By Antonis Stroggylakis / AStroggylakis@eurohoops.net
Free agent forward/center Jordan Mickey will be joining Zenit St. Petersburg on a one-year deal, sources told Eurohoops.
Six clubs approached Mickey with serious offers before the player chose Zenit as his next career destination, Eurohoops also learned. There were several reasons that factored into the 27-year-old American big man’s decision to proceed with Zenit and one of them had to do with the role he’s expected to have on the floor according to the team’s plans. With Zenit, Mickey will be getting an opportunity to play more as a power forward than a center, a position he considers to be the ideal for him in order to fully unfold his skillset.
Mickey had talks with both Zenit head coach Xavi Pascual and general manager Alexander Tserkovny regarding their goals and expectations for the new season. Zenit secured the last available EuroLeague wild card earlier this summer, after making the playoffs for the first time in the history of the club in 2020-21 and forcing a five-game quarterfinal series against powerhouse Barcelona.
So far in offseason, Zenit has been one of the most active EuroLeague clubs, having acquired guards Jordan Loyd, Conner Frankamp and Dmitry Kulagin plus forward Sergey Karasev. They have also signed contract extensions with guard Billy Baron, center Arturas Gudaitis, forward Mateusz Ponitka and forward/center Alex Poythress.
Last season, Mickey averaged 15.6 points, 5.8 rebounds and 1.5 blocks in 28:52 minutes over 33 EuroLeague games of his second stint with Khimki Moscow and his third year overall in the competition. He and Errick McCollum were the only foreign players from the team’s original roster that stayed for the whole run in EuroLeague amid the club’s financial problems.
Mickey had debuted in Europe with Khimki in 2018-2019. After a standout rookie season in EuroLeague he signed with Real Madrid and then went back to Khimki.