he has starts on a deal that gives him in excess of $23.4MM this season. Some teams believed at the beginning of the season that there was a decent chance that Jackson would command offers of between $13MM and $14MM in restricted free agency this summer, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports wrote in October.
  • Several executives from around the NBA believe it’s conceivable that a five-year max deal for Kevin Durant will be worth some $200MM when he hits free agency in 2016, according to Mannix. Durant will be eligible for a max worth about 35% of the salary cap as a 10-year veteran that summer. Those execs also believe that Durant likes playing in Oklahoma City, as he’s said, Mannix writes.
  • Markieff Morris believes he and brother Marcus Morris might have made more money in restricted free agency this summer if they hadn’t signed extensions with the Suns, but Markieff can’t envision ever playing without his twin again, as he tells Mannix.
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Kings Sign Quincy Miller To Second 10-Day Deal

January 30th, 2015 at 10:32am CST by Zachary Links

10:32am: The Kings have followed up with a formal public announcement of the deal.

JANUARY 30TH, 9:53am: The team announced that the deal is official, according to Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee (Twitter link). However, the Kings have yet to make any public announcement, as teams almost always do with 10-day contracts.

JANUARY 25TH: The Kings will sign forward Quincy Miller to a second 10-day contract, according to Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports (on Twitter).  Miller has appeared in two games since signing with the Kings earlier this month.

Prior to joining the Kings on January 17th, the 22-year-old was with Reno Bighorns, Sacramento’s D-League affiliate.  The 6’10”, 220-pound big man had proven himself as one of the best scorers in the D-League with 26.3 PPG to go with 7.6 RPG and 1.8 APG.  He was shooting 52.2% from the field, and a solid 35.6% from three-point range.

Miller has appeared in two games with the Kings and he made his presence felt in his last appearance, scoring 13 points against the Warriors on Friday night.  For his career, Miller has averaged 4.6 PPG and 2.6 RPG across parts of three seasons.

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Wolves Try To Honor Budinger’s Trade Request

January 30th, 2015 at 10:27am CST by Chuck Myron

Chase Budinger‘s representatives have let the Timberwolves know that he’d like to play elsewhere, and the Wolves have been trying to trade him to teams around the league, reports Sean Deveney of The Sporting News. Budinger isn’t demanding a trade, sources caution to Deveney, but in any case, there’s “almost zero chance” the Wolves find a taker for Budinger or any other players before the deadline, a source tells Deveney. That’s because of the financial commitments that extend beyond the season for Budinger, Kevin Martin and Thaddeus Young, Deveney writes, adding that it’s nonetheless likely that the Wolves will trade Budinger after the season, when his contract will be easier to swallow.

Timberwolves coach/executive Flip Saunders denied that the team was shopping Budinger in October amid a flurry of rumors. There were conflicting reports about whether the Rockets had interest at that point, but regardless, Houston’s acquisition of Corey Brewer from the Wolves last month eliminated the team’s need for Budinger, according to Deveney. The Sporting News scribe reported in October that the Blazers had some interest, but Deveney says now that no substantive talks ever took place with Portland. The Pacers also apparently had interest before the season, and the Pistons reportedly inquired about the sixth-year small forward around that same time, with Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities pegging Detroit as the “team to watch” regarding Budinger in October.

Budinger, 26, is averaging career lows in points per game, minutes per game and shooting percentage. The BDA Sports Management client is making $5MM this season with an identical $5MM player option for next season. Young, about whom the Wolves and Nets have reportedly spoken, has a salary of almost $9.411MM this year and a player option of close to $9.972MM for 2015/16. Martin is making nearly $6.793MM this year, and his contract runs through 2016/17, which is a player option year.

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Trade Rumors App For iOS/Android

January 30th, 2015 at 8:59am CST by Chuck Myron

The February 19th trade deadline is less than three weeks away, and doubt surrounds the job status of a pair of coaches. You can follow all of the latest news and rumors as the off-the-court action heats up with the new Trade Rumors app for iOS and Android devices!

The Trade Rumors app brings Hoops Rumors together with content from our sister sites, MLB Trade Rumors and Pro Football Rumors. You can easily scroll left to right and click on the image of the article you want to read. You can also filter your feeds to show only the top stories within that category, if you prefer.

Once you’re within a feed, you can swipe to read older or newer articles without going back to the home screen. You can easily share each article via Twitter, Facebook, email or text message.

The Trade Rumors app is highly customizable. You can add feeds for any of the 92 MLB, NBA, and NFL teams, as well as for any of the thousands of players in our archives, by using the settings icon on top for iOS and the pencil icon on top for Android. You can create a multi-sport experience tailored to your specific interests, or you can limit your app entirely to one sport by removing the others.

Best of all? The Trade Rumors app is free! Download it for iOS or Android and leave a review!

TradeRumors-Google-FeaturedImg

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