Unless an unforeseen agreement occurs, the Greek A1 Basketball League will come to a stop on January 1, 2010. The Union of Greek Professional Basketball Clubs (ESAKE) and the Union of Professional Greek Basketball Players (PSAK) have repeatedly failed to reach amends to player demands with their owners.

One of the main demands of Greek players is that they want the limit of eligible non-European (specifically American) players per team to be lowered to a maximum of two players per team (currently it sits at 3). Olympiacos, one of Greece's powerhouses was the main proponent of adding more foreign spots. After releasing Von Wafer, the current Greek league leaders now have two Americans in Josh Childress and Patrick Beverley. The final Greek players union decision will be announced by the President, Lazaros Papadopoulos who is a former Greek national team player that helped his country win EuroBasket 2005, on December 27th after a meeting with the Greek Secretary of Sports. As far as European competition implications, specifically Euroleague, there is no news yet on whether teams like Olympiacos and Panathinaikos will have to sit out of those upcoming matches beginning again on January 6th.

Now this is where NBA teams should keep an eye on possibly swooping in and stealing some prime athletes should this strike go on for months (unlikely, but Greeks are very stubborn last time I looked in the mirror). You have guys like Theos Papaloukas, Dimitris Diamantidis, Ioannis Bourousis, Sofoklis Schortsianitis, Sarunas Jasikevicius, Linas Kleiza, Milos Teodosic, Nikola Vujcic, and the list goes on to former Florida Gators like Taurean Green and Nick Calathes. Some of these players have never stepped foot on an NBA court, others have, but the current NBA free agent pool could very well change if some of these top players become impatient and buy out of their contracts.