Katsikaris takes advantage of these days to reprogram the team. The competition will resume on March 3 in Fontajau (12.30) against Obradoiro, a direct rival.
Which team did you find? What diagnosis do you make of this Basketball Girona?
Things are very different if you see them from the outside or from the inside. I watched all the ACB games and had seen many of Girona Basketball. From the outside it was one thing, now that I have to live with it every day I see it differently. We have a young, old and experienced staff. People with experience we have Quino (Colom), who knows the league very well, maybe also Sergi (Martínez) playing with Barça or a little Eric (Vila) who made his debut there very young. But the majority of the group does not have much experience in the ACB, which everyone knows is the hardest and most demanding league in Europe, where you have to be prepared for each match physically, tactically, technically, psychologically…
Do you miss more experience?
I was telling him because there are many things that I have to put together to have the team ready to play a match of this demand. There are some habits, there are good ones, others that can be improved, and others that can harm you. Then my daily goal with the team is to make it improve, and we are coming from a very hard defeat in the third game we have played with me as coach (in Andorra). I’m not talking about the score, I didn’t like how we didn’t know how to react to the physical play of Andorra, which took us off the court. We did not find an answer. We lowered our arms and I don’t like that at all. Someone can say that character is or isn’t, but I think that in a group one can push the other. I don’t want it to happen to us anymore.
Was there a mental problem, in the locker room?
Not about trust, I haven’t noticed. This has made me think about the danger of creating a comfort zone, that we were already fine, that we were already paying off, that if the team would go to the Cup… all this is a very serious mistake. Let’s fight to save ourselves, that’s the first thing, and then we’ll see. The way the league is, I can’t think where we’ll be in two months. We have to focus on the day-to-day training.
On the day of his presentation he said that “we will get through it”. Is it reaffirmed?
Yes, yes, for sure, absolutely. We have a lot of room for improvement, and that’s not just my thing, it’s also the will of the players. My job is to convince them of what they need to do to improve as a group and individually. They also have to make an extra effort to make the group stronger. But yes, we will get through it, I assure myself.
Is this three-week stoppage of the ACB a mini pre-season for Básquet Girona?
Yes, I told the players that. It’s a mini pre-season to finish the league changing a lot of things, working a lot on the mentality I think we have to have. The main thing is to push hard in training, that’s where everything starts, that’s where the game starts, so the habits you pick up will work for you. If you go to training just to sweat and hang out, and you have a different rhythm to the game, problems come. I want to build real rhythms that we can carry through in the games, it has taken a bit, but the boys already understand it and I like how they compete in training. In competition there is also improvement.
How many victories does Básquet Girona need for this first goal of permanence?
I swear to him, I tell him quite honestly, that I didn’t think about it. I don’t look at the calendar too much, nor do I calculate that we will win these games and that we can lose these others. You can’t do that. It is best for everyone to focus on the immediate goal, which is the next training session, and on what we need to improve or correct. This way you arrive at the match prepared.
I’ll put it another way: should we look up or down?
Up, never down, I’m not used to looking down. We must always look up. I’m not saying this out of arrogance, because I’m very humble and very realistic. The situation is what it is but I want to convey to the fans what I convey to the players: we have to look up and think with excitement about the next game. I promise you that the image we gave in Andorra will not be repeated, on a day that, moreover, many people from Girona had come to see us.
“I promise that the image of Andorra will not be repeated again. We were swept away and we gave up”
Now that you are talking about Andorra. What happened?
That they physically swept us away. I go back to what I was saying about our team’s lack of experience. Andorra, on the other hand, has reference players, who have played in the league for many years, and know how things go. They were better prepared mentally and physically to play the game they did. They swept us away. After the first seven good minutes, we fell apart, we rushed in attack, we lost too many balls, which is one of the problems we have, we have to reduce it so as not to give the opponent chances… what more can I say? I was surprised we didn’t react, we dissolved. But that match was also good for me to see what problems the team has, what I have to play to correct it.
What will Birch and Chery bring?
Khem (Birch) is a proven player in Europe, he played in a Euroleague Final Four with Olympiakos, and in the NBA. He is an athletic and physical player, very smart tactically. He is a 5 with wingspan that is comfortable under the basket, he will help us a lot in rebounding and in defense of direct blocks. We didn’t have a player with those characteristics. And in attack he has a good hand, he can finish. It will help us a lot. Chery knows the league and will also help us. In the end what the market offers is what it is. Even Euroleague teams can’t find what they’re looking for.
Chery is a base, does it have too many repeated trading cards?
I wish I could have chosen the trading cards, in the end you have to see what the market has to offer and how you can fit it in. He is a player who does not make mistakes, he knows how to make good decisions. He arrived in Badalona as a temporary player and in a different role, he is a player who must feel important. Defensively he is very smart, although his body sometimes does not help him because he is small. He has a very reliable shot.
They are left with chips even if Corey Davis, removed from the team, resigns. Will they be discarding players game by game or will they cut someone?
At the outset this gives us what I was saying before, tremendous competition in training. Now comes the moment of truth.
What happened to Corey Davis?
This is disciplinary stuff…we already had a lot of patience. I spoke to him when I arrived and in the end the rules are there and everyone must respect them. We couldn’t let it go.
Would he have liked to have arrived in Girona a year earlier and been able to train Marc Gasol?
I’m sure!. He was always one of my favorite players because of his intelligence on the court and the way he generated, for himself, for others. I saw him as one of the best teammates a high-level basketball team could have. I admire him mostly for his time in the NBA, for the career he had there. I have many anecdotes with him. At the end of the 90s I was an assistant at AEK and I was an observer for the Celtics. My boss was Chris Wallace, who would later be the general manager in Memphis. I always had a good relationship with them. When I became head coach I had to stop being an observer, but we had contact. And there came a time when, with Pau in the Grizziles, Marc was chosen by the Lakers. Then Chris called me, with Marc still playing at Akasvayu, here in Girona, to say ‘I’m thinking of an operation that won’t seem very normal to you, but I’m considering exchanging the two brothers’. Pau was a legend in Memphis and you couldn’t compare the two brothers at that time. In the end it turned out to be a perfect operation for both of us. Many people told Wallace that he did not see it, the change, he had just had a good season in Girona and his ceiling was not known.
“I like football, I am a friend of Mendilibar and I would like to meet Míchel”
What is it like as president?
Phenomenal. First, talking to him was what convinced me to come to Girona. I have been in this business for many years, I have experience in many countries, and for me the most important thing is to get along with the person with whom you will have to work day to day. Here was Akasvayu, who may have had a lot of money, but had no project. Now there is a project. 15 years ago I might not have valued this as much. I wanted to be in the best teams, in Madrid or Barcelona, but now I’m clear that to get the best out of me I have to have people by my side in the same line of work. There are no projects in the ACB or in Europe. There is no patience. It is not normal that so many coaches have changed in the Euroleague. Projects are not built with such urgency. Many clubs say that they have, but it is not true. Marc and I speak the same language. He listens and even when we disagree we can find a common conclusion.
Did you have any memories of Fontajau?
Yes, of course. He had come once with Pamesa Valencia, in the 2006/07 season (beat Akasvayu 71-74). We had also played some friendlies in Platja d’Aro when I was with Saint Petersburg. That game with Valencia in Fontajau was crazy. We beat them despite being down by 15 or 16 going into the last quarter. Claver made a partisan and we won. I also remember that here in front of our bench Dejan Milojevic was injured, I am telling him because unfortunately he died a month and a half ago. He was a spectacular person.
is he a football player Here in Girona you won’t be bored: ACB, Women’s League, OK League and the second place in the First Division.
Yes, I’m a soccer player, too. Before coming to Girona, I collaborated with a television channel, Novasports, a kind of Movistar that has the rights to the Euroleague, the Liga, the Premier… We made a program about the Euroleague basketball and the Greek teams and the presenter, who also liked football, told me a lot about Girona from the beginning of the season. He was talking to me about Míchel, that what he was doing was incredible… And the other day I was talking to him and look, I’m in Girona. I have to go to Montilivi one day and meet Míchel, everyone tells me that he is a very interesting person. I have friends who are football coaches, like José Luís Mendilibar, from when I was in Bilbao, or in Greece I met the other Míchel, the former Madrid player, who was at Olympiakos. Mendilibar came to training to see if he could take something from it and apply it to football as well.
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2024-02-22 05:30:41
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