By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Vassilis Spanoulis’ season with Olympiacos ended without making it to the EuroLeague playoffs and he is a free agent this summer. However, the big question at this point is if that was his last season as a player.
While there’s no clear answer yet, his agent, Misko Raznatovic, tackled the issue as a guest on the Greek national television basketball show “Jump Ball”. As Raznatovic said: “I would like just to underline that I have different info compared to what some Greek media have reported during the weekend. There’s no tension between him and his club. It’s impossible to have tension between him and Olympiacos. Billy (Spanoulis) and Olympiacos are one body. They have a long relationship for more than a decade, they will talk and then the best decision for the club and the player will be made. I don’t know if he will continue to play, but my opinion is that he should play at least one more year. He is 39, but his body and his conditioning are perfect. After his last surgery, he didn’t have any health issues. He can play maybe not as a star, but on a special role for 15 minutes, being a mentor to younger guys and he can be even more helpful compared to this season. After talking with presidents we will decide what to do”.
And what if Olympiacos decides that they don’t want to re-sign Spanoulis? According to Raznatovic, Spanoulis is ready to accept this, but on the other hand, compared to legends like Pau Gasol and Felipe Reyes, he is in much better shape: “For sure, Spanoulis will not create any obstacle or put any pressure on Olympiacos. If the club wants to move in another direction, then I don’t think he will have an issue. But we have examples like Reyes and Gasol and I think that those guys are not even close to the physical shape of Spanoulis. That would be my argument to him in order not to stop. Maybe you can’t do what you did 10 years before, but you can really help Olympiacos return to the playoffs”.
Raznatovic also talked about Nemanja Nedovic and his negotiations with Panathinaikos in order to stay in Athens for next year: “Nemanja would really like to stay at Panathinaikos and I would really like to help him to do it, but there are a lot of teams interested in him and we need to negotiate. My opinion is that the EuroLeague missed strong Greek teams, Panathinaikos should try to build something strong and Nedovic in my opinion can help them to do this”.