(FIBA) – Fotis Katsikaris once followed in David Blatt’s footsteps at Dynamo St Petersburg. Now Blatt  is going to replace Katsikaris as coach of Greece outfit Aris Thessaloniki.

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Aris have confirmed they have reached a verbal agreement with Blatt, one of the top coaches in the game, following Katsikaris’ surprise announcement this week that he was stepping down for personal reasons.

Katsikaris has been linked with Bilbao in Spain’s ACB.
“David Blatt has come to a verbal agreement to coach ARIS Thessaloniki,” a club statement said. “Mr Blatt will arrive at the airport ‘Macedonia’ today (Friday 15/01) at 18:00 to sign the contract of cooperation with Aris.”

If Aris fans were disappointed in the exit of Katsikaris, who guided the team into the next round of the Eurocup but struggled to steer them to a leading place in Greece, they are likely to be extremely happy with his successor.

An American-born Israeli, Blatt coached in Israel before leading Russian outfit Dynamo to an unbeaten season in the FIBA Europe League in 2005. He then coached at Benetton Treviso, Efes Pilsen and Dynamo Moscow.

Blatt has also been a huge hit with Russia’s national team.

After being knocked out of EuroBasket 2005 in the Quarter-Finals, he took the reins and led the team through a successful qualification campaign that saw the Russians reach EuroBasket 2007 in Spain.

In Madrid, they upset France in the Quarter-Finals, Lithuania in the Semi-Finals and then Spain in the title game to capture the gold medal.

After a disappointing Olympics in Beijing, Blatt took a shorthanded Russia to EuroBasket 2009 in Poland and guided the team to a seventh-place finish.

That wasn’t good enough to qualify for the FIBA World Championship in Turkey, but Russia received one of four wild cards to play in this year’s event. They were drawn against hosts Turkey, Greece, China, Puerto Rico and Ivory Coast in Group C.

Read the entire article at FIBA.com.