Mensah-Bonsu was let go by Toronto last week

Great Britain forward Pops Mensah-Bonsu has signed for CSKA Moscow after being released by the NBA's Toronto Raptors.

The 26-year-old chose to return to Europe after a season which saw him let go by the Houston Rockets in November before moving to Toronto.

He is now due in Moscow on Thursday for a medical with the Russian giants, who are currently top of the Superleague.

Mensah-Bonsu will hope the move can get him regular game time ahead of GB's Eurobasket qualifying campaign.

The draw to see who they will face this summer will be made in Germany on Saturday.

Last weekend, GB coaches Chris Finch and Nick Nurse said that Mensah-Bonsu needed a settled situation following his release by Toronto.

Mensah-Bonsu joined the GB team late last summer, a matter of days before their first European Championship game against Slovenia, as he sought to secure a contract with Houston.

And his absence from the team's warm-up games may have been instrumental in their failure to qualify from a group acknowledged as the toughest the tournament had to offer.

"We want and need him in camp right away [at the start of training camp]," said Finch of Mensah-Bonsu.

"The days of waiting for the guys to go through all the machinations of club pressures and insurance - they've got to be behind us now if we want to make another step as a programme.

"It's incumbent on us to clear the way for our guys and it's also incumbent on our players to make sure that they deal with their agents and their professional situations to be ready when we start."

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