Maccabi Tel Aviv signed Croatian center Bruno Sundov
Basketball / Mac. TA signs Bruno Sundov
By Eli Sahar
Maccabi Tel Aviv signed Croatian center Bruno Sundov yesterday to replace Yoav Saffar, who has been suffering from a knee injury and may be unable to return to action this season. Sundov signed with Maccabi until the end of the season with an option for another year. Anton Kazarnovski will be loaned to Haifa/Ramat Hasharon as a result of the move.
The 2.18 center will only be eligible to play for Maccabi in the Euroleague and will not play in the Israeli Premier League. Sundov, 24, arrived in Israel yesterday and will play for his new team tomorrow in a warm-up match against Red Star Belgrade ahead of the next stage of the Euroleague next week.
Sundov most recently played with the New York Knicks after beginning the 2003-04 season with the Cleveland Cavaliers and has also played with the Boston Celtics, the Indiana Pacers and the Dallas Mavericks.
Sundov was picked by the Mavericks in the second round of the 1998 NBA draft, but in two years with the club played only 72 minutes. In his two years with Indiana, he played 33 games, averaging 2.5 points per game in seven minutes of court time.
Maccabi coach Pini Gershon said yesterday that Sundov would add a lot of mass under the basket. "You don't see a lot of players of his size in Europe," Gershon said.
But Maccabi's enthusiasm isn't shared by basketball pundits in Israel or Croatia. Sundov played against Israel at the world under 21 championship in Japan three years ago and was cut down by Yaniv Green and Shahar Gordon, as Israel won 82-70.
A Croatian basketball journalist said yesterday that if Maccabi was looking to Sundov for 10 minutes a game, it might get what it wanted, but if the club was looking to Sundov to take it to the final four on his own shoulders, it was barking up the wrong tree. "Sundov doesn't have the experience to play at the highest level. He has spent most of his time in the NBA sitting on the bench, and when he has seen the court, it has been mostly in garbage time. He may be massive, but he likes to shoot from outside so don't expect a real defensive stalwart. He isn't physical enough."
Euroleague draw today
The draw for the second phase of the Euroleague takes place today in Barcelona. The 16 teams remaining in the competition, including Maccabi Tel Aviv, will be drawn into four groups with the teams seeded according to their standings in the first group stage.
The top teams in the each of the three first stage groups, along with Maccabi Tel Aviv, which finished as the best second-place finisher, will head their second-stage groups. The top four teams at the end of the second stage will advance to the Final Four in Tel Aviv on April 29.
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