Houston can wait: Real Madrid reportedly offer Sergio Llull extension through 2019-20

August 29, 2012

The Houston Rockets may have thrown $2.5 million away if Real Madrid reportedly has its way: According to Spain-based sports news outlet Marca, Sergio Llull has been offered a six-year contract extension with an option year from the Euroleague club. While some have speculated on a scenario in which the Spaniard might join the Rockets for 2013-14, this offer is seemingly designed to scupper any such plans.

The Rockets are said to have made an offer to Llull immediately upon the NBA free-agent signing period opening and were enthused by his play for Team Spain in the 2012 Olympic Games (though BallinEurope not so much). The NBA club owns the rights the Madridista after buying them for $2.5 mil (worth about €2.125 million today) from the Denver Nuggets in 2009; not an unexpected reaction from a team that lost Goran Dragic and Kyle Lowry from the backcourt this offseason.

Marca had reported earlier that Sergio’s father Paco Llull wasn’t too concerned about the Houston option, as his son “is a Real player.”

Aug 29, 2012ballineurope

This post was published on August 29, 2012

Comments: 30

Jeremy Lin
12 years ago
YO…might wanna update your article…I ran Lowry and Dragic out of town awhile ago.
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Sam Fisher
12 years ago
Vassilis Spanoulis is the best player on the European continent……….while Llull is just a good Euroleague player. So if you are Llull what the hell would you think?

The last time the Rockets signed a guard straight from the Euroleague………the best player in Europe, they sat him on the bench for an entire season and smeared his name all over US media, and gave him a bad name throughout the entire NBA, and the entire NBA fan base.

That is the history the Rockets have in how they handled the last European guard that they signed directly from Euroleague. So if you are Llull, and you see the best player in Europe was treated that way by the Rockets……………what in the hell would you think?

You would think that there is no way in hell that I will give up what I have in Real Madrid to get benched, trashed in the media, and bad mouthed by a coach like Spanoulis was.

The Rockets are a very strange organization, that they can’t even grasp things like that. The actions they did against Spanoulis had big consequences in how they are viewed by a lot of European players that play in the Euroleague.
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- Gabe
  12 years ago
  Funny how the “best player on the European continent” has never once been voted Euroleague MVP.
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DD Dakota
12 years ago
Yes, the Rockets are getting payback for how they treated the great Greek player Vassilis Spanoulis, who is definitely better than 95% of the players that are currently in the NBA.

Karma is a bitch. Morey is still treating players like “assets”.

DD
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- Gabe
  12 years ago
  Again with the delusional absurd comment that Spanoulis is better than 95% of the players in the NBA. The same Spanoulis who failed miserably in the NBA and just got his ass kicked by Dagunduro and team Nigeria.
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IP Check
12 years ago
Gabe and DD Dakota are the SAME person. They have the SAME IP address.
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Phileus
12 years ago
Oof, Lowry and Dragic are both gone now actually, puzzlingly replaced by the inferior (but entertaining) Jeremy Lin 🙂

Maybe Llull looked at the experiences of Navarro/Spanoulis/Rudy and realized it would be better to be a good player, playing in front of fans he cared about, in a country he loves, than to be an average or even bad player playing in front of fans who can’t be bothered to pronounce your name property, in a country you dislike.
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Phileus
12 years ago
Also, just because I haven’t said hello to Apollo recently, and I know he must miss me, let’s play a game together! Guess which NBA player this is?

32% field goal percentage, 17% three-point percentage, 3.7 (!!!) assists per 36 minutes, assist-to-turnover ratio of 0.97, and -0.010 win shares for the season.

Heheheheheheh, all in good fun of course 😉
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mike
12 years ago
Goran Dragic is European, right? Well, he played very well last year for the Rockets. Dragic blossomed in Houston, and he’s now with Phoenix. Nothing wrong with Houston, Spanoulis just couldn’t cut it. Plain and simple.

As for Llul, I checked Wikipedia, he signed with Real in 2010 up to 2014. Why would Houston make an offer this early? Something doesn’t sound right.
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- Phileus
  12 years ago
  Llull’s contract almost definitely has a buyout clause of some kind, so the team that holds his rights (now the Rockets) can try to sign him away even after only a part of the contract term has expired. The amount of the buyout that NBA teams can pay is limited to $500k, so if the buyout clause were negotiated at a higher amount, the player would have to pay out of pocket (usually preventing this from happening, as with Valanciunas last year), but it sounds like it’s just lack of interest that’s preventing Llull from going over to the NBA.
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Spence
12 years ago
The Rockets signed Lin to a three-year, $25.1 million offer sheet Friday, reworking the terms of the key third year of the contract from earlier proposals they had made in the week. In the offer sheet Lin signed, after getting $5 million in the first year of the contract and $5.225 million in the second, he’ll be paid $14.898 million in the third. Houston could do that because for cap purposes, the value of his deal is averaged for the team that signs a restricted free agent to an offer sheet and offers him a raise larger than the normal average in the third year. That means Lin would count for a little more than $8 million each year on Houston’s cap, even though he’d be paid less than that in each of the first two seasons and more than that in the third year.
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John
12 years ago
Spanoulis is like 10 times better than Dragic. This coming from a guy from Germany, so no Greek bias here. There is something very bizarre in how the Rockets handled Spanoulis.

Dragic could not shine Spanoulis shoes in terms of talent and ability. So that anyone that thinks Spanoulis situation in Houston was normal – well they are not very bright of a person.
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Zarko
12 years ago
Dragic is not even half as good as Spanoulis. From Serbian perspective.
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Toni S
12 years ago
If he joins one of them, after telling Olympiacos owners that he could not continue due to old age………. Especially at the same amount Olympiacos supposedly offered…….. Surely there is no way Ivkovic would do something like that. It makes no sense. Considering one team (Olympiacos) is at the top and getting better, while the other two are failures every year.
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Gabe
12 years ago
Dagunduro signs with Euroleague team Virtus Roma. Will Spanoulis’ Nigerian nightmare ever end?!
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Gabe Is A Redneck
12 years ago
Gabe you motherfucking GIGANTIC RETARD Virtus Roma is NOT a Euroleague team and has not been for quite a long time.

GOD DAMN YOU ARE A SERIOUSLY RETARDED REDNECK MOTHERFUCKER.
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- Gabe
  12 years ago
  Ah dratf! So Spanoulis escapes the embarrassment of being dominated by Dagunduro again. But he still has to compete against Ike Diogu! I think…
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Jack
12 years ago
Ike Diogu?

When the fuck did he sign with a Euroleague team?

WTF is wrong with you.

You are such a perfect example of a typical American idiot redneck.

BTW, you were claiming Panathinaikos, Greek basketball, Greek league, Greece, Euroleague , etc. were “freaking pathetic” because they wanted to sign a players that had bad numbers in the Olympics.

Well then the Houston Rockets, American basketball, the NBA, and America is PATHETIC because they signed in the NBA team Rockets Scott Machado to a 3 year contract and he was just as bad in the Olympics as Guo Ailun was.

So NBA = FREAKING PATHETIC

They signed a scrub 12th man from an Olympcis team that didn’t win a medal.

Of course, you NEVER made a single mention of that here, even after you bashed and bashed and bashed about how pathetic it could be for a European team to sign a scrub from the Olympics………….

FUCKING HYPOCRITE BASTARD
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- Gabe
  12 years ago
  I’m beginning to think some people on this site are actual Republicans. Not only do they deny facts but they respond with blatant lies. Scott Machado did not even play in the Olympics. Perhaps you are thinking about Marcelo Machado? But who needs facts checkers to agree with your delusion. Just claim whatever you want no matter if it is true or not. We have a true Romney supporter here.
  
  And BTW Nigeria!!!!!!
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  - Gabe
    12 years ago
    And I really think Diogu is on a Euroleague team although I can’t find a link for it.
    
    And I never said Panathinaikos, etc…was “freaking pathetic” for signing Guo Ailun, a role player on the worst team in the Olympics. In fact I praised them for their business savvy. Look, the Greek League/Euroleague can no longer market themselves on talent. I mean their best players from their championship team, including the Euroleague Finals MVP was eliminated from the Olympic Qualifying tournament by Nigeria. The same Nigerian team that lost to Team USA by 83 points. Basketball fans around the world know that now. So Euroleague can’t advertise themselves as “hey come watch the league where the champions got eliminated by the team that lost to NBA stars by 83 points! woo hoo!” They might as well be advertising for wheelchair basketball.
    
    So it is a very smart move by Panathinaikos to sign this Chinese player. I am praising them. Although against the best players in the world Guo Ailun is a joke it gives the Chinese a chance to watch one of their own in a league where he can be a star, a league that is better (though not much) than the Chinese league. If they want to watch the best athletes in the world they can watch the NBA but if they want to watch one of their own compete against players his level than they can watch Euroleague/Greek League.
    
    In fact I think it would be a great marketing move for Panathinaikos to sign a top female player in the world. Imagine the press that would get!! And she might be able to compete at that level (as a point guard or maybe a shooting guard of course not a center or power forward) Imagine poor Spanoulis though! It is one thing to get shown up, out played and embarrassed by Dagunduro, imagine if he gets outplayed by Sue Bird??!!!
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    - hamza
      12 years ago
      gabe is a mothafucking gringo redneck pale piece of trailer trash american shit who clearly has never played basketball before and spends hsi whole life on websites like this while his mother fucks for crack rocks…
      
      on the other hand…he has a point that you greeks are way too sensitive, petty (see quarrel with macedonia) and in general cry babies with 0 sense of humour…and that when it comes to basketball you think you are the best … spanoulis was a scrub in the nba, which doesnt mean he is not a good player, but he just was not cut out for the nba….
      
      i personally appreciated both european basketball and nba….for me nba is the best league in the world as the best usa and most of the best european play or will play there…having said that, the quality of euroleague gets higher all the time, is a different kind of basketball with much more focus on tactical and technical ability of players with less athleticism, but who have shown they can compete with nba all stars (2002 jugoslavia, 2004 argentina, liithuania, italy, 2006 spain greece, russia etc). lithuania should have beaten usa this summer….the only difference right now is that usa have the best 2 players in the world who are unstoppable….durant and lebron……otherwise i dont think they would have won the olympics
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Michael
12 years ago
I find this “Gabe” person to be incredibly insulting.
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mike
12 years ago
Gabe, I agree. Pan should make the move to sign a female player. C’mon, it’s just the minor leagues of Europe anyway. Sapnoulis said the best players in the world play in the NBA so I’m sure he knows, and wouldn’t mind that a female player can play with Pan.
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DallasTexasSaqartvelo
12 years ago
Anthony Parker was a Euroleague MVP and is one of the greatest Euroleague players ever. His sister, Candice Parker, might be a good person for Maccabi Tel Aviv to look at picking up. She could certainly contribute a few strong minutes a game… also, her older brother, a role player in the NBA, may jump back over at the right price, as he would likely win another MVP trophy as well as be a part of the first brother/sister tandem in Euroleague history. Great idea.
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DallasTexasSaqartvelo
12 years ago
Sorry guys, but I really think Maccabi Tel Aviv will pull the trigger first because of the family connection here…..
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DallasTexasSaqartvelo
12 years ago
Pan should take a long, hard look at Diana Taurasi though.
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Niko
12 years ago
So far this summer, Panathinaikos turned down about 10 different NBA players that wanted to play for them.
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Niko
12 years ago
BTW Sergio Llull turned down the Rockets offer and signed the 7 year extension with Real madrid.

Llull:

I am already playing in the world’s best league in the Euroleague. So there is no need for me to go play in the inferior NBA.”
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- Gabe
  12 years ago
  I hope he enjoys his silver medal then.
  
  Oh yeah…wait for it….Nigeria!!!
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Miguel
12 years ago
Meanwhile, the Euroleague did its yearly Turkish Airlines and Euroleague official promotion ad. The players selected every year to do this are “the biggest stars that European basketball has”.

The three players selected were, Juan Carlos Navarro, Vassilis Spanoulis, and Sofoklis Schortsanitis, with Navarro and Spanoulis getting the obvious top billing of the 3.

Here is an article about the commercial and a pic from it.

http://www.sport-fm.gr/article/578117

So these American racists can say whatever they want about Spanoulis and Navarro. The fact of the matter is that they are 10 times bigget stars in Europe than 90% of the NBA players will ever be in the United States.

They are way more famous and bigger names in Europe than the vast majority of NBA players will ever be in the USA. And all the xenophobic and racist American NBA only fans that post here cannot stand that.
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