Lazaros Papadopoulos to leave PAOK - Chaos in the Greek league

The Greek players strike has just started in Greece but it seems that unity is absent on their camp.


Lazaros Papadopoulos(2.13-C) is going to leave PAOK according to basketnet.gr. The president of the Hellenic Professional Basketball Players Association, also known as PSAK in Greece (www.psak.gr), will be leaving the team of PAOK according to the article. Papadopoulos has not played a single game for PAOK yet and he probably won't even get to play one. PAOK played against Panathinaikos yesterday using only his 5 non-Greek players.

The article says that Papadopoulos is aware of the heat that he has brought down on his team for declaring the strike and standing by it. Other members of the Association were too scared to go against their wealthy bosses (Olympiakos and Panathinaikos) and defied the strike decision. They were also scared about the loss of their earnings by stating, "who's going to compensate us if we go on strike".

Obviously the loss of their earnings concerns them more than the plight of their fellow players in the lower leagues that don't even have medical insurance when they play. It was another day that damaged the integrity and the dignity of the suffering Greek league. At least Ioannis Bouroussis submitted his resignation as the vice-president of the Association that was the only right thing to do. He chose money and obedience over his fellow countrymen after all. Others weren't so courteous.

What happens next? All the possibilities are open to exploration at this stage. It only took one day to debunk all the "Greek icons" like Diamantidis, Papaloukas and Spanoulis. It also took only day to display the true bosses of the league. To them no other team matters.

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