Josh Childress Smiles at Your Exchange Rate

[HawkItus]

Josh Childress Smiles at Your Exchange Rate

April 28, 2009 1:09 PM

Remember last summer when Josh Childress signed his big deal with Olympiacos in Greece?

It was fueled largely by the fact that the dollar was weak, European currencies were strong, and therefore Europeans could buy American things (including lanky wings with killer hair) at what was, to them, a discount.

An anonymous TrueHoop reader just sent me a link to an older economics blog post with a killer graph which points out how the Euro has tanked vs. the dollar since then, and Childress may have lost so much money from that reality that he could have made more staying in Atlanta.

Those Euros that were such an asset last summer might not feel so great now ...

However, at the time this all happened, Childress' agent Jim Tanner told me something that seemed pretty smart at the time, but really smart now.

Childress' contract is in dollars.

Which has the effect of locking in the magically good exchange rate from the moment the contract was signed. It also means that now that the dollar is much stronger than it was, if Childress spends his own money in Europe (he gets a ton of stuff, including housing, provided by the team) now it's all on sale for him.

That could be handy this weekend, when he makes his way to Germany for the EuroLeague Final Four.

UPDATE: TrueHoop reader Matt points out that Childress is like the anti-Gisele.

[mrhonline]

Will someone explain what this means in terms of how many dollars he made this season and how many he's due each of the next two seasons?

[crimedog]

Will someone explain what this means in terms of how many dollars he made this season and how many he's due each of the next two seasons?

2 things. What do you mean? Also, I thought there was still some confusion in how to translate his exact earnings when you figure that his Euro salary was stated post-tax. Either way it seems like he's up and if he started buying stuff that appreciates, he could be really up.

Edited April 28, 2009 by crimedog

[HawkItus]

2 things. What do you mean? Also, I thought there was still some confusion in how to translate his exact earnings when you figure that his Euro salary was stated post-tax. Either way it seems like he's up and if he started buying stuff that appreciates, he could be really up.

Well this year he made out like a bandit too. Tax rates are going up for the Wealthy so if he was smart and got most of his salary this year his people were genius.