By Lefteris Moutis/ moutis@eurohoops.net
This will be the summer of changes in Euroleague and the first step for that is the coaches. As it was first reported by the Spanish newspaper Marca, Ettore Messina will be the new coach of CSKA Moscow. The Italian will leave the NBA and the Los Angeles Lakers in order to be again a head coach. He had his doubts about a possible return in Russia, as it was reported by Eurohoops.net, but after his meeting at Treviso, Italy during Eurocamp with CSKA‘s president Andrey Vatutin everything changed. The deal will probably be announced officially on Monday.
Fenerbahce/Ulker wanted also to sign Messina, but most of all Zeljko Obradovic, as it was written again in our website. However according to Greek sports portal Sport24.gr they have an almost done deal with Simone Pianigiani of Siena and they want also to lure to Istanbul Siena’s brightest star, Bo McCalleb. We called Fenerbahce/Ulker GM Kemal Dinçer and he confirmed to us again that Pianigiani is one of his targets, but as Dinçer said “we will make our offer in a week, after the end of the season in Italy. I can’t speak about him now”.
Why they are starting to forget Obradovic? According to our sources from Turkey the former Panathinaikos coach is negotiating his contract with Anadolu Efes, where he could be joined by his assistant for 13 season in Panathinaikos, Dimitris Itoudis who officially said goodbye to the team this Saturday morning with an open letter. The amount of money on the table is unprecedented in European basketball. Obradovic and Itoudis together will be getting something more that 3 million euros per season, with the lion’s share of course going to Zoc. That doesn’t mean that Obradovic has made his mind. On the contrary, he is also thinking the option of resting and not working anywhere next season