By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
The Nikola Mirotic saga still isn’t over. Barcelona decided to release him, but even though he was on the verge of joining Partizan Mozzart Bet, he changed his mind, and he’s still looking for a club to continue his career with. The Belgrade club GM, Zoran Savic, tried to clarify the situation.
Mirotic still needs to settle in court with Barcelona about the compensation for the last two years of his contract, but it’s certain that he won’t be going to Serbia.
“I read various comments as if everyone knows better than us, but the truth is only one. We had our first conversation even before the Final Four in Kaunas. I knew that Barcelona wouldn’t want to continue with Nikola in the team, and he knew it too. We were the first to contact him before anyone else in Europe. It was a fair conversation with him, but we decided to wait and see how the season would unfold. We talked throughout June, but the termination with Barcelona took a long time. Everything was going well, but he made one mistake,” Savic said to Mozzart Sport.
What was the mistake?
“While we were talking to him, the whole of Europe was talking about how he was moving to Olympiacos, then Olimpia Milano; no one mentioned Partizan, and he liked that. He saw that we were serious and that information didn’t leak from us. All those conversations with him were going calmly; he showed composure and measured responses. Then, when Ostoja, Željko, and I were at one of our meetings with him, he decided to cut it short and said, ‘Guys, I’ve made up my mind, I’m coming to you, and I will inform all the other clubs about it.’ I advised him not to do that because it would immediately leak that we are the club he’s joining, and in the end, that’s exactly what happened. As soon as the information came out that he was coming to us, the pressure started, and the situation changed.”
Partizan’s GM added that the two sides agreed on a long-term contract, but with multiple options to leave if he decides so.
“We had a three-year contract with him, and we agreed to all his demands. There was even a clause that allowed him to leave the team after the first year if he didn’t like how things were going, and he had a few other provisions that allowed him to exit without any issues. He even talked with Kevin Punter to make sure they both had similar thoughts. He openly stated that he wanted to challenge for the EuroLeague title. On one occasion, he even said he didn’t want to take Danilo Anđušić’s number 33 jersey; instead, he wanted to wear number three. We offered him the chance to work with the best coach in Europe, to become a true idol for 25% of Serbia since they say there are so many Partizan supporters, and to be a part of a major project that everyone in Europe was talking about. The only thing we couldn’t offer him was the finances that he might have had at some other clubs.”
What went wrong? Mirotic, in the end, made a public statement that he won’t be joining Partizan and will continue playing outside of Serbia.
“He faced intense pressure, but we all deal with pressure. Both Željko and I do; that’s the situation here. In the end, as a society, we portrayed a negative image that a player cannot come to Serbia, even though he has never played for Crvena Zvezda or Partizan before. Personally, I was bothered by the talk of divisions. Divisions have always been here; no one can create them. Besides, divisions in sports are nothing new. Everyone roots for their own club; people are always divided based on their fan affiliations. It’s not something exclusive to Serbia. He joked that he could handle the pressure because he moved from Real Madrid to Barcelona, but as you saw, things turned out differently in the end. He wouldn’t create any divisions here. I’m just sorry that everything was presented as a life-or-death situation. That’s not normal. This is neither life nor death; this is sport, and it should stay within the realm of sports. It shouldn’t be about the president supporting one team or the other getting more from the state. Players should step on the court and show who is better. That’s the only measure. I repeat a negative image was sent because of all this.”
Partizan extended contracts with Kevin Punter, Zach LeDay, James Nunnally, and Aleksa Avramovic and signed Ognjen Jaramaz and Mateusz Ponitka. What’s next, now, when the whole Mirotic saga is over (at least for Partizan)?
“Everyone is an insider, yet no one gets anything right; very few things that are said and written are accurate. What I can say is that we are in contact with many players, and we will bring in three of them. Who these players are only Ostoja, Željko, and I know. The situation with Mirotic was atypical because he informed clubs that he wouldn’t come to them, and that’s how it leaked.”
Dante Exum went back to the NBA, Mathias Lessort signed for Panathinaikos, while Yam Madar’s move to Fenerbahce caused the biggest fuss because he was under contract with Partizan for another season.
“First of all, I want to say that Yam is a fantastic kid, but we didn’t expect him to leave. He had a decent contract, and we believed in him, wanting to sign a new deal to extend our collaboration. We brought him in when nobody even knew about him, and he grew into the best young player in the EuroLeague, which is no small feat. He made a mistake in the way he left. If you want to be great, you don’t leave like this. We talked with him during the season, letting him know that we wanted him on the team. We had patience with him, and we gave him a lot, and of course, he gave us a lot in return; it was all a symbiotic relationship. He was an important player for us. Now, we have brought in Ognjen Jaramaz to take his place.“