By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Despite the recent quotes by Galatasaray coach Ergin Ataman about the club wanting to keep Furkan Aldemir, on Monday the situation turned to be quite different. The board of the Turkish club granted the request of the player to release him in order to join the Sixers as a free agent.
Despite signing a contract extension with the team last summer, Aldemir’s contract is proven to be just too expensive for the current financial state of Galatasaray. So the club decided to cut him lose – probably without paying him the current season’s salaries – and as Turkish lawyer Ozkan Yuksel, who specializes in sports matters, twitted both sides agreed on the release in order to avoid a case in BAT (FIBA’s arbitration court). That’s why the board didn’t make any negative comment towards the player. After this turn of events, Aldemir is expected to travel to the States in order to join the Sixers.
UPDATE: On the 15th of December Sixers finally announced the deal with Aldemir signing a four years, 12 millions dollars deal. However only the first two seasons are guaranteed, according to US media reports.