What is happening with PAOK?
What is happening with PAOK?
The high-profile teams in Europe have completed their rosters for the next season since the first half of July. It’s the best way to sign the players as earliest as you can because there is always a fight on the market for the most valuable fellows. If you lose the moment to add the best guys to your squad, they will be gone in a second to the opponents and you will definitely end up with second-hand options.
If you are an average team you can wait a bit more, maybe you don’t have enough money to buy the players, maybe are you hoping for some unexpected opportunities etc. But the surest thing is the latest you complete your roster, the smallest are the chances to be prepared in time for the first games of the season to come.
We are close to the end of August and PAOK Thessaloniki didn’t make yet any move on the market. Yesterday they have named the head coach Kostas Flevarakis, but till now they didn’t resign any player from the last season. Even more, they parted ways not only with the foreigners but also with important local players like Antonis Koniaris, who went to Olympiacos and Linos-Spyridon Chrysikopoulos, added by AEK Athens. The other Greeks of the last year’s squad are Thodoris Zaras and the veterans Evangelos Margaritis, who will be soon 38 years old and Apollonas Tsochlas (soon, 37 years). So the situation is anything but pleasant for the Greek club, who has a long tradition in European basketball.
PAOK will participate again in Basketball Champions League, where they are one of the most constant teams of the competition these years, but I hardly see them as a tough competitor by now. They have no players at all and the perspective to sign good Greek team members is very blurred, if not impossible.
Photo credit: championsleague.basketball
Gratian Cormos
