Photo: EPA/BGNES
Sasha will turn 28 on August 6
Aleksandar Vezenkov will become the second Bulgarian ever to play in the National Basketball Association (NBA), the professional basketball league in North America.
ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, the most respected NBA insider, said on Saturday that Aleksandar Vezenkov, most commonly known as Sasha Vezenkov, has agreed on a three-year, USD 20 million deal with the Sacramento Kings. Wojnarowski said the news was reported by agents Mark Bartelstein, George Roussakis and Nick Lotsos, who signed the deal.
Sasha will turn 28 on August 6. He is leaving Greece's iconic basketball club of Olympiacos after spending five seasons there. In the last season, he was officially named Most Valuable Player of the Euroleague after leading the Piraeus-based team to win the national title and to play in the Euroleague final.
Born and raised in Cyprus, the Bulgarian national basketball team regular, who has also played for Aris Thessaloniki and Barcelona, is two-time champion of Greece (with Olympiacos) and three-time Most Valuable Player in that country's basketball league. In the latest season, Sasha was the top scorer in the Euroleague, with an average of 17.6 points per game.
In the Sacramento Kings, Sasha will be positioned under the basket together with Lithuanian-American Domantas Sabonis. The team's brightest star is De'Aaron Fox. Sabonis (27) and Fox (25) were selected for the NBA All-Star Game this February and were instrumental in taking the Kings to third place in the regular season of the Western Conference.
Only one other Bulgarian has played in the NBA. Georgi Glouchkov, the current President of the Bulgarian Basketball Federation, played for the Phoenix Suns between 1985 and 1986, which made him the first Eastern European in the NBA.
The Sacramento Kings acquired the draft rights to Sasha in 2022 after sealing a deal with the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Cavaliers had acquired the draft rights from the Brooklyn Nets, who had selected Sasha with the 57th pick in the 2017 NBA draft. Back then, Sasha was playing for Barcelona.
