GM Kings: “We had doubts about Vezenkov after the Euroleague final”

Ready to “shine” at the top level is o Sasha Vezenkovwho left Olympiacos in order to join the Kings and compete on the NBA floor.

The GM of the Sacramento team, Monte McNairspoke to “Athletic” about the case of the Bulgarian forward, the years it took until it was completed, but also the complications that arose after her loss Euroleague for Olympic.

In detail what he said:

On how the case was affected by the loss of the Euroleague: “We wondered if Vezhenkov wanted to come back and finish the job. We knew then that we would have to give him a competitive offer.”

On European players being unknown in the NBA: “Many hear about foreigners, they don’t know them and they come here and suddenly they are Mirovic or Bogdanovic (Bogdan and Bojan) or Bjelica. Or you can look back and see Pezza and Turkoglou. And once they come here, then people get excited about them. But I think the fans feel surprised because they don’t know them well and they don’t know how much they can do.”

On how Vezenkov’s case began: “Colin Montag is our chief analyst. He was probably the first one I remember dealing with Sasha. He has the ability to find many attractive foreign players, both in the Draft and on the free agent market or for a trade. This was two years ago when Sasha was the guy Montag tipped us off about. They had some international advisors who saw him, but our own scouts started watching him as well, all the way up to the VP of HR and the assistant GM. Everyone said “this guy is good”. So it was a process that went on for many months, if not two years, and it ended up where we did the exchange. Then we didn’t know if he wanted to come.”