By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Maccabi Tel Aviv remains a EuroLeague shareholder, however, due to the current situation in Israel and the club possibly spending one more season in Belgrade for the EuroLeague games, the four core players of the roster are expected to leave.
Josh Nebo who is a free agent has already signed a two-year deal with Milan, as Chema De Lucas reported first, while Lorenzo Brown, Wade Baldwin, and Bonzie Colson are under contract.
However, all three of them have gained a lot of interest from other EuroLeague teams – on some occasions, their names were circulating as mid-season targets when it was unclear if Maccabi would continue playing – and even though their contracts don’t include buyout clauses, there’s a good chance that they will leave Tel Aviv.
It’s already known that Fenerbahce is monitoring Baldwin, Brown is expected to be one the most coveted players around Europe if he enters the market and Colson has also proven to be quite a commodity.
The question is what Maccabi will do, since on the one hand it doesn’t make any sense to force the players to stay if they want to leave due to non-sports related reasons, and on the other, it also makes sense to ask for some compensation.
So the 57th championship title has a bitter-sweet taste for Maccabi which can be forced to build a new team almost from scratch.