🏀 KuBuckets Archive

From an alleged newspaper you can find on the Web, or perhaps buy it and use it for lining bird cages:

Traylor to play in Greece

Former Kansas forward Jamari Traylor has signed a contract to play for GS Kymis, a team located in Kymi, on the island of Euboea, Greece, Eurobasket.com and the GS Kymis official Website reported.

Traylor, 25, averaged 10.2 points and 7.0 rebounds per game in 40 games for the Redwell Gunners of Oberwart, Austria, last season. He was selected to Eurobasket.com’s Austrian League All-Imports Team and to the All-Star Game.

He also played 10 games in the FIBA Europe Cup. He averaged 9.1 points and 6.3 boards a game.

@mayjay Thanks for the JT update. I hope that he is clocking some decent dollars.

Haven't been on buckets in a while (obviously )
Thanks for posting on JamTray
I actually followed all his games last season with the Oberwart Gunners
He had a very good year was a starter and as far I could research, made some Solid $$ ( I've read that a lot of euroleagues pay for housing and a car and the salary is tax exempt ?)
on To Greece and hopefully higher competition and $$

@Bosthawk

The reality of playing in the Euro Leagues can be quite different than the cleansed stories we read. You can read former ISU player Paul Shirley's book "Can I Keep My Jersey?: 11 Teams, 5 Countries, and 4 Years in My Life as a Basketball Vagabond, ↗" it will give you a better idea of what playing overseas is like.

The biggest challenge in Europe is finding a stable situation. If you get with one of the better teams in one of the better leagues, you can do quite well. If not and you bounce around in some of the second tier leagues, there are lots of horror stories of not getting paid, showing up and finding no team, or no hotel, or no playing time, or whatever. That doesn't happen in the top leagues, but it can happen at the lower levels because those leagues (and teams) do not have the financial stability.

I couldn't be a pro athlete in Austria either. Beer is like $1 a pint... Good move on the whole Greece thing. I wonder how close to the water he'll be.

Yes it's hard to find credible up-to-date info on eurobasketball salaries

Here is a recent quote from livestrong.com

"The salaries for European men's league basketball players vary greatly on the league, country and situation, as many times players are given cars, houses or gifts in addition to monetary income. The average team salary for a team in Europe is about $17 million, with teams in Greece, Russia, Spain and Italy often having bigger budgets. The highest-paid European players make between $2.8 million to $5.3 million."

My guess is Jamari was well informed about Greece's past instances of not paying basketball salaries on time or at all, and probably got a guaranteed money contract - also it's pretty clear it was more money that the Oberwart Gunners were paying him :)

There are so many crazy stories about euro basketball it's hard to know what to believe. Like apparently in the Russian league a lot of payments are done in actual cash.

Oh and best of luck to Jamari. Kid made it from nothing.

Can’t seem to find out why JamTray hasn’t played the last 3 games with Kymis - no mention of him anywhere I can find and he’s not listed on the game stats even as DNP

Anybody follow him on twitter ?

@Bosthawk Looking through the team's web site, I found he is still listed on their roster, so he might have been injured or something. But I turned off Google translation so I couldn't read anything about him. Nice picture on the roster page (give it a moment to load):

!0_1510580219393_Screenshot_2017-11-13-08-33-16.png ↗

@mayjay

Thx for info!

Great pic of the Tray. He looks well.

If I were American intelligence, I might subsidize American athletes income abroad just to be listeners. After reading about gambling’s orchestration of Italian leagues and games there and the black and crime monies being laundered through betting on those controlled outcomes, I would think players would pick up lots of useful scuttlebutt in many countries.

@mayjay

Are those elevator sneakers? :smiley:

He might actually be 6-6 in those shoes

@mayjay
Thanks... !
this year I’m trying to follow some of my fav guys who graduated the last few years so this site very helpful

@JayHawkFanToo @DanR

That is funny, especially since they have him listed as a center on their roster (just about the only word I could read)! Even height-affirmative-action-oriented KU never actually called him that!

Have you seen this about the current NBA salaries? !!!!!

!0_1510960303195_1.PNG ↗

BTW, McLemore is back playing for the Grizzlies.