By Nikos Varlas
Can the flirt with a player translate to a… scoop for a big European team that affects immediately European basketball and it’s market? Yes! When it’s about the champion of Euroleague Panathinaikos, for whom every option is open about the future of the owners this summer, everything matters, even the details…
Bourousis like… Spanoulis?
The July of 2010 the transfer of Vasilis Spanoulis from Panathinaikos to Olympiacos made heads turn in European basketball and it was one of the very few times that such a “strong card” moves cross town in Athens. The Greek mentality and the way things work in this country makes extremely difficult such a decision.
Yiannis Bourousis has a contract with Armani Jeans Milano until the summer of 2013 and there is not an exit clause in it, not even a buy out if some other European team wants to get the guy. His contract can be terminated only if an NBA team wants him and pay his buy out until the last day of June of 2012.
So, if the Greek center wants to move to an other European team after the end of the current season, that can happen only with the following formula. The player and the Italian team must mutually decide to void the contract! Is there a chance for this to happen? We will get our answer in a few months… The difference with the case of Spanoulis, is that if former Olympiacos player Bourousis choose to go to Panathinaikos, it will be after a season outside of the Greek borders and not a straight “big step”.
The sure thing is that the name of Bourousis is already very high in Panathinaikos transfer list. It is expected that Aleks Maric will leave the Greens this summer, and Mike Batiste is said to be undecided about his possible retirement. In any case time is not in Batiste side.
So, Panathinaikos needs a first class center, Bourousis belong in this category, he is Greek, and if he wants to get back in his country, it’s highly unlucky to do it for his former team, Olympiacos, after the bad brake up that they had last summer.
This is something Panathinaikos’s people know and maybe they will use it. Bourousis doesn’t have any other option in Greece and – until now – he is not a mach with Milano and coach Sergio Scariolo…
Bourousis and Panathinaikos’s coach Zeliko Obradovic were seen chatting before the recent game of the two teams in Athens, the center is the first Greek name in the green’s list and the Serbian said a day before the game that the fans of his team should behave courteously to the Greek athlete.
So the flirt between Panathinaikos and Bourousis is a fact! Will it come to fruition this year? The next summer? The news is interesting, but there is also a very interesting side story from the moves of the European champion.
The team is working for the “next day”, even though the owners, Giannakopoulos brothers, have emphatically said that they want to leave the team. Until now, nobody has found any other investor for Panathinaikos and with the current state of Greek economy and Greek basketball, this seems almost impossible.
Where do we put our money? The Euroleague champions will continue their course with the same family on board. Thanasis Giannakopoulos will probably remain active, his brother Pavlos will retire (there is a chance that he will remain for honorary reason the president of the team) and the budget will get cut, but not so drastically. The target will remain for Panathinaikos to be the king of Greece and one of the best teams of Euroleague.
Sponsors, season tickets, television rights and some other revenues can keep the team alive and competitive, until the next day is found. After a year of searching, no other businessman seems to be interested in buying and running the team, but the big love affair of Giannakopoulos brothers with Panathinaikos can’t simply end… It’s evident from the… flirt with Yiannis Bourousis.