Ryan Richards leaves Lugano for 'personal reasons'
San Antonio Spurs 2010 second round draft pick Ryan Richards has left his team, the Lugano Tigers for what the team called "personal reasons".
Eurobasket.com's Luca Maffioli reported the news last week. Richards had not played in the Tigers' previous two games. No further details were immediately given on why he left the team.
Richards was the team's sixth leading scorer at 11.2 points per game and the team's second leading rebounder at 6.7 rebounds per game.
The Tigers are an impressive 17-1 in the Swiss League's A Division.
The move comes with a lot of unanswered questions.
It's not immediately clear if Richards will be allowed to rejoin the team before the end of this season. Richards leaving the team also does not mean he's coming stateside to join the Spurs anytime soon.
The 20-year-old big man averaged 22 points and eight rebounds for Great Britain's U-20 team at the European Championships. That performance earned him a spot on the Great Britain's senior team, so Spurs fans will be able to see him at the Olympics this summer.
I heard he left because the Lugano team brought in another big man.The coach apparently was not impressed with Richards work ethic and attitude. The team gave him the option to stay or leave. Richard decided to leave.
@hoopfan44 Got a feeling they were putting him aside because of the fact he's an NBA draftee and no one on that club isn't remotely close to that. Just lifers on that swiss team. So my guess is that the coach was focusing on the ones that were there before him and also for the long haul. If you look at his minutes early in the season and his stats they were great but his minutes started to shrink midway the season like a huge drop off. Also there's a player named ABUKAR (PF) he's the Tim Duncan of the team and gets lots of burn. He's pretty much a lifer with that team. That may have been a reason why he started to get less minutes and pretty much was told this is how we are going to operate around here type of deal. He probably didn't like it as you mentioned and was pretty much egged on to leave. I would leave too if they lessened my minutes especially if I was trying to get my burn to get the Spurs FO attention. Now I hope Pop doesn't fault him for wanting more playing time. He just needs to get down here and start playing with the Toros to get evaluated.
Is there any possibility that he could be coming to the Spurs? He would be HUGE for our frontcourt; I've seen his highlights and he looks like someone that would be extremely useful in a Spurs uniform.
@TEXAS@rtesoro440 i do not know what to make of this. he was playing well unless a. he wants to play for another team or worse b. he bumped heads with coaching staff
it dont matter to the spurs now. he not in there jersey. i hope hes not hurt tho. richards... bring your ass to san anto already
RRichards suffered shoulder injury in the past. Maybe the injury recurred. If he has personal problems, its not good for the spurs.
