19/01/2010 11:03:27

Real Madrid signed young center Ante Tomic to a multi-year deal through the end of the 2012-13 season, the club announced Monday. Tomic (217, 22) arrives from KK Zagreb, where he has been the team's brightest star in recent seasons. He leads the Adriatic League in scoring with 18.4 points and in rebounding with 8.7 boards through 16 games this season. Last season he was the Adriatic League’s player of the week five times as he posted averages of 15.5 points, fifth in the league, and a league best 8.6 boards in 24 games. Among his career highlights are wining the 2008 Croatian cup with Zagreb and playing for the various Croatian junior national teams. At Madrid he is expected to slide right into the big man rotation, helping make up for the loss of center Tomas van den Spiegel to injury.

Efes Pilsen on Tuesday improved its roster for the upcoming Top 16 by inking point guard Bojan Popovic, the Euroleague's regular season steals leader, for the remainder of the season, the club announced Tuesday. Efes also got an option to keep Popovic until the end of the 2010-11 season. Popovic (190, 26) arrives from Lietuvos Rytas, where he ranked first in steals, with 2.4 per game, and third in assists, 5.4 on average, in the just-finished Euroleague regular season. He also scored 11.2 points per night. Popovic was chosen as the Euroleague's October MVP after leading L. Rytas to back-to-back wins against Efes and Orleans in which he averaged 11 points and 9.5 assists. He previously had two years of Euroleague experience under his belt as well, including the 2006-07 campaign with Dynamo Moscow, when he started all 22 games, averaged 10.7 points and helped the team reach the Quarterfinal Playoffs. Popovic grew up with FMP Zeleznik, where he made his professional debut and helped the club win the Serbian Cup twice, reach the ULEB Cup semifinals and win the Adriatic League. He joined Dynamo in 2005 and returned from injury beceme a key factor in the title game as the became ULEB Cup champion that season. After two years in Moscow, Popovic signed for Unicaja and later for Guipuzkoa Basket, also in Spain, before joining Lietuvos Rytas last summer.

Unicaja has reached an agreement with playmaker Zabian Dowdell on a deal for the remainder of the season, the club confirmed Tuesday. Unicaja has an option to extend the deal until the end of the 2010-11 season. Dowdell (191, 25) arrives from Tulsa of the NBDL, where he averaged 12.9 points and 3.7 assists in 10 games this season. He is not a newcomer to European basketball, having also played for Fastweb Casale Monferrato in the Italian second division and SLUC Nancy in France after finishing his college basketball career at Virginia Tech. Dowdell averaged 11.2 points and 3.2 assists in 10 ULEB Cup games with Nancy in the 2007-08 season, in which he also led the team to lift the French League trophy. Dowdell was named to the ACC All-Defensive Team in 2006 and 2007 while playing for the Hokies. He is set to undergo medical tests and join his new team in practice as soon as possible.

(euroleague.net)

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