{"id":487955,"date":"2026-03-13T20:15:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T19:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=487955"},"modified":"2026-03-13T20:15:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T19:15:27","slug":"sylvain-franciscos-future-panathinaikos-olympiacos-zalgiris-but-is-the-nba-the-real-goal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/sylvain-franciscos-future-panathinaikos-olympiacos-zalgiris-but-is-the-nba-the-real-goal\/","title":{"rendered":"Sylvain Francisco\u2019s future: Panathinaikos, Olympiacos, Zalgiris\u2026 but is the NBA the real goal?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"296\" data-end=\"688\">The future of <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Sylvain Francisco<\/span><\/span> could significantly impact the balance of power in European basketball. The <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">\u017dalgiris Kaunas<\/span><\/span> point guard has attracted strong interest from several <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">EuroLeague<\/span><\/span> clubs, but according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurohoops.net\/en\/euroleague\/1943358\/sylvain-franciscos-goal-is-to-move-to-the-nba\/\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Eurohoops<\/span><\/span><\/a>, the French guard would like to secure an NBA contract for next season.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"690\" data-end=\"778\"><strong>Speaking to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.novasports.gr\/web-tv\/sport\/mpasket\/event\/euroleague\/video\/14764060\/fransisko-yparxei-endiaferon-apo-ellinikes-omades-agapimenos-mou-proponitis-o-spanoulis-video\/\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Nova Sports<\/span><\/span><\/a>, Francisco commented on his situation:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"780\" data-end=\"1265\">\u201c\u017dalgiris is and will always be in my heart. We\u2019ll see how things go because, as I said, there are many teams interested. I\u2019m aware of the interest from other teams, but maybe I\u2019ll stay at \u017dalgiris for another year, or we\u2019ll see where I go. I believe that sometimes, when you change teams, you need to understand the vision, the coaches, the team, and how you can be efficient and involved within the group. Sometimes it\u2019s positive to join a team, and then things don\u2019t go as expected.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1267\" data-end=\"1511\">But as I said, I\u2019ve always faced many difficulties and I\u2019ve always managed to find a positive solution. So I won\u2019t say anything definitive. I\u2019ll just say that there are many teams interested and we\u2019ll see how things develop. I\u2019m super focused.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1513\" data-end=\"1656\"><strong>When asked specifically about interest from <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Panathinaikos B.C.<\/span><\/span> and <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Olympiacos B.C.<\/span><\/span>, Francisco replied:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1658\" data-end=\"1784\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\">\u201cThey\u2019re also there. That\u2019s the news, but there are many others\u2026 We\u2019ll see. As I said, I\u2019m not in a hurry. I\u2019m super focused.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The \u017dalgiris Kaunas point guard confirms interest from several EuroLeague clubs but admits his ambition is to earn an NBA contract for next season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":174,"featured_media":483582,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[199],"tags":[],"rumors":[407],"typology":[183],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-487955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-euroleague","rumors-basket-rumors","typology-rumors"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2026\/02\/Sylvain-Francisco-.jpg","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/174"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487955"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=487955"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=487955"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=487955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}