SI.com’s Ian Thomsen has the scoop:
The club will set Rubio free from his contract if, before June 30, he pays $6.6 million (4.75 million euros being the exact figure). If he pays the buyout after June 30, the price he owes the club rises to $8 million (5.75 million euros).
It’s hard to imagine that the club will be so shortsighted as to refuse to negotiate a much lower buyout. The same club last season was paying Rubio — its biggest star and best player around whom its marketing was built — a salary of 70,000 euros, which by today’s exchange rate is worth $97,706. For this season only, the club preemptively raised Rubio’s salary to 210,000 euros, or $293,118, in an apparent attempt to show it was treating him fairly.
But there is no fairness by today’s standard in paying a player less than $100,000 and demanding a buyout of $8 million. Joventut president Jordi Villacampa is a former star player who has to realize that he and his club will look monstrously bad if they prevent their young star from fulfilling his NBA dream by holding him to a contract Rubio’s parents signed when he was 15. The club took advantage of the family — envisioning Rubio’s NBA potential when the family did not — and I am assured by my NBA sources that Rubio’s American agent, Dan Fegan, will pursue legal action if necessary to prevent the club from holding Rubio hostage.
