LOS ANGELES—Arrivederci, Kobe?
Kobe Bryant took another step toward Italy while in Milan, if that’s possible, saying it was “very possible” he would play in the Italian pro league during the National Basketball Association (NBA) lockout.
“It would be a dream for me,” Bryant told the Gazzetta dello Sport while making a promotional appearance on Wednesday for Nike. “There’s an opportunity that we’ve been discussing over the last few days. It’s very possible, and that’s good news for me.”
Bryant would earn $2.5 million for 10 games with Virtus Bologna from October 9 to November 16, according to The Associated Press. It’s less than the $6.7 million he was originally offered for an entire season.
Bryant spent much of his youth in Italy while his father, Joe, played pro basketball there for eight years. He has always looked back on those days in high regard, and fans thought highly of his father.
“They would tell me he was Magic [Johnson] before Magic,” Bryant told the Los Angeles Times in 2006.
Bryant, 33, has three years and $83.5 million left on his Lakers contract. His nonbinding Italian contract would allow him to return to the Lakers immediately if the lockout ended.
“Italy is my home,” Bryant said on Wednesday. “It’s where my dream of playing in the NBA started. This is where I learned the fundamentals, learned to shoot, to pass and to [move] without the ball...all things that when I came back to America, the players my age didn’t know how to do because they were only thinking about jumping and dunking.”
The NBA lockout is about to enter its fourth month. The league has already delayed the start of training camp and canceled 43 exhibition games.
Further cancelations might be announced soon if the standoff between players and owners doesn’t end this weekend.
Virtus Bologna has been a non-factor for almost a decade, with its last Italian league title coming in 2001.
A lot is on table at NBA talks
NBA Commissioner David Stern said there are “enormous consequences” to labor negotiations with players that will resume on Friday with several owners present and a contingent of stars, including Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade.
“We’re not near a deal,” Stern told reporters on Wednesday in New York. “Either we’ll make very good progress...or we won’t make any progress and then it won’t be a question of just starting the season on time. There will be a lot of risk from the absence of progress.”
Lakers guard and union President Derek Fisher said starkly, “If we can’t find a way to get some common ground really, really soon, then the time of starting the regular season at its scheduled date is going to be in jeopardy big-time.”
The NBA has already scrapped the start of training camps, plus 43 exhibition games through October 15. The regular season is scheduled to start November 1.
The NBA says 23 of its 30 teams are losing money, with $300 million in total losses last season.
Owners are pushing for a hard salary cap that would reduce salaries and promote competition. The players concede salary cuts are necessary but want to continue to earn a percentage above 50 percent of all basketball-related income in coming years should the economy rebound and profits accelerate.
Basketball officials contacted by the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday said a key issue in negotiations is the push by owners to cut the pay of role players who earn $5 million to $9 million annually but don’t sell tickets like a superstar.
Defending the pay of the NBA’s equivalent of “middle- and upper-middle-class” players is an uphill battle for union leader Billy Hunter and Fisher in negotiations with the league, the officials said.
Other reports say both sides are debating a proposed new luxury tax that would more deeply penalize teams that exceed a salary cap, and how to allow teams to retain their own free agents in excess of a cap.
Labor talks could last through the weekend, said Adam Silver, the NBA’s deputy commissioner. He said 11 owners on the league’s labor relations committee will be present for Friday’s session.
Bryant was in Italy on Wednesday considering an offer to play overseas during the lockout and is not expected to attend Friday’s labor session.
“I’m focused on, ‘Let’s get the two committees here and see whether they can have a season or not have a season,’” Stern said. “That’s what’s at risk this weekend.”
Wade reiterates commitment to LeBron
As a potential new NBA collective-bargaining agreement threatens to rip them apart, Wade insists his focus remains on playing alongside LeBron James for years to come.
“The one thing about me and LeBron is we want this to work, we want to win championships or compete for championships,” Wade said during a Wednesday appearance on ESPN. “So we want to do everything in our power to make sure it works.”
The ongoing negotiations over a new NBA agreement, however, could be working against the alliance, as well as the one the two have as teammates of Chris Bosh.
According to an ESPN report, among the NBA’s latest proposals on ending the ongoing lockout is limiting teams each year to a single “Bird Rights” exception, the mechanism teams use to re-sign their own free agents above the salary cap.
The concern for the Heat under such a scenario is that Wade, James and Bosh all are eligible to become free agents in the 2014 off-season. Under the single-Bird proposal, it could limit the Heat to re-signing only one of their stars that off-season.
However, because all three also have opt-outs in the 2015 off-season and then contracts that expire in 2016, it is possible the Heat front office could work to stagger the Bird Rights of the trio, allowing all three to re-sign in consecutive years.
For now, Wade said he is taking the long view with James, vowing to make their somewhat overlapping games compatible.
“We’re stuck together,” he said with a smile during his SportsCenter interview. “We’re married together for the next five years, so we want to do our best.”
Wade again downplayed concerns about the duo’s similar styles.
“I think me and LeBron just got to come back as better individual players,” he said. “I think time has helped and will help us as players.”
James put a bit of his post game on display in an exhibition this past weekend in Philadelphia and Wade said he finds such growth encouraging.
“Well, I’ve worked out with him a few times this summer, so I’ve seen that the progress is going well,” he said. “I mean, obviously he has the ability to be one of the best post players in the game.”
Of criticism of star players not being involved in the lockout negotiations, talks that continued on Wednesday in New York, Wade said of his previous experience in those sessions, “I kind of feel like I’m having a conversation with somebody with their back turned to me and they’re not listening.”
The union is planning to summon the league’s star players Friday to New York as the negotiations reach a critical stage, with invitations extended to James and Wade.
“As owners and as players,” Wade said, “we have to come to a middle ground. And when we come to that middle ground, I’m sure everybody will be involved.”
(With Sun Sentinel)
In Photo: An Italian report earlier said Kobe Bryant turned down the initial offer of $6.7 million and that the superstar’s camp had demanded a deal worth twice as much.
