Kevin Punter, American shooting guard for Partizan, is Barça’s big bet for next season. Among the many open and closed folders that accumulate in the noble area of ??the Palau, the one on the signing of Punter is the one that is highest and the club wants to be optimistic so that the operation is closed in a few days.
Some negotiations that have taken place in the middle of an earthquake in the basketball section, which in a few hours has changed coaches, goodbye to Jasikevicius and hello to Roger Grimau, and continues to pursue the friendly termination of Nikola Mirotic’s contract.
Precisely, the idea of ??the technical office to have a player like Punter has been one of the reasons for the distancing of positions with Jasikevicius that have ended with the non-continuity of the Lithuanian.
The already ex-Barcelona coach wanted to continue with his idea of ??practicing choral basketball, without anyone straying from the script, a philosophy that has proven to be good in long-term competitions but that at Barça understand that it is not valid in short tournaments, with the final fours as an example. Hence, Punter’s bet, a player capable of unbalancing a game without notebooks involved.
These differences in concept have been, even above the economic discrepancies, the ones that ended up precipitating the goodbye of Jasikevicius and the commitment to Grimau, whom Barça already tried to seat next to the Lithuanian last season.
On the other hand, the Barcelona club continues negotiating the termination of Nikola Mirotic’s contract through amicable channels but the conversations are not going smoothly. If no agreement is reached before June 30, Barça will unilaterally terminate the contract and the more than certain complaint by the Balkan player will end in a trial that will establish the final compensation. Mirotic has 22 million euros left to collect in the next two seasons that he has signed in Barcelona.
All the operations are part of the strict economic restrictions imposed by the club and which, in the case of Barca basketball, imply the obligation to reduce the sports wage bill from the current almost 40 million euros to a maximum of 27.2 million.