The season ended, with the defeat in the championship final, for the Virtus Bologna it’s time to take stock and prepare for next season.
We will start again from the general manager couple Paolo Ronci and coach Luca Banchi: they will be the ones to build and create the team of tomorrow.
A team that will have a lower budget but will have more room for maneuver compared to last year.
In fact, coach deadlines Sergio Scariolo still on payroll, Jordan Mickey, Gabriel Lundberg, Bruno Mascolo, Awudu Abass, Bryant Dunston, Rihards Lomažsoccupied a large part of the cap to build the Virtus of tomorrow.
Definitely interesting to understand the chapter Awudu Abass, the player with a contract spread over the past years, now expiring, and on the rise: with the change of agency he wants to test the European market but does not underestimate his latest team.
Different from the expiring foreign chapter, we will try to take profiles perhaps with Euroleague experience, but even trying to test them from minor tournaments cannot be such a bad idea.
Of course the main focus at the moment remains inking two Italians to complete the six mandatory for the new season: Pajola, Hackett, Belinelli, Polonara they are the certain ones, let’s see if they will remain Abs And Male.
A nucleus with players, apart Pajolagetting on in age: useful players are also needed to rest Belinelli And Hackett during the season, despite wearing a championship uniform.
Because the condition has been a big topic during the last three seasons, important starts with excellent victories and then a criminal physical collapse at the end, a situation to be seriously evaluated.
The foreign chapter is certainly all connected to the choice of Tornik’e Shengelia: the player has the option to exit the contract and has requests from high Euroleague clubs with multi-year licenses (real pains in the ass of this period), let’s see if the Georgian will honor his last year under the two towers again next year.
The exit of the twenty-one could further free up important space to perhaps hire players more suited to Luca Banchi’s game.
At the moment there are foreigners under contract Isaïa Cordinier, Ognjen Dobrić, Ante Zizic and Devontae Cacok, players who have had mixed performances and with many limitations for the coach’s game, I do not exclude their departure under the two towers, high possibilities for Cacok to see him on loan next year.
There Virtus therefore, to respect the pact of eight foreigners and six Italians, at the moment he will also have to sign four foreigners while waiting to find out what the future of Shengelia and the others will be.
Foreigners who will certainly have to have more dangerous hands from outside, one-on-one talent as today’s basketball requires and a constant and suffocating presence in the area.
It’s not a simple job, you need to have very clear ideas and have seen many profiles: not necessarily expensive ones who come to Bologna just because they made mistakes with multi-year teams or in the NBA, but not even doing crazy auctions for players who have demonstrated little and with little continuity this European season.
Next year’s Virtus must not depend on Shengelia’s post and Belinelli’s exits from the blocks, but they must be secondary weapons to exploit in moments of difficulty.
It won’t be an easy season at all given the last three epilogues and the depression in the city, even after the news that Segafredo and Virtus will no longer have the chance to have the much desired multi-year wildcard in the Euroleague.
Indeed, Scariolo’s salary will most likely already be used to pay for next year’s participation in the European competition.
An important summer, we must not make mistakes for Vnera, we have already done enough in recent seasons.
