Nea Smyrni or Euroleague

By Rigas Dardalis/ Dardalis@eurohoops.net

Traditionally Panionios picks good foreigner players and makes good deals with other teams. In the millennium era president Ilias Lianos has kept this tradition, selling Travis Watson to Fortitudo Bologna, Ibrahim Jaaber to Roma and (in the meantime) Stratos Perperoglou to Panathinaikos. His latest “success” is the signing of Zach Wright for next season, whom he will lose, only if a Euroleague team offers him a contract.

Wright had a great season in Greek league as a player of Rethymno and now plays for Cibona Zagreb in the Croatian League finals. The structure of Paninios’ deal with the American point guard is like this: His contract with Panionios only has “Euroleague out”, which means that he can only leave if a club that will play in Euroleague next season, will provide him a professional “roof”. In that case Panionios will not be a “loser”, since they will get a satisfying amount of money.