Lietuvos Rytas recalled Brazdauskis

Lietuvos Rytas announced that they recalled forward Lukas Brazdauskis(2.08-PF) that was loaned to Perlas Vilnius in the National League(NKL) in Lithuania. Brazdauskis is also a member of the U-20 National Team of Lithuania.

The 20-year old forward averaged 14 points 6 rebounds and 1.4 assists in 19 games with Perlas. Is Lietuvos Rytas preparing for something or is it time for the youngster in the big league?

Ironi Ashkelon released Eddy Fobbs

Two days after achieving a home win over Q. Ata in the Israeli Cup that gave the club a ticket to the quarter finals, Ashkelon released the american center, Eddy Fobbs (2.11-C).

Eddy Fobbs started the season well and had good numbers during the pre-season matches, including 21 points Vs. Hapoel Jerusalem in Winner Cup Tournament. But since the season started Eddy Fobbs disappeared and in the eight games the team had he averaged 4 points, 4.7 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game. The israeli center Amit Tamir (210-PF/C) along with the two americans Louis Trescott and Rahshon Turner (2.01-PF) will have to fill Eddy Fobbs place.

source : eurobasket.com

Ferrara released Riley

Carife Ferrara released Mykal Riley(1.98-SG/SF) and it was announced via their official website. Riley wasn't good enough for Ferrara and so he was replaced by Rick Apodaca.

That was Riley's first pro contract and he as a player of Carife Ferrara he averaged 7.3 points 3 rebounds and 2 steals in 9 games in the LegaA1.

ASK Riga in financial trouble..

ASK Riga will be another team in the long list of teams that were affected by the global economic crisis as the major sponsors of the team are going to cease their funding according to esports.lv. A board meeting will be held today and the club's future will be decided.

ASK Riga has 3 major sponsors, the Riga City Council, the Defense Ministry in Latvia and the Parex Bank. The Ministry and the Council have already announced that they are cutting down costs on sports sponsoring but Parex Bank has yet to make a stand. It is rumored that the bank as well will cut down on the funding perhaps even completely. This situation is bound to affect Barons LMT as well who are also funded by the Riga City Council. More on this subject in the days to follow..

Dynamo Moscow released McDonald

Arriel McDonald seems to be closer to Siena as Dynamo Moscow have officially announced that they are releasing the player. McDonald signed a contract with them for one season this summer but he saw very little playing time so Siena seems to be the next team in his long career.

Dynamo thanked McDonald for his contribution to the team and wishes him all the best as a player of Siena. Both the team and the player mutually agreed to end their contract.

Nenad Krstic signed with Oklahoma

The Oklahoma City Thunder has signed Nenad Krstic(2.13-C) to an offer sheet, and the New Jersey Nets now have until Tuesday, Dec. 30 to match or decline the reported three-year, $15.8 million contract. New Jersey Nets center Nenad Krstic (12) of Serbia drives the ball past New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets center PJ Brown (42) in the first half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, General Manager Sam Presti declined to comment since Krstic’s rights are still held by the Nets. But Krstic, who was playing this season in Russia, could join the Thunder as early as Dec. 31 against Golden State if the Nets decline.

Krstic, the 24th overall pick in the 2002 NBA Draft by the Nets, is averaging 10.4 points, 5.1 rebounds and 1.0 blocks in 21 minutes per game in Russia. Before leaving the NBA this summer, Krstic held career averages of 11.3 points, 5.7 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 0.7 blocks in four NBA seasons, all with the Nets. Krstic averaged 16.4 points and 6.8 rebounds in 2006-07 before a knee injury in December limited him to 26 games.

The Nets are believed to be uninterested in matching the Thunder’s offer to the 25-year-old center. New Jersey currently has 15 guaranteed contracts, a stable of talented young big men and is trying to clear salary cap space for the highly anticipated free agent class of 2010 that could potentially include LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and Amare Stoudemire. The
transfer was also announced by Triumph Lyubertsy's official site. This confirms previous rumors.
source : newsok.com

All they want for xmas is Macas..?

Once upon a time he was called the Lucky Luke of basketball.. he could shoot faster than his own shadow. Arvydas Macijauskas has always been a charismatic scorer, from his first steps from Neptunas all the way to his 2 seasons with TAU and the unfortunate pass via the magical world of the NBA. Arvydas Macijauskas is rumored to be on the sights of a few (still) wealthy european teams. The lithuanian scorer had a tremendous start with Olympiakos last season but luck wasn't his lady and he's been trying to recover from recurrent back injuries ever since. It seems that the training with his old friend Aleksandar Kosauskas in Sopot has paid-off and Macijauskas seems to be ready to start playing in Europe again. But has he fully recovered?

There will be many teams that will try to sign Macijauskas but his contract comes up to 2.2 million euros per season and there is the matter of Olympiakos that they want to break the contract but Macijauskas wants to be paid for the full amount of the contract, that expires at the end of the 2009-2010 season. Hence it is difficult(albeit not impossible) for Macijauskas to move to another team given the size of the amounts that are implicated.. Rumours from Italy came from Gazzetta Dello Sport that said that Roma wants to waive Allan Ray and replace him with Macijauskas.

Nothing is official and given the global economic crisis and the sheer size of Macijauskas' contract it's hard to say whether any team at all will sign him and perhaps there are rumours out there just for the sake of being out there..

Time will tell..

Siena in talks with McDonald

Siena seems to be in talks with veteran guard Arriel McDonald(1.91-PG/SG) and they've announced via their official site. The american guard is the owner of a slovenian passport and until now he has been playing for Dynamo Moscow. He has played in numerous teams in the past and Siena can see in him a very experienced and skilled guard to complement their backcourt.

McDonald has won titles with Panathinaikos and Olimpija and has also played for the Slovenia National Team. He has played for Maccabi, Panathinaikos and Girona in the past and this is the 2nd time he plays for Dynamo Moscow although he didn't see enough playing time. In Italy the deal is considered to be closed so we might see soon the official announcement as well.

Uncertainty in Paok

Recent developments in Paok have left the team currently without a president to govern over them. The vice-president of the team does not want the responsibility of becoming president and it is unclear whether Dimitris Drossos will cover any of the debts to former players that he promised he would when he took over.

At the moment he is owner of 90% of the shares of the team but he is not the president of the team as he announced that he is stepping down due to health reasons, although there haven't been details as of yet as to what exactly is his condition.

This is the 3rd team in 3 years that Drossos is leaving and this time he decided to leave before reaching halfway through the season. He also left some debts hanging when he left AEK that subsequently led to problems with AEK's transfers and generally their participation in the league. There is rumored to be an amount of 700.000-800.000 euros that needs to be paid before the end of year by Drossos and now players and agents are not sure whether they will get their money. It certainly will be an exciting week for Paok.. not..

Real Madrid announced Van Der Spiegel

This announcement comes in to confirm previous rumours about the belgian center that was released by Azovmash due to financial trouble. Tomas Van Der Spiegel(2.15-C) will be a player of Real Madrid until the end of the season as it was announced via their official site.

Van Der Spiegel started the season for Prokom Trefl last season but due to financial problems he was released and he returned back to CSKA to help them out after the injuries of Smodis and Savrasenko. He averaged 10.6 points and 7.6 rebounds in 10 games with Prokom and 3.9 points and 2.9 rebounds in 8 games with CSKA in the Euroleague. As a player of Azovmash this season he averaged 11.2 points and 5.4 rebounds in 11 games in the Ukrainian Superleague.

Batista to replace Goree?

Esteban Batista (2.07-PF/C) will probably be Marcus Goree's(2.02-PF) replacement in Triumph Lyubertsy according to russian site Sports Express.

Batista looks like a possible candidate when Nenad Krstic is rumored to be looking for a way out to the NBA and Marcus Goree is rumored to sign with Estudiantes. Perhpas he couldn't cope with the cold in Russia for another year..

At this moment in time these are just rumors as there is no official verification of the news and Estudiantes recently renewed Petar Popovic(2.10-C) but they might still need some support in the low-post. Batista has averaged so far 3.6 points and 2.6 rebounds in 5 Euroleague games for Maccabi whereas Goree has averaged 8.6 points and 4.6 rebounds in 8 games for Triumph.

CSKA to lease Savrasenko

CSKA decided to lease Savrasenko(2.13-C) until the end of the season.

“It was not an easy decision, - CSKA CEO Andrey Vatutin said. – It was very
difficult. Yesterday during the game against ASK Riga Alexey publicly and incorrectly expressed his unhappiness with the playing time and the role on the team. The conversation continued after the game. We had to deal with
the factor of unhappiness from the beginning of season and we tried to resolve the situation ‘diplomatically’. But after yesterday’s incident the diplomacy doesn’t work no more. Today after the meeting with Alexey we came
to mutual assent to try to find the new team for him. Alexey did a lot of good things for CSKA, and we cannot underestimate his role in team’s successes. He is a player of Russian National Team also. So we cannot treat
Savrasenko as a regular player. We should assured he will get the chance to play somewhere and we are going to him in finding the new team. At the same time we had to respect the ethics in the relations between player and
club”.

“I am very sorry that the incident happened, - CSKA head coach Ettore Messina said. – And ithappened in a difficult time for our team. We tried to help Alexey after his injury, we returned him into the starting five even though he was not completely ready physically. But Alexey continued to express his unhappiness. We need only the players who are happy to play for
CSKA”.

source : cskabasket.com

Rumors from russian media say that Savrasenko might be leased to Triumph Lyubertsy. Savrasenko is also an owner of a greek passport.