NBA Star Deron Williams Signs With Turkey During Lockout

Hot News Today is about NBA Star Deron Williams Signs With Turkey During Lockout; Deron Williams is set to become the biggest N.B.A. star to play in Europe — a development that is bursting with intrigue, risks and caveats.

Williams, the Nets’ star point guard, has agreed in principle to a one-year deal with the Turkish club Besiktas, according to the team’s coach. His commitment would begin Sept. 1 — when the N.B.A.’s lockout would be two months old — and the deal includes an escape clause allowing him to return when the lockout ends.

“It’s the biggest signing in the history of European basketball,” Ergin Ataman, Besiktas’ excitable coach, said Thursday.


The agreement was confirmed by Misko Raznatovic, a European agent who works with Jeff Schwartz, the Los Angeles-based agent who represents Williams. Ataman and Raznatovic first met last month in Istanbul to discuss possible deals involving N.B.A. players.

Reports have pegged Williams’s salary between $200,000 and $350,000 a month, or $2 million to $3.5 million for the 10-month Turkish league season. Raznatovic said that Williams, 27, would get between $1 million and $5 million, plus a car, housing and the tax breaks associated with playing overseas. He will also be provided with a security guard, driver and personal assistant, all of them available 24 hours a day. Ataman later told SI.com that Williams’s deal would be paid for by a sponsor.

Ataman said he expected the deal to become official within 24 hours, and that the club’s president, Yildirim Demiroren, would hold a news conference in the United States next week.

Besiktas opens its season Sept. 27. If Williams is on the court, he would be — by far — the biggest N.B.A. star to play overseas in his prime. But that day is far away, and Williams must first gain approval from the N.B.A. and FIBA, the world governing body for basketball.

In general, FIBA and the N.B.A. have an arrangement that precludes teams from signing players who are already under contract. But that agreement became moot July 1, when the N.B.A.’s labor deal expired and the league locked out its players.

source:http://ournewsnow.com/sports/1450/NBA-Star-Deron-Williams-To-Play-In-Turkey