Forced by Barça's delicate financial situation, the basketball section has decided to start a new cycle this summer with important adjustments to the squad. After almost three years unsuccessfully negotiating the salary reduction of its most important players, the cuts that have been imposed from the office of president Joan Laporta are a duty this season. Of the almost 40 million euros of current sports wage bill, the ceiling has been established at 27.2 million, a budget that continues to be very important at the European level but that makes it essential for players like Mirotic to leave. The relief on the bench, on the other hand, has been more hasty and has not only come from monetary aspects.
Until less than a week ago, Barça and Jasikevicius were working with the idea of extending their relationship in the absence of reaching an agreement. On June 6, the two parties sat down and the club –Juan Carlos Navarro and Mario Fernández, the heads of planning–, through a long presentation, presented to the Lithuanian the idea he had for next season as soon as to names and also some changes in the game idea. The harmony was good but not perfect, although the coach was open to entering into the salary reduction policy.
Last Thursday there was a new meeting and it was then that a rift between the two parties seriously began to appear. The coach wanted to remain faithful to his way of working and the technical secretariat wanted to introduce variations, such as the team at times not playing so constrained by the system and giving certain players more freedom. Among them, Kevin Punter, Barça's big bet this summer, who has the club in suspense waiting for an answer – there is optimism – and who was one of the names that Jasikevicius was not convinced precisely because of his quality of free verse with the ball.
Despite the differences, the club's idea was to work on them and continue to rely on the coach. The final renewal offer was born from that last meeting, with a substantial reduction in his fixed salary and a very large variable in case of winning the Euroleague to equal his current salary (3.6 million). The coach's agent, who is also Mirotic's, made a counteroffer that the club understood as an invitation to say goodbye to him, as it ended up happening.
Jasikevicius' hasty goodbye forced Barça to look for a new tenant for the bench, something that did not take long to find. Roger Grimau, captain of the last Euroleague and coach of the subsidiary, met almost all the requirements. In fact, he already flirted with the idea of him being Jasikevicius' assistant last year but it didn't come to fruition. Despite his lack of experience in the elite – nobody has it until they give him a chance – he adapted to the changes in philosophy that the offices wanted and fit doubly into the club's plans on an economic level: signing with a salary much shorter than his predecessor and he knows perfectly all the youngsters, whose presence in the first team will increase this year, thus also lowering the wage bill.
The defeat in the final four against Real Madrid ended up pushing the club to make the decision to do without Mirotic. The Thursday after the KO in Kaunas, Barça informed their agent of their intention to reach an agreement for the termination of the contract. 24 hours later, Navarro sat down personally with Mirotic to explain the situation to him in a very sincere chat on both sides. That is why the player's harsh statements to Mundo Deportivo a day before the Endesa League final caused so much surprise at the club.
Today, the situation is stagnant. In the two years remaining on his contract, Mirotic should earn 22 million euros and Barça have already made him four offers that have been rejected. The bad relationship of the club with his agent does not help and if there is no agreement before June 30, the club will terminate the contract and a judge will have to rule on the final compensation. The Barça argument for not disbursing the entire contract will be the excessive increase in his salary in the last renewal, signed in September 2020.
Navarro works with the idea of introducing two or three new players to the squad and making a strong commitment to youngsters. Caicedo, on loan this year to Granada, will be along with Nnaji (the club hopes he will not go to the NBA) who will have the most prominence. If the signing of Punter bears fruit, work will be done on the arrival of a four to cover the gap left by Mirotic. In the departures chapter, apart from those already mentioned, Tobey and Kuric have no place in the Barça team and Sergi Martínez could go on loan to promote his growth.
