Josh Childress raised a lot of eyebrows by signing a contract to play in Greece this season instead of staying with the Atlanta Hawks as a restricted free agent. He sits down with Mark Schwarz of ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” to talk about his experience thus far in Greece.

He also showed Schwarz his condo (which the team paid for) and drove him around town…

Since European teams have no salary cap, they aren’t bound by the same restrictions as NBA teams. Owners are willing to lose money on their team in order to win, so they are willing to pony up big bucks for quality NBA players like Childress. Playing for Europe isn’t for everyone, but Childress is something of a trailblazer for pulling the trigger on the move.

However, it sounds like he’ll return to the NBA after this season if he gets a good offer, which is likely. Childress’ contract is structured so that he can leave Greece after this season.

The entire column is a good read.

SportsByBrooks has a post about the Greek franchise Olympiacos (who recently poached Josh Childress from the Hawks) and how they want to sign Kobe to a big deal.

Guess what? It appears that Olympiacos is, in fact, serious, as reports are surfacing that the club is preparing an offer for Kobe Bryant. We’re talking 60 million Euro (about $83 million right now) over 3 years. THE HOOP has more details on the perks of the contract, and they are pretty damned nice:

In that contract there will be an incredible list of benefits, a villa in the Mediterranean Sea, pay all the taxes at the expense of the club, to pay the bills for the staff and for a private boat for Kobe Bryant. The article also says that they are planning to form Olympiakos into an NBA style club with a court that fits 15-20 thousand seats and a private jet for the team.

This is an interesting story, no doubt, but I don’t think Kobe is going anywhere. He wants to win a ring without Shaq and he’ll keep trying until he retires.

Besides, if the US Dollar EVER gains back its strength against the Euro, there is no way that these European clubs will be able to offer up enough scratch to get a star to make the jump.