Kobe and LeBron to Europe -- as if

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BEIJING -- Proving that the truth will emerge from the marketplace of ideas ... in inverse proportion to the number of press people on the story ... multiplied by a factor of 1,000 if said press people have access to the Internet ... Kobe Bryant and LeBron James are not currently entertaining fantastic, or made-up, offers to play for European teams.

Bryant’s throwaway line three days ago about playing in Europe if someone offers him $40 million has now turned into a series of “reports,” like the one that says the Greek team, Olympiakos, which just signed Josh Childress, will offer James $50 million per season (SI.com).

Meanwhile, LeBron’s people told ESPN Magazine that he has been contacted by European teams before and would be “strongly interested” if someone comes up with $50 million — per -- when he’s a free agent in 2010.

Cleveland Cavaliers staffers who used to flip out at any suggestion of James signing with a New York team in 2010 -- by the way, he has been wearing a Yankee’s cap throughout this trip -- now have to come to grips with a list that goes like this:

Knicks.

Nets.

Real Madrid.

CSKA Moscow.

FC Barcelona.

Olympikos.

Maccabi Tel Aviv.

Benetton Treviso.

At this point, the operative words are ‘will offer’ and ‘would’ be interested -- meaning absolutely nothing has happened aside from throwing big numbers all over cyberspace.

Someone should make up something more realistic; $40 million is almost 80% of an entire NBA’s team’s salary cap. NBA teams can support payrolls that high only because each of them get $30 million annually from the network TV deal and they play 82 games, after which come eight weeks of playoffs.

European teams get a tiny percentage of the NBA’s TV money, their season lasts about 35 games, their arenas aren’t NBA-sized, they don’t know from luxury suites and their post-season tournaments are single elimination, not best-of-seven series.

Aside from that, it was nice knowing you, ‘Bron.

I asked an NBA spokesman for a comment. He said for $50 million, he’d go to a European team too.

-- Mark Heisler