I'd bet these guys can get paid better in Europe than they do in the G-league, plus they get to live in Europe instead of Canton while they get to develop and put themselves on game tape. If any or all of these things are true then it's a no-brainer, isn't it?
Yeah, G-League base salary is 35K. From a financial perspective, it's basically a roll of the dice hoping you get called up to an NBA team.
European leagues typically don't require their teams to make contract information public, but the ACB league, for instance, has a budget floor of around 2.7M for its teams, while Europe's richest team (CSKA Moscow) has a budget of around 43M. Based on that, a college grad who's not quite good enough to earn an NBA contract would probably make something in the 100-400K/year range as a rookie in Europe, I would guess, with the potential to earn a significantly larger contract if they excel.
On top of that, many of the better Euro teams are established pipelines to the NBA.
The team Blake signed with, Braunschweig, is the team Schroeder played for before being drafted in 2013 and is also the team where Daniel Theis began his career.
The team Brodziansky signed with, Obradoiro, kickstarted Mike Muscala and Maxi Kleber's professional careers a few years ago.
The team Mathias signed with, Joventut, has been home to countless NBA players including Rubio and Rudy Fernandez. Mathias is likely to start at SG between Nicolas Laprovittola and Quincy Miller, both of whom have NBA experience, giving him a great opportunity to gain experience and putting him firmly on the radar for NBA teams looking to add depth.