By Lefteris Moutis/ moutis@eurohoops.net
Houston Rockets want badly to add to their roster Kostas Papanikolaou and today they started official negotiations with him. According to Eurooops’ sources from Las Vegas, the Rockets offered to the Greek forward of Barcelona a two-year contract with a total worth of 4 million dollars.
Papanikolaou turned down this initial offer because in that case his earnings in his first NBA season would be less than the 1/3 of his next season salary in Spain. The buy out that Pap must pay to Barcelona is 1,5 mil. dollars. According to NBA rules the 900.000 dollars of that amount of money must be paid by himself and the Rockets can only spend 600.000 dollars for the buy out. That’s why the player wants to sign a deal that would pay him at least 5 mil. dollars for the next two years.
The talks are still ongoing and the Rockets are expected to make soon a second offer, as the negotiations hasn’t ended yet.