Omri Casspi signs up for Maccabi Tel Aviv - NBA news
Looks like this year, NBA fans focus would shift to the European League.
The NBA season is in jeopardy and one after the other, players are moving out of NBA, signing short contracts with European club teams.
Just recently, Pau Gasol announced his plans to head back to Spain and represent FC Barcelona Regal and today, another NBA player Omri Casspi who was traded to Cleveland Cavaliers earlier this year by the Sacramento Kings, confirmed
on Facebook that he has signed a contract with Israeli club team Maccabi Tel Aviv.
The Israeli born forward is excited at the prospect of moving to his homeland and play in the team which brought him into recognition.
“Maccabi and I have signed the contract and I’m as happy as can be to be returning home. I’m so excited to be coming back home, to my family and the best fans in the world.”
Particulars of the contract are not out yet but according to Omri, the contract will be effective from January as by that time, fate of regular NBA season would also have been decided. Stating the reason for joining the team next
January and not now, he wrote
“I will be coming in January assuming the NBA season is cancelled. The reason I will only be arriving in January is because I don’t want Maccabi to suffer from having two players leaving the team at once should there eventually
be an NBA season.”
Casspi was amongst the first NBA locked players to pursue overseas opportunity when he showed his intent to join Maccabi and contacted the team management earlier in August.
However, tax issues surfaced and held him from joining the team. He then approached French team Asvel Basket Lyon Villeurbanne and one other team, but that too did not work out for him. With those two deals not coming into fruition,
Casspi again diverted his attention to Maccabi and since then has been trying to address the tax issues, which he finally seems to have sorted out.
Casspi although a decent player, but his a bit lacklustre as compared to Nicolas Batum, Andrei Kirilenko or Tony Parker who are also representing different European teams. However, Macabi is a strong team in the European circuit
and his addition will only help them to pose a serious challenge for the Europeans glory.
Tags: