According to rumours from Greece Olympiacos and Von Wafer want to part ways and the negotiations to break the player’s contract have already started.
Olympiacos is unhappy about Von Wafer’s contibution, or lack of should we say, and their coach Panagiotis Giannakis has made it clear by replacing Von Wafer in Greek A1 with Patrick Beverley, a player who was brought in to play just in Euroleague games and was considered more of an investment as he costs 1/6 of what Von Wafer does. Instead it is now Von Wafer who can play just in Euroleague [where a team plays a maximum of 23 games per season].
On the other hand Von Wafer feels he has not been given enough time and chances to prove himself or adjust to the European style of game and feels like a stranger, especially since he was removed from the team’s Greek A1 roster and has since recorded two DNP in a row in Olympiacos’ Euroleague games against Partizan and Orleans. Accordng to further rumours inside the team the coaching staff have stopped giving him tactical training alltogether.
Von Wafer has played in half of Olympiacos’ Euroleague games so far (first three games of the season, out of total six so far). Von Wafer’s last game for Olympiacos occured well over two weeks ago when Olympiacos beat PAOK away in Greek A1 (the week before Von Wafer was replaced by Beverley) where he scored three points in 11 minutes.
Although the rumours insist that the two parties have already had a preliminary meeting to discuss the player’s release, a consensus will be hard to reach as the player doesn’t want to quit such a lucrative contract (3.500.000 euros for two seasons) as he knows that he won’t be able to find a similar contract anywhere, including NBA, where all the teams have completed their rosters and truth to be told he was never considered anything but a role player.
Olympiacos of course wants to protect its interests too and is not willing to compensate a player for two years when in reality he has offered almost nothing to the team. TalkBasket will monitor the situation and will let you know as soon as thing are evolved.
