Also Christos Stavropoulos he was among the protagonists of Olimpia Milano’s Media Day, for the victory of the 31st scudetto: “After a very difficult season, we managed to win this championship. It’s never easy to win a third championship in a row, but this championship made us very happy. We were very saddened by how this season went. for different reasons. Surely there is the part of bad luck, which is always in important sport, but there were also some things we did wrong, some things that we certainly want to fix for next season, but it was a shame to end this season without a title . It’s the beauty of working in a big club, which has to win everything. There is no second place, there is only first. But this is nice, it gives you motivation”.
The referee controversies: “What I said wasn’t to stir things up, but it was my personal perplexity also for the club I represent. Because it doesn’t mean that after what I said, after that we had two games where nothing happened. Things happened every match, but not just the finals, even before. I think the key, what I said, is that in many matches the refereeing criteria is not the same. I only compare the level of the Italian championship to the Spanish one and, therefore, I expect that, as the teams invest, they will also invest in the referee department. I believe they can do better, definitely”.
The Olimpia market: “Now that the season is over, we will also start to be more active in talking to the players who have finished their contracts with Olimpia. It’s true that in this last period, playing the finals, we didn’t want to have conversations and negotiations with the players because it’s a bit of a particular period. Now that we’re done, we’re ready for more intense work. However, until we make an official statement, we cannot speak for any player”.
In addition to the Eboua purchase, there were others ads: “Ismael Kamagate, who we loaned last year, we will also loan this year to Tortona, for a second year. We also have the rights for a third year of the player. We have already reached an agreement with the player and with Tortona. They are working very well, we are confident that the boy can grow further. Furthermore, we have reached an agreement with a coach who will come for the next two years: Giuseppe Mangone. He will come as players development. He will work with the youth teams first, because for us the youth teams are very important. And the results they achieved also demonstrated it, they won almost everything this year. We wanted to strengthen this department and Giuseppe will come to give us a hand. A very qualified person. He will lend a hand both to the first team and also to the youth team”. While Poet will go to Brescia: “Yes, we are very proud of him.”.
There Euroleague situation: “This year the market is a little out of control. We now have many competitors. Once upon a time there was only China, now there is also Japan, there is Australia, there is America. Now they’re talking about having two more teams in the NBA. This means two more teams in the NBA plus two in the G-League. We talked about quite a few players. Next we have the question of college. This means that the reservoir is smaller year by year. This is a problem for basketball in Europe”.
A might arrive salary cap in the Euroleague soon: “On Monday and Tuesday in Barcelona we have a Euroleague Board and it will certainly also be a topic because we are analyzing a new salary cap system, which will be proposed to the teams. This new system will be implemented from the year 2025, to try to control this chaos a little. I don’t know, however, if this salary cap tool will control this chaos. This is my concern. But certainly all the teams are worried and are analyzing to find solutions to address this problem”.
