By Lefteris Moutis
In business, a glance in imports and exports of each country shows the purchasing power and domestic reality. The same goes for basketball (which after all it is a business). In the old times, Greek teams used to sign players -even during the season- to achieve their goals. And they used to let go those who didn’t live up to their standards.
Once upon a time, Greek Championship was the place to be for everybody. Nowadays, anyone who has better offer from anywhere else starts packing before he even signs his new contract.
In total 37 players have left… the building (HEBA), from 11 different teams, one game to the end of the regular season. The vast majority of those players left their teams due to financial reasons with the exception of teams like Olympiacos, Panionios and Ikaros Kalitheas that cut players in order to replace them with better ones. And the door is still open…
The champions of this list is Maroussi and Peristeri with six players already gone, and the only teams that didn’t change anything is Panathinaikos and Kolossos. In the list are only those players who took part even in one championship match, and not the ones who left before even playing. Let’s remember who were this season in Greek teams but now they are balling elsewhere…
Maroussi 6: Giannis Gkagkaloudis, Nestoras Kommatos, Dimitris Haritopoulos, Frank Elegkar, Savo Djiganovic, Felix Kojadinovic
Peristeri 6: Jure Mocnik, Ernest Skott, Richard Roby, Eric Boateng, Hrvoje Puljko, Emir Zimic
PAOK 5: Giannis Kalabokis, Rashad Wright, Marcus Gorre, Martynas Andriuskevicious, J.R. Giddens
Ilisiakos 4: Miroslav Todic, Hernold Hall, Kyle Johnson, Leonidas Kaselakis
Ikaros Kallitheas 4: Michael King, Julian Sensley, Ravern Johnson, Jimmy Baxter
Rethymno 3: Zack Wright, Tomas Nagys, Tarrick Johnson
KAOD 3: Gary Flowers, Chris Monroe, Melvin Goins
Olympiacos 2: Kalin Lukas, Matt Howard
Aris 2: Dominic James, Adrian Oliver
Kavala 1: Patrik O’Bryant
Panionios 1: Vladimir Boisa