Recap
Cibona’s account has been blocked for 120 days and recently the management announced that they will begin the transformation into a sports joint-stock company. They have 45 days to convince the competent institutions that they can get the team out of this difficult situation. Cibona’s debt amounts to five million euros. Given that two million euros of debt can be converted into shares of the future sports joint-stock company, the amount of the total debt can be reduced to around three million euros. Apart from the financial side, the club doesn’t look good from the playing side either. Due to the blockade, FIBA didn’t give a right to register new players, so there are currently only five professional players because key players Lovro Mazalin, Borna Kapusta, Krešimir Ljubičić and Luka Frančešević left the team. The new coach Jaksa Vulic will count only on 5 players Krešimir Radovčić, Ivan Majcunić, Aleksandar Aranitović, Ivan Perasović, and Domagoj Vuković, along with juniors from the youth team.
Zadar made good preparations, and started early, which brought a good result last year. They brought some good players like Petar Vujačić (Mornar), Patrik Jambrovic (Sibenka), the best player of Cibona Lovro Mazalin, while main players Luka Božić and Marko Ramljak stayed in the team. In the ABA Super Cup, they played three good matches with a win against FMP and two defeats by Buducnost and Mega Basket, but they played without the top scorer from last season Luka Božić is back in the team.
All in all, Zadar has a wider bench and I think that will take a double digit win.