GRE/RUS - CSKA Moscow swoop for Greek international Zisis

MOSCOW (Superleague) – CSKA Moscow clinched the signing of Greek international guard Nikos Zisis on a three-year contract on Wednesday.

The 1.95m Zisis, who won a EuroBasket gold medal with his country two years ago and captured silver at the 2006 FIBA World Championship, spent the last two seasons at Benetton Treviso.

He began looking for a move when Benetton’s hopes of playing in next year’s Euroleague died after they missed out on the play-offs.

“CSKA has signed a three-year contract with Greek guard Nikos Zisis,” CSKA first vice-president Andrey Vatutin announced on their website, www.cskabasket.com.

"We are very happy, that, at last, it was possible to finish all formalities of the transfer that other European clubs had attempted.

“There is no doubt that in the near future, Zizis can turn into a real star of European basketball.”

Many would argue that Zisis is already a star of European basketball.

Zisis exploded onto the European scene three seasons ago at AEK Athens and followed up that campaign with a terrific performance for coach Panagiotis Yannakis and Greece at EuroBasket 2005.

David Blatt, who left Dynamo St Petersburg and replaced current CSKA boss Ettore Messina at Benetton, lured Zisis to Treviso and the youngster helped the club win the Italian Lega A title in his first season.

Zisis then put on his national team jersey again in Hamamatsu, Japan, where Greece were competing at the FIBA World Championship and his dramatic three-pointer at the buzzer lifted the team to a narrow victory over Australia.

But in the next game against Brazil, Zisis suffered a terrible facial injury after a collision with Anderson Varejao.

The broken bones forced him to miss the remainder of the tournament, and led to a difficult start to the 2006-07 campaign at Benetton as he struggled to rediscover his top form.

In Italy’s Lega A, his scoring average jumped from 9.9 points to 10.4 this season, but his shooting percentage dropped from 58.9% to 52.2% inside the arc, and from 40% beyond the arc in 2005-06 to 31.9% this year.

Benetton won the Italian SuperCoppa and the Coppa Italia, but Zisis and all of Benetton’s players, and the coaching staff, had to endure a sour ending to the season after the club was slapped with a 12-point deduction for sporting fraud.

The team’s signing of Erazem Lorbek on loan from Unicaja Malaga put them over the limit for registered players, and Benetton’s attempts to correct the administration error were deemed inappropriate.

Teammate Marcus Goree has also left Benetton to join Messina at CSKA while Blatt on Saturday announced he would no longer coach the club.

CSKA, meanwhile, may lose their other Greek star, Euroleague MVP Theo Papaloukas, to the NBA.

Papaloukas held a press conference in Greece on Tuesday and revealed 11 to 12 NBA teams have been in contact with him, and admitted he wants to go to the league but only under his own conditions.

"I want to be on a team with goals,” he said. “I cannot stand the idea of losing 50 games in a season. I want to go to a team where my game fits, where the coach and the general manager will both want me because we all saw what happened with (Vasileios) Spanoulis.”

Spanoulis, his Greek international teammate, followed up a great Euroleague campaign with Panathinaikos by spending most of this NBA season on the bench with the Houston Rockets.

Papaloukas said he wants to go where he knows he will contribute, and added: “If I don't find this, then I will stay at CSKA."

When asked what drives him to the NBA, he admitted: "Vanity!"

Papaloukas then said once again: "But believe me, it won't be the end of the world for me if I don't go to the NBA".

CSKA and Papaloukas won the Russian Cup and the Superleague but lost in a close Euroleague Final at Panathinaikos.

Jeff Taylor
FIBA