Image Source: Yahoo Sports

BY NOE GANDILLOT

Tony Parker loves playing basketball. So much He’s ready to play for peanuts.

The French San Antonio Spurs star has just agreed to play for a small French team for less than 2,000 dollars a month, for as long as the NBA lockout lasts. Good Morning America has more:

“While many NBA players have been offered millions of dollars to take their game overseas, Tony Parker has accepted a deal for just under $2,000 a month to play in his native France. Parker is gonna play for a French club based in southeast of France, where he already serves as team’s vice president.”

The irony here -- NBA players are currently negotiating over millions of dollars of their future salaries in the ongoing fight with NBA owners for a new collective bargaining agreement. CNN’s Don Riddell notes :

“This whole dispute in the NBA is regarding a salary cap. If all the players agreed to play for that kind of salary, then we’d have an NBA season.”

But that would be a serious drop in pay -- Bleacher Report’s Richard Langford did the math and found $2,000 is roughly equivalent to what his NBA salary pays him for a single minute of an NBA game.

Langford didn’t hide its admiration for Parker:

“It is a rarity to see an athlete with the skills and resume of Parker to offer his services for such a low salary. Parker could easily command more money from other European teams.”

Indeed, Italian daily, La Repubblica, writes Kobe Bryant was offered $1 million to play a single game next week.

Another Italian paper, La Stampa, reports the figure at $2 million.

Parker was set to make $12.5 million this year with the Spurs, but he isn’t the first player to migrate to Europe during the lockout. Charlotte Bobcats Boris Diaw and Portland Trail Blazers Nicolas Batum have both decided to play in France for almost no money.

And Sportige.com says another player deserves even more credit:

“The biggest move, not in terms of publicity but in terms of personal PR, is Andrei Kirilenko. Great Hair, Great Wife, Great player when used right, and not in it for the money. Not this year at least, signing with CSKA Moscow in Russia and giving away his 3.something million dollars salary to charity. I wonder what Kobe Bryant must be thinking – how do I turn this thing around, and how much do I donate?”