By Lefteris Moutis/ moutis@eurohoops.net
After a two days negotiation, Kostas Papanikolaou decided not to accept the offer of Houston Rockets and he will not make the jump from Barcelona to the NBA. As he recently said to Eurohoops, he was willing to make a financial sacrifice, however the offer of the Rockets just wasn’t enough.
The NBA team informed the representatives of the player that the four million US dollars for the next two seasons was the best deal they could offer and under those conditions, Papanikolaou will remain in Europe. The problem is not his salary, but the fact that a 1,5 m. dollars buy out to Barcelona has to be paid. According to NBA rules Houston can give to the Spanish team only 600.000 dollars and the rest has to be paid by the player himself. It remains to be seen if next summer Houston returns with a better offer or not.