Brandon Jennings' road to the NBA goes through Italy

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The Fundamentals
Published 7/17/2008 by Brandon Hoffman at ballerblogger.com
... :  Brandon Jennings signs with European club Virtus Roma Lance Pugmire of The Los Angeles Times :  “Brandon Jennings has become the first American star to circumvent the NBA’s one-year-out-of-high-school rule and jump directly to professional basketball in Europe.  His advisor, former shoe company representative Sonny Vaccaro, negotiated in Las Vegas during the weekend with Virtus Roma General Manager Dejan Bodiroga. Jennings has also retained an Italian attorney, Giovanni Imbergamo, to work with the team.  Vaccaro described the terms as a “three-year, multimillion-dollar” ...

The Running of the Free Agents Begins?
Published 7/23/2008 by Andrew Thell at Empty the Bench
... This still has to put fear into other teams on par Atlanta though — it’s just another way for them to get screwed and another piece of leverage in free agents’ bag of tricks. Players can bolt for a year or two and return as free agents or they can just stay away altogether. Why not? The Childress news comes on the heels of another potentially trend setting defection, that of a player circumventing NBA rules before even being drafted. Last week 18-year-old California basketball star Brandon Jennings committed to play for Pallacanestro Virtus Roma in the Italian ...