Friday, February 6th, 2009...12:35 pm
Postscript on Parker and Villeurbanne with Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress
I know, your heart beats for Sheed. You wonder, “What has Villeurbanne to do with Detroit?” This will be my last comment on Parker’s ownership of ASVEL—at least until my next one.
My knowledge of European basketball is limited and I wanted ask someone with a better sense of the Euro scene to put this in perspective. Who better than Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress? He’s the best, right?
Jonathan and I spoke by phone a little earlier this afternoon, and the conversation immediately turned to how this situation compares to Parker’s past dalliance with Paris Basket Racing. This same question was on the mind of a French journalist, as well. On Wednesday, Parker was asked, “You had already invested with Paris Basket Racing but the outcome was not what you had expected?” But in Parker’s mind, there is a clear distinction:
You cannot compare. In Villeurbanne there is already a complete structure with a solid project. I am coming with the idea to accompany this project because we share the same visions and values. These are two forces that need to be united. I will work closely with the team’s management and in particular with Pierre Grall who has built the team with the coach, Vincent Collet.
I asked Givony what he made of this, and whether we should see Parker as a front office mascot in the Michael Jordan mold or if Parker’s aspiration were genuinely different.
No, he seems very serious about this, and is going to try and have a lot of input into personnel decisions from what I can gather. I think he’ll be active immediately. It’s a unique situation. He could do a good job if he manages to surround himself with the right people, who can help steer him in the right direction. He’s not the type of guy that you would want to doubt, based off what we know about his background and his work ethic. He’s shown that he’s willing to learn throughout his career, and being surrounded by some of the best basketball minds in the world over the last few years obviously didn’t hurt.
In his estimation, the immediate concern for Villeurbanne is whether they have the resources to qualify for the Euroleague Top 16, since they will never be able to compete financially with the top clubs in Europe. He adds:
The only way they can qualify is by outsmarting them with their personnel decisions, and gathering the best French players available. Even so, they will need some luck with a good group draw.
Your readers may not know this, but French teams have not been very successful in European competition in recent years, neither on the national team or club level. The tax situation is different in France than in places like Russia-French teams have to pay ridiculous amounts of money in taxes for every player they sign. They’ve also struggled to hold onto their best local domestic players, because of the Bosman transfer rules. It will be difficult for Villeurbanne to become a serious Euroleague Top 16 contender, but adding Parker really helps. Not only does he add money to the equation, but he lends gravitas to their pitch. Adding Parker to their ownership group is clear signal that Villeurbanne is serious about becoming a player in the Euroleague.
Anticipating Jonathan’s insight, Parker seems resolute in this regard:
To get the best results possible from this year on but we must prepare the future like closing on the new area for the resident team and the Euroleague licence. We cannot imagine for one second that these two projects won’t come to life. We thus have to work now on building a team that can aim at the Euroleague Top 16 as early as next season.
At any rate, The DraftExpress guys are already doing great work weighing Parker’s arrival against the hustle and bustle of the French league.
6 Comments
February 6th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Well done Tim, you’re all over this Parker story. Keep up the solid work.
As for Parker himself, I have to agree he has as good a chance to succeed in this kind of role as any player, and for the same reasons cited in your post. He has always shown a willingness to listen, take criticism, and adapt. He’s reportedly a very hard worker, and he’s clearly inquisitive about the management/development side of the team as evidenced by his inclusion in the draft day war room.
I wonder if Buck down at the E-N will follow your lead in mining this story for hidden significance.
February 6th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
You’re so excited about this that now you got me excited too.
You know why I think this could be huge? Because I’ve heard Manu mention that he wants to own a team in Bahía Blanca (the Argentinian basketball mecca, and Manu’s home town), too, when he retires. Can you imagine him getting the same deal with the Spurs management? I can. If anything, Manu’s a shrewd businessman.
What does this mean for the Spurs in 10 years? I don’t know, but I can’t wait to find out.
February 7th, 2009 at 1:01 am
I was not aware of Parker courting Pau-Orthez in 2006 - or is it a confusion with what he did with Paris Basket Racing between 2004 and 2006? (which is what the journalist was referring to, and was more of a sentimental story for Parker since PBR is the club where he started as a pro).
From my understanding Parker’s involvement with ASVEL is based on 3 factors:
- willingness to bring France and French clubs to excellency, in this case it means a spot on the Euroleague and the capacity to be a contender (France had 2 teams in the Euroleague regular season, none of which made it to the next round - “Top 16″). Parker’s presence immediatly makes the ASVEL bid more serious and realistic, also in terms of sponsors, involvement of local politicians or communities, etc.
- willingness of Parker to move into team ownership as next step in his career, this has been well documented and he is obviously the kind of person who likes to set goals for himself and stick to them.
- ASVEL structure (Parker insisted on this a lot in his interviews), among other things: open-mindness towards sucess stories from abroad (including the Spurs); long-term commitment; willingness to train new players and in particular French ones; success based not on money thrown around but on careful planning, scouting, management.
February 7th, 2009 at 7:23 am
Will,
You’re correct. I was referring to his stint with Paris Basket Racing between 04-06, and I should have been more clear. “Dalliance” was probably the wrong word to use there, in retrospect. One of the reasons that PBR came up in our conversation is that many people might just see his current role with L’ASVEL as, to use your words, another “sentimental story.” In other words, I wanted to distinguish this from that.
I have a question for you since you are, obviously, closer to the situation than me. (One of the reasons I blogged about this so much yesterday is that no one in America seems to care. The guys at DraftExpress immediately made account of the story within their scouting reports, which was great. So, give them credit. Otherwise, I heard nothing but crickets.) The third factor you mention is ASVEL’s structure. To what extent do you think ASVEL’s structure either reminds Parker of San Antonio or could be made into a kind of Spurs-France? When he talks about their structure-something he’s done repeatedly-I hear him saying, “They’re like San Antonio.” Is this fair of me?
February 7th, 2009 at 9:27 am
2 comments about the PBR story:
- PBR is in Paris, Pau-Orthez (another former famous French club) is in… Pau-Orthez, geographically about as far as possible from Paris as can be
- it was definitely a sentimental story, I think it’s fair to say that his current involvement with ASVEL is much business-like.
Re: the structure of ASVEL, the important point is that it’s a club with a long history that tried to “re-invent” itself recently, with high ambitions. In this regard they tried to have a real professional approach, and it was possible to hear the current president explain in interviews that they tried to see what model was in use in the best, most successful clubs in the world. They had the opportunity to look at the Spurs model (e.g. when the Spurs came to play at ASVEL in 2006) and obviously they liked a lot what they saw and the level of professionalism displayed at all levels of the Spurs franchise. They also want to invest into youth training, something that is dear to Parker’s heart since his days at INSEP in France. He said he wanted to create asap a “Tony Parker Academy”on the model of the “David Beckham academy” for young footballers. Scouting young players is ofthen the way French clubs in all sports managed to stay competitive since it can be pretty hard for them to compete seriously on the financial front.
Re: the choice of ASVEL, maybe you can try to have a look at http://fichiers.asvel.com/divers/Dossier-Tony-Parker.pdf which contains all the documents linked to the press release (unfortunately almost all of it is in French). To sum it up, the Euroleague format is going to change and for the moment only one French club will get in (the current French champion) with a possible wild-card for another one, and that’s the one the ASVEL wants. It implies investment for a bigger arena, TV rights and so on - everything was already on its way but it’s clear that TP’s involvement is seen as a big boost, suddenly a project that was “in the air” is now very likely to turn into reality.
TP says it better than me in this interview, fortunately enough translated in English: http://www.tp9.net/en/itw.php?id=250
What does mean for the Spurs? Not sure. At worst it can’t be bad to have one of the key players with knowledge of both sides of the story (player and manager). At best it means more scouting (both ways), some kind of Euroleague affiliate, partnership on the marketing level (e.g. more preseason games played in Europe). It’s also been rumored that this is a way to get an advance start on a potential NBA Europe project or extension of the NBA to some European teams, etc.
February 7th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Thanks, Will.
Corrected.
The opportunity of cross-cultural marketing, especially of the Spurs being able to push their brand more in France, is something I had not thought about.
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