Quote:[size="3"]Lietuvos Rytas and Asseco Prokom to join VTB United League[/size]



The new VTB United League is expected to expand even further next season after the agreement between the league and two new teams has been reached. Lietuvos Rytas are set to become the second Lithuanian team in the league while Polish champions Asseco Prokom will become the first team from Poland. Rytas were wanted by VTB already last year but the club turned down the offer because the new league 'was based on the former Soviet league'. Though this season Rimas Kurtinaitis, head coach of Rytas told to the media that the club would benefit from participating in VTB league due to the higher level of competition compared to the Baltic Basketball League for instance. This thought reached the ears of the management of the club obviously.



Asseco Prokom had a good season in Euroleague as they reached the play-offs only falling to Olympiacos later. The addition of the Polish champions to the VTB leagues will add even more quality to the competition.



VTB league featured eight teams this season: CSKA Moscow, Khimki, Unics Kazan and Ural Great (all Russia), Azovmash (Ukraine), Kalev (Estonia), Zalgiris (Lithuania) and VEF Riga (Latvia). The Final Four was hosted in Kaunas. CSKA beat Unics in the final while Zalgiris claimed the third place by winning over Khimki.

Quote:New VTB League format shaping up



According to Russian "SportExpress" the new VTB League format is steadily shaping up and will take its final form in the General Assembly of the League in early July. Read what the League's General Director, Andrey Shirokov, told in the interview to the Russian newspaper-website.



According to Shirokov the main change will be that of increasing the teams from eight to twelve. The teams will be divided in the same way as last season, in two groups. The twelve teams will then play a round-robin system, each in their own group.



After that the top team of each group will automatically get a ticket to the competition's Final Four while the second and the third teams of each group will face each other to gain the last tickets to the Final Four (Group A second team vs Group B third team and Group B second team vs Group A third team).



Although it is not known yet which Russian teams will participate it will probably be CSKA Moscow, Khimki, UNICS Kazan and Lokomotiv Kuban. From the rest countries now, Lithuania will be represented by Zalgiris Kaunas (Lietuvos Rytas has yet to decide whether they will apply to play next season or not), two Ukrainian clubs (probably Budivelnyk Kiev and Azovmash Mariupol), Estonia will be sending Kalev Tallinn and finally Latvia will go with VEF Riga.



As said by Shirokov himself, both Kalev and VEF have pledged to significantly raise their budgets to become more competitive in the upcoming league.



Poland have also expressed their interest in participating in the league, with two teams, but so far only Prokom meets the criteria and should be a lock for next league.



The remaining two available spots (of which one is reserved for Lietuvos Rytas should they wish to join) will be sought after by several clubs such as Minsk-2006 (Belarus), Tartu (Estonia), Siauliai (Lithuania), Ventspils and Barons (Latvia) and surprisingly enough Honka from Finland who could be chosen should they bring strong sponsorship deals on the table.



Source: [url="http://news.sport-express.ru/2010-06-15/368242/"]SportExpress[/url] (Anton Solomin)