By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
On Monday the buy out deadline for Kostas Papanikolaou‘s contract with Olympiacos will expire, but it seems that the possibilities of him crossing the Atlantic this summer at this point are at best slim.
As Eurohoops reported two days ago, Papanikolaou was a target of Milwaukee and New Orleans, despite the fact that his rights are held by Houston. The Bucks were more interested on him, while the last hours there are also rumors of Atlanta Hawks getting into the picture. However at this point, it’s improbable for a deal to be finalized in the next hours.
There are two factors complicating the case of “Pap”, his 1 million dollars buy out in his contract with Olympiacos and also the fact that Houston has his NBA rights, which has only four guaranteed contracts for the 2014-15 season. It has to be added that next summer, when Houston is expected to have many open spots, Papanikolaou under his current contract will be a free agent.
So unless something extraordinary happens in the next hours, Papanikolaou will stay a member of Olympiacos in the mission of the Euroleague “three-peat”. In the meantime the Rockets cut one other European player, German center Tim Ohlbrecht and Furkan Aldemir‘s rights were traded by the team to Philadelphia, together with Royce White.