Will Azovmash be the next Prokom Trefl?
July 3, 2008 by Christophe
If you’ve been reading about the signings by Ukrainian team Azovmash Mariupol these days, it looks as though the owners at Azov Sea just discovered oil under their gym: Dijon Thompson, Uche Nsonwu, Marc Salyers, Khalid El-Amin, Alexandr Capin or Simonas Serapinas have all signed contracts in recent weeks.
When I go over these names, it remembers me a bit of the Polish Euroleague team Prokom Trefl Sopot and their crazy summer signings of 2007. Don’t remember? Well, they signed Travis Best, Milan Gurovic, Ruben Wolkowyski, DaJuan Wagner and Thomas van den Spiegel.
The results turned in by Sopot in the Euroleague were poor. Not only did they played some of the worst games in the whole competition, they managed to win just four games in the season. And these came after the roster was completely rebuilt and the stars departed.
I don’t wish the Ukrainians the same destiny, but these new signings remind me of the assemblage of stars that happened in Poland last year. We’ll see if coach Memi Becirovic manages to build a real team out of these guys. At least Becirovic has one quality last fall’s Prokom Trefl coach lacked: He speaks English.
I’m from Polish and I can reassure you- the whole Poland (including Prokom fans) is laughing at mr Eugeniusz Kijewski’s inability to speak English
To be series, Azovmash seems to make some clever movements in contrary to Prokom’s ones. Best and Wolkowyski are old, Wagner is injured all the time and Gurovic, despite being a great player, is a bit insane. The only hit was Van den Spiegel, who was traded in the end. Spectacular but not at all effective signings.
Meanwhile Azovmash brings home younger and more solid players. Salyers was Euroleague’s superstar last year, a tall scoring machine, unbelievable. Capin is very very clever playmaker who can also shoot well, Thomson is also a good player and El-Amin is always dangerous because of his quickness. They will achieve more than Prokom for sure!
Jurand, you have not mencioned Simonas Serapinas. He is awerage hard working player. Nothing special, but won’t make problems and will do what coach says.