Morning

The text was written some five years ago when this unchallenged fighter ended his career without fail. By all expectations and statistics for children growing up without parents, Zo has become a top basketball player and an even better man.

Someone who has managed to find the right time during youth and later on with their engagement and finances helps the thousands of poor and sick.
"Above this, there is only a paradise," said legendary coach Nolan Richardson after he and Alonzo Mourning got to the House of Fame on Monday. Nolan has suffered the greatest parental pain over the past couple of years, and his son and daughter died.

He could not share them with the honor that the basketball world has shown to the rare. There was no joy on his face. Alonzo has replaced a parent's home with orphanage since his 10 years. Some 11 years ago, he almost died.
Today he is a member of the Georgetown University board of directors, where he never missed a sports scholarship. Today he is a member of the House of Fame and how I say someone who, during his lifetime, "progressed more like a man than a basketball player and I was not bad in the hoops ..."

I never really enjoyed watching the centers. I realized the importance of a quality center for every team that wants a good result, but I did not sympathize with their game. Like someone who played a boss and who had a good shot, I always watched and worshiped good spells and mostly foreign players. I was very much respected by Jabbar, Parish, Olajuwon, Ewing, Robinson, Neal and others.

I just wanted one - Alonzo Mourning.

Heart is not a statistical category. You can not measure the amount of heart and bravery in one person. If there were such an apparatus, I think it would be enough to measure Alonzo Mourning. I've been watching basketball for a long time and I have not seen a player I can say I have more hearts than Zo.

If you play against the team that Zo plays and if somehow you can do a racket you can be sure that Alonzo will be in the racket ready to unlock your shot or to make you try something that only looks at the recreation of the programmer. There is probably no center over which it was dunked several times. There is also no center that has unblocked opponents of dumbbells several times. Why?

Because in relation to some other Mourning centers, there was no choice. He went out to every penetration. It did not matter. Fines or strength. Dropping or laying. Alonzo always, but always trying to close the racket. That's how it is learned.

For the first time, I watched him while performing for Georgetown University in 1990. Georgetown was fond of dark shirts and those huge sweatshirts that Patrick Ewing first introduced. The match was against a group of stingy whites (from this perspective it was probably one of the Ivy League schools), and in the G'towna racket Dikembe Mutombo and Alonzo Mourning stood and literally wiped off the opponents' silence. The shock of any team that has Mutomba and Mourning in the racket is normal.

(Later, I read that Georgetown fans set up the "Rejection Row" section and left the drawings for each blockade on the chairs below the knife).

Two people marked Alonz's life. Fannie Threet and John Thompson. Imagine a boy who is 10 years old and who after knowing that his parents divorce decides he wants to be adopted. Alonzo Sr. and his wife Julia were constantly fighting. Attention to the son was always present, but divorce was inevitable. The boy, angry at the fact that his parents divorced, decided not to live with them because he could not only live with a mom or dad. He testified in court that he wanted to be adopted.

"I had to go through a complete court process," Mourning said 20 years later. "I did not want to favor either mom or dad. I simply said my wish to the court and they continued to act in accordance with the law. I would rather leave our home than to continue such a life."

For the first year, Alonzo lived in orphanage. The court committed to give him a family to receive it. Several pairs came to the interview before Fannie Threet appeared. Former English language teacher and mathematician has adopted and raised over 40 children during their lifetime. Alonzo was one of them.

"I'll always remember the red brick house and the school billboard in the living room," Zo says. "She is the woman I still call Mom today." At school, Alonz was regularly mocked for short clothing because money for new things in his new family was not there. He was 13 years old and was 192 cm high. Up to 15 years it grew to 204 cm. His long sleeves pulled him to half the forearm, and his legs were like a subtle trainer.

Children, malevolent as they always talked to him was "dirty", "strange" and "Frankenstein." He was shot several times, but he mostly stayed silent. Alonz's great desire was to play American football. As he did not have the right footwear for that, he played in deep-fitting pharmacies.

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BAD BOYS

"Bad Guys" were reunited 10 days ago in Detroit and tomorrow will be broadcast a documentary film dedicated to this many-unique team.

Center that spurs the trophies and does not know how to play back to the basket. Beekeepers who mostly play on cuddly. A low wing that only plays back and only occasionally opens for a shot from distance. A winged center that jumps in attack and plays defensive. 10-Player Rotation. Rhythm control and offensive jump. Faul's and after judging ads. Tripping. Strikes in the face. Elbows in ribs. Hitting the hook. Provoking. All these were Detroit Pistons from the late 80s ...

The pistons were the first team in modern basketball that you could not describe through the statistics. A look at the archers' list did not offer an answer why they won. Their eyes were then trained to look for two, possibly three, who had 20 to 30 points. We got used to the head of the cells and the auxiliary staff. Detroit has changed that. The pistons were the first team in which the "carriers" of the game sacrificed their time and the number of silences in favor of the rest of the team. Ten players were threatened by the attack, and this team became a pesky strange statistic, where everybody gets 5 to 18 points, and the wins end up with 20 differences, even though the record does not offer anyone who is knocked out or is particularly in the mood.

The "Bad Guys" was made out of the field by the ingenious team manager Jack McClosky, who in the mid-80s could not make a mistake when the choice of players was in question. On the ground, Isiah Thomas was in charge of their mentality with the "small" support of Bill Laimbeer.

My best friend was the Pistons fan and especially Isiah Thomas. From Trieste he got a pair of Detroit Piston shirts dominated by Thomas's head. So we started to notice Thomas beside Magica, Bird and Jordan. Later, we also got a video cassette on which Isiah explains the secrets of his dribing. I do not have to point out that his dribing arsenal was perfect. We were trying to imitate it with the compelling commentary of "Thomas's promises !!" while Isiah throws on another parquet floor ...

"Tomas, you are a desperate player!" Next day comes Dan Dakich. Remember that name !!! Double is better than you !!! "

That is how Isiaha formed the Bobby Knight at the college. No matter what Isiah destroyed all opponents and that Dan Dakich in any universe would not be able to carry his handbag. Knight was a basketball perfectionist whose very often maestral performance of his player was not good enough. Bobby could always have been better.

Isiah Thomas had a competitive spirit very similar to Jordan's. In the sense that any opponent in the field would be killed if this meant a victory for his team. Thomas many say he was prepared to sell the soul of the devil just to be the champion. In the end it did, but he lost a lot of companions on his way to the title.

Thomas Pistons survived two heavy knockouts until the final conquest of the title. There are few teams that would stay all over after all. The defeat of Celtic in the final of the 1987 East. The fifth game in Boston. The pistons had the advantage of five seconds to the end and the ball. Thomas's addiction to Laimbeer was cut off by Bird and assisted Dennis Johnson for the winner basket. The pistons were fired in seven games. Boston went to the finals.

A year later Detroit finished the finals. They had 3: 2 lead and two games in Los Angeles to try to win the championship title. Isiah hardly hurt his ankle but refused to leave the game in one of the slimmest moves ever. He dropped to one leg and scored 25 points only in the third quarter, 43 in total for the match. The pistons had the title in their hands for 45 seconds to the end of the match. They did not endure. Loss 103: 102. They lost the finals in seven games.

Thomas watched the match for the first time only 15 years later. Earlier, he simply could not. He grinned in tears as he watched the match. He was the one who got the Pistonse's desire to win. He was the one who raised their aggression to the limit of scorn that felt to them the rest of the league. Isiah's tears 15 years later because of the defeat and the victim he has submitted, and his teammates speak of the desire of a man and a team to be the best ... at any cost ...

The title was the driving force of the entire Piston Team. They were so blinded by winning trophies that they went to the extreme.

Still, one thing nobody can ever argue with. They were really a team definition. Much more than any basketball team I know in the last 30 years. The unselfishness of this team was unreal. Almost altruistic. They were ready to kill each other in the field. Who did not think so had nothing to look for in that locker room. Thomas deliberately sacrificed his minute for Dumar and Vinnie Johnson. He sacrificed his number of silent consciously. An example was followed by others. Mahorn made Space Salley, Laimbeer James Edwards. Only Adrian Dantley was angry because he had to give up his minutes in favor of Dennis Rodman.

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ABA F4

The passage to the final brings salvation in the form of playing in Euroliga, which in three of the four participating teams means survival at the European level.
For Partizan, Red Star and Cibona, Euroliga's placement brings a great sigh of relief and gives answers to at least some questions regarding the future. Cedevita is the only team in this quartet that does not depend on state aid. They are the only ones who fail to say "ok, let's try again next year", which of course does not diminish their desire to end the best European competition.
Partizan is probably the most difficult financial season in the past 15 years. After the injury and the departure of some players the club simply did not have the adequate means to be competitive in the market.

Tepic, and especially Pavlovic, for their relationship with Partizana and the state of affairs were signed far below the real price and this was a big happiness for the most prolific club in the ABA league. Partizan will try to get Euroliga in front of its supporters, which in these circumstances means maintaining the continuity of the club's operation. So Partizan still remains interesting to the sponsors and that he can count on the country's help for placements. This means that talented players from the region and Europe can still look at Partizan as a club where they can develop playing games at the highest level.
Without Euros all this becomes very uncertain and questionable. Partizan is the only big club from the ex-yu space that has managed to keep the top in the past 20 years and is relatively pain-free at all times of the crisis.

Red Star went back to a big stage tonight last season. The current is probably the most successful in the past 15 years, to this very moment. Zvezda was the first in the ABA league (22-4), had four wins in the group stage of the Euroliga. In Eurocup, Dejan Radonjic's team was up to the semi-finals, where they failed to defend 11 points in the remainder.

Financial Crvena Zvezda is next to Cedevita the most stable club in the region, but so that Zvezda will need a new season in Euroliga. Everything else would be rated as absurd and step backwards.

Cibona has exceeded expectations this season, taking all into consideration but is probably the most uncertain future of these three teams anyway as they complete their performance in Belgrade. The chances of Dario Saric staying in Cibona are very small even if they elect the Euroliga. Help from Zagreb and the state for Cibona is given to a dump, plus the car's reward club will not get almost anything.

How to get on the market and bring some boost? Who are the talented boys from the youth drive who will get a chance? How will the club look next year and what will be its ambitions? All the questions that have no answer in Cibona ....

Cedevita is therefore the only club that does not depend on government, ministers, city officials or anything else ... Emil Tedeschi likes basketball and is ready to invest in this sport. The Cedevit training center is the best in the ABA league without any dilemma. Again, Cedevita has no fans, and regardless of the budget, the question remains whether they can keep this nucleus team on longer runs.

In this quartet, the only ones have the financial power to wait but the question is how long. To attract viewers needed results, trophies are needed, it is necessary to persuade young players to stay when they are looking for big European clubs when they have the opportunity to go to the NBA. No matter what the four-year plan for the development of the Cedevita team that has once tasted playing in Euroliga wants it there again as soon as possible ....

CRVENA ZVEZDA - CIBONA 80% - 20%

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MAGIC

After eight seasons in the league and a pile of individual awards, Paul and the ever-fought Clippers under the guidance of a top trainer are finally looking for a breakthrough in the NBA Finals. Their destiny is in the hands of someone who is at the same time the best and most respectable player and opponent.

Chris Paul has always had justification, so at least they say. His reputation until this season was mostly unripe. Here and there someone would have mentioned that he never went beyond the second round of the play-off, but that was it. Mainly emphasis was placed on his perfect dribbling, a preview of the game, unreally fast hands, a photographic memory of all the events on the ground.

The lack of team success was attributed to the inadequacy of the good team, the coaches who were not for the big dwindling, the bad situation in the club. In the past three years, you have somehow found out that Chris has been hurt by this, and that it is hardly difficult to prevent him from receiving merit if he is a good player and says that the fighter is again hard enough for something to go wrong, reporters and fans say " it's hard to play. "

This year, Clippers have made the best team in their history, and they have perhaps brought the best coach they ever had. The team is filled in all positions. They have the best assistant and thieving balls, the best jumper, they have great spiders. Blake Griffin has become one of the best NBA players. They are exceptionally fun to watch, and again this year they have substances in their game. What kind of teams are there that are not just knocking 10 alley-oops and inventing greetings on the showings but to win the victory first. So it was until Donald Sterling opened his mouth ....

Justin Gray is the legend of the Wake Forest, one of the famous universities at Tobacco Road, where the best basketball college in America is played. Gray has felt the destiny of many great colleges of archers who were too lazy to play a bettor in the NBA, yet they simply did not have the instinct and ability to play at the venue of the league's organizer. Europe is the next station required.

We met a couple of years ago in Greece and to questions like Chris Paul, Gray said, "Genius. Like every genius in it, there is a bit of insanity, a bit of obsession that can draw the worst out of a man. at all when the game starts. "

If it is to hit Julius Hodge's crotch, there is no problem. If we should openly offend Mike Krzyzewski in the middle of the match, that can be the case. If you have to kill the player by skipping in attack because they miss an open shot, who is guilty. If he had to go to Pau Gasol, who was silent on his head, he should know he did not do it. The game was played the way Chris wanted regardless of circumstances and coaches. So it was at least the appearance of Doca Rivers.

Paul is the best pick and roll player in the league. The ball was up to this season for an entire eternity. He turns once, he does not like what he sees, returns back and forth again. How did the old order in the New Orleans Arena explain it plastic? "Chris is outdoors on the field, beautiful and cultured. A small man is always on the pitch, who is discussing with everyone and playing ..."

It is discussed with everyone except with a direct guard ... "I never provoke a player who keeps me, I do not need that." I worked hard to become a good player, implying that I can score against anyone. "

Chris Paul is fucking in the field. I guess differently and could not have been a player who was always the last in the youth or was not elected at all.

When you have 157cm height in the second intermediate team you just do not beat for your services. Paul became famous in America after a tragic event. His dad Nathaniel Jones was the first African-American owner of a petrol pump in North Carolina. This is the 60's when racial disasters in all parts of the United States were fired. Nathaniel held his business and was the person who enjoyed the respect. Prior to his 61st birthday, he was killed in his car while he was squeezing the groceries. Several teenagers tried to rob him. He was beaten up on that occasion and his heart did not endure. Paul's father found the corpse.

At the auspices of his aunt Paul, in Nathaniel's honor at the first next match, he scored 61 points for every year of his life. Then he deliberately missed the free throw and came out of the game with the ovations ...

Only in the third middleweight Chris Paul did it up to 178 cm in height. His great love was the University of North Carolina, but it was not interesting to them. He decided to stay close to home. To play where Tim Duncan played. He was trained by Wake Forest, Skip Prosser.

"Training does not guarantee perfection, only perfect training guarantees perfection," Prosser, who has always been a lonely person, has often spoken. The players were quoted by Niče, Šekspira, Čerčila. By the way, I blinked out that Prosser had an answer to each of his many questions.

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POP

Each trainer comes to a time when years of stress, nervousness, sleepless nights, bad food, tablets, alcohol and cigarettes do their job. For most of the top trainers, nothing was easy. The effort is enormous, and the reward is often not in line with the efforts made.
As one great master of the job told me, "When I finally became a European champion, after those initial minutes and two hugs and congratulations I looked around and thought, 'Fuck, is that all this? Is this the reward for all the nervousness, the heartburn, the insomnia and the torment you feel after the defeat? "They spit on you and criticize fools who have no idea of ​​basketball. It is a feeling of a feeling that makes it all worth it.Whenever I recall this period, I say that the suffering you pass through a season of top basketball is much higher than the moment you are at the top. Satisfaction often does not exist or you have to suffer yourself to have it ... ".

Phil Jackson did not endure. Stents, artificial hips and knees. Don Nelson has always had that "Let's have a drink ..." attitude and he always realized there were more important things in life, but he was also his way of choosing pressure.

Pat Riley did all the wonders again, and when Shaquille O'Neal started to hit him, he realized that he did not need such things in his life. He chose the best possible location for life and from the shadows helped Eriku Spoelstri. Better to have tanned and enjoy the light meals than to spend 14 hours in the office.

You just have to look at Thomas Thibodeau's face and see what a dedicated trainer looks like and a man who steadily thinks of tactics and tries to improve his team. Pupils to the floor, non-existent social life, no women, no children ...

That's what Larry Brown once called: "Unhappy love for basketball." Everyone who really loves this sport can be found in the words of a somewhat crazy Browna.

Larry's son is Gregg Popovich and he was exactly infected with the basketball virus of a former coach of the sport-minded Pomona Pitzer University and completely separated from the army.

Popovich passed an aviation school. The old story says he was supposed to be a CIA agent in Moscow, resigned in Langley, passed basic training, and spent some time acting as an agent on Turkey's border with Iran and Syria but that was all ....

Larry Brown raised a bunch of good coaches, and he did not stay long anyway, because he was so perfectionist that no one could handle it for more than two years.

He corrected all the existing and non-existent disadvantages of his players, interrupted the children's basketball to show them a fairly low posture, each day made five players and changed their mind. Again, um Larry Browna was created for basketball.

One of his friends long ago said, "He would make five planks a functional five." The champion was at all levels. He conquered the losers in the winners and then left. Whether it's Kansas, Detroit Pistons, LA Clippers. I caught myself laughing at seeing the SMU University becoming a serious team this season after it was over 20 years old. That's Larry Brown.

Gregg Popovich had absorbed all the basketball skills of Browne but learned something that Brown had never had - with his 70 plus years - of patience. Struggling to break his style on longer runs, to draw the maximum out of the average players, to overpower Brown's greatest manners-the desire to constantly change the team's team ...

Gregg Popovich followed Browna to San Antonio after Kansas, then assisted Don Nelson in the Warriors, and then returned to San Antonio where he became a general manager under various circumstances. His fans despised him after he had rid of then popular Bob Hilla and put himself as a chief coach ...

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TIMI

Now it's clear. Since retiring Michael Jordan, no one had a more successful career than Team Duncan. Quite silent, Timmy has compiled 17 consecutive seasons of victory, title, hard work, looking at his job, and some individual acknowledgments that do not matter. His only interest was that his team played well and did it all the way. A fake champion, 5-1 in the final, his team never missed a plej-of. Successful? The most successful ... Tony Rutland. I was waiting for him to finally look at the Wake Forest.

Tony played high school with Allen Iverson. We all shivered to the point of Iverson, and Rutland was the second part of that killer godfather. Somewhere during Duke's '96, I first saw Tim Duncan for the first time. They were waiting for the ball to go in, Duncan was in a big shot, and the Duke fans flicked screaming: "Spock, Spock, Spock."

The American commentator explained: "Duke's fans see Tim Duncan with a figure from the" Star Trek. "This guy from the Virgin Islands, who is the elective subject of psychology, rarely shows emotions during the game, yet Dick, many think of him as the best center at the ACC conference . "

Then the legendary Dick Vitale fired: "But what a bee!" He started to play basketball very late, but no matter how he is, he's already technically fully trained for the position of the center. that moment and it's always great in the jump and .... "it took another three minutes ...

Tony Rutland is a policeman today in Atlanta. Being a shield from this team, the extremely talented Jerry Braswell is a fitness trainer. Loren Woods (I believe you remember him from Ephesus), the guy who was supposed to be Tim Duncan after Team Duncan, ends his career career in Beirut. Tim Duncan continues to ride ...

San Antonio I remember from the time when Rod Strickland was the first, and Terry Cummings was a real option at the wing center position. David Robinson was probably best basketball player with Pippen ever, but the competition in those years was too strong. There were still hilarious unbelievably talented but troublemaker Lloyd Daniels, Willie Anderson and all-powerful Vinny Del Negro. Simply, while Duncan did not show up, Spurs could not do anything.

They say the team takes the outlines of their best player. That's how San Antonio generally looked like Duncan. Methodically, constantly, at moments sterile, mostly unattractive, but most importantly - they ended up doing business. Duncan always came back and always pushed himself and his teammates forward. More likely you can not search for it. Due to Duncan, Spurs have always been in the game for the past 17 years. Titles, first round defeats, defeats and wins a single ball, but 17 years of being every year to be somewhere or to be the best ... there are not many players who can bring you such results.

San Antonio has never defended the title, but winning five pieces in almost two decades and each of these years being a party participant, that's for absolute respect. Everyone can dance for one summer. Being successful at the NBA level for 17 years, constantly having more defeats than defeats, being able to find the motive of each summer, to do the same again and to do it well. It is the highest quality of Tim Duncan.

All this year, the man managed to get in touch with the players in the best possible way - whether they were Stephen Jackson, Malik Rose, Danny Green or Patty Mills - to find the chemistry in the field and make it all work. Of course, all the other important people in that organization have great credit. But when someone laughs 12 pounds in the 36th year, after four winning titles, when he changes his run for the fourth decade to reduce pressure on his knees, after all four years ago he leaves the team to two more finals and another championship titles - how to explain it differently than basketball's love?

Duncan took less money than real value to make the team better, Duncan switched wordlessly to the new style of Spurs game. Even in the best days, Duncan did not talk about "the will of the winner" as it did on the ground. His leadership did not imply the abuse of a player to see everyone, nor when no one is watching. Duncan will give you any flaws that you can see in a nice way, which if you want to understand, you can. If you do not, well ... there are those who will.

As a player I never loved him, it's just so. Nothing in his game made me excited. In the memory, I only had two kits for her throughout her career. Shak down in Shaq in 2004, who overturned Fisher and the Troika against Phoenix in the playoffs six years ago. It remained as if in a semicircular silence of a table, a half-roller rolling on the rim, a point from the volleyball. And so up to the number of 25,000. Again, none of the NBA players I've ever had a chance to meet has left the impression of a more normal man. If he is not in a dress shirt and a sleeveless t-shirt (Timmy is wearing a sleeveless shirt) Timmy is in three numbers with a bigger shirt and a mandatory backbone. That's it.

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Tarpley

Tarpley helped all and everything was in the end in vain.

Roy was not a depressing drunk, no, no ... Roy had that natural smile of a cheerful man without much concern in life. He liked the company, joked with everyone. He helped with money or presence wherever he could, but at the end of the day no one could help, and everyone or almost everyone tried it. Yes, he was such a good player that neither in the world of evil and envious people nobody wanted Tarpley to fall.

The basketball was really a game for him. He started late, mostly did not know what to do or where to stand, but it was so natural that there was no discussion of whether to be a player. Long hands, long legs. Roy ran like a whirlwind. Perhaps he is also the fastest tall player of his generation. Whatever he tried on the field remained memorized in the muscles.

"Let me try a shot to distance ...". Jump? Dell Harris today says that Tarpley was the best jumper in the NBA after Willa !? Tarpley in his second NBA season boasted 20-20 games as he walked through the park. Simply, in his game there was no force, no trouble. Everything seemed easy, as the most normal thing in the world. Unfortunately, so did she drink, so she drogirao.

Still at Michigan University, he dropped twice on cocaine and marijuana. Empty drinking cans have not even counted. NBA scouts Michigan of course talked about an ideal story, until Dallas Mavsi seriously gambled. They admitted to them that Tarpley had problems.

"No problem," they said in Dallas, "We'll take care of him." How to take care of when at the time at the NBA locker room the most common thing to see was two cold beer rollers for the players and a professional staff after a fierce match ...

Tarpley and his ease of movement came to Schremp, Blackman, Derek Harper, Sam Perkins, and Marc Aguirre. While Dirk Nowitzki did not stay, it was the best team in Dallas history. Amazing amount of universality, speed, basketball knowledge.

They played the finals of the West and lost the Lakers, the terrific Lakers in seven. Tarpley? 13 points and 12 rebounds on average, and awards for the best sixth league player. In the second season. He was 23 years old. Neither Perkins nor Derek Harper by 25, Detlef Schrempf 24. Blackman and Aguierre by 28 ... The sky was the limit. In fact - it is not. They only danced for one summer.

The 81 games played by Roy Tarpley in 1988 remain the highest number of plays he has played in one NBA season. A year later, he made a three-year suspension for three consecutive driveways. She did not remember calling another or a taxi.

Mavsi really tried everything. Submit him to rehabilitation. He was constantly trained by assistant coaches, team-mates. In vain.

How do 24 hours oversee someone who has a surplus of money and free time? Within nine months he was arrested three times for driving in drunken condition and got a shotgun from the strongest league in the world. The best sixth man, since he is all star. Goodbye.

As in a comedy by Willa Farrell, he finished in the Miami Tropics, where the ape in bikinis announce the beginning of the quarter and where some suspect type of bear bear at half-time.

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Coach K

Mike Krzyzewski scored a 1000th NCAA career a few days ago, the absolute record of this competition. The US national team selector has only two Olympic gold, two World Champions titles, and one NCAA title in his last six years in his biography. The story of a man who has become a living legend beyond expectations

"In coaching business, the most important thing is that you have someone who keeps your back. Knowledge, motivation, preparation, everything is important, but if you do not have someone above you who trusts you and who is willing to put your back when things go wrong, everything else does not apply..."

Bobby Knight gave this statement a few decades ago, and his disciple Mike Krzyzewski felt it best on his skin. Probably his whole career in Duke, Coach K owes Tom Butters, then sports director of this university.

Butters, after a long time of reflection and consultation, offered the job of Duke's trainer to a person whose surname nobody was able to pronounce, to whom Bobby Knight led the Army for five years and had 73 victories there (Micah literally returned from the airport to sign a contract, Butters sent a colleague to stop the coach before embarking on a plane to return home to Chicago). Most of Duke's sponsors were in shock, North Carolina's biggest rival, and North Carolina was led by Dean Smith and Jimmy Valvano, while Butters opted for anonymity from Army.

The first three years were dance on the verge of dismissal. All the biggest competitors crawled Duke regularly. After the third year and the defeat of Virginie with 43 points difference (to date is the biggest Mike's defeat in the career), Tom Butters came down with all the biggest donors and literally demanded to leave the coach. The campus was circulated by a petition signed by most of the most trusted fans. Butters responded by offering the coach a new five-year contract.

Years later, Tom Butters said: "It was the most logical decision in the world. It was clear then that he was a fantastic coach."

It was clear, but only Butters. A few years later everyone else became aware of how Tom was right.

Mike Krzyzewski was born and raised in Chicago, a refuge for many immigrants from Poland. The first one in his family got an offer to study. Father did not finish high school, mother never enrolled. When he opened up the opportunity to get a scholarship from then, though less crazy Bobby Knight, Mike was overwhelming, but his parents made such a pressure to become an academic citizen that he simply could not say no.

Mike's father, Bill for 25 years has been handling a phony name because the surname in Poland at that time was mostly a rejection for the job. Legend says that watching Dad worries Mike did not make his last name change ...

Spouse Mickie met him as he worked as a stewardess and fascinated her with total sincerity. Krzyzewski invited his future wife to the match of the American fable with the words: "You were my third option ...."

Most of the girls would hang up on the phone, but Mickie was intrigued by such a performance: "He was not arrogant, no bahat, he was completely honest, the only man I ever met, and who is always honest."

That firmness and unshakeableness came from the mother. "That's why I never feared failure, when I see how much she did for us, and how little I always realized that I could never do it."

For the first three years at Duke's journalists he was stabbed at every step, but Mike believed in his way. Since the support base was at that time in a large minority compared to North Carolina and NC State. The small (for American terms) private university had even before Krzyzewski the oreol of the snobbo college, where the rich children jump and come to expensive cars to lectures. Sport was playing there from objection and boredom, at least it was the perception of all the others ...

His oldest daughter, who was "honored" by a college student and who was often overwhelmed, was most troubled. Krzyzewski repeated only one thing: "Be proud of your family name and your family."

Much before the commonly known nickname of Coach K, Mike Krzyzewski was known for the notorious nickname "Pacov". Even today, among fans of all other universities, he is primarily "Pacov".

After the already mentioned defeat of 43 differences, the coaches went to dinner even though no one had any food. At one point they ate, some alcohol, Krzyzewski water ... Someone said, "Let's just forget this as soon as possible" and Mike through his teeth said, "Let's never forget this stuff ..."

He definitely did not forget. All of his victories and defeats Krzyzewski was worn on his face, the one that was slightly bloated when things did not go as he imagined

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BEARD

We met Lamont Smith with last summer in Novi Sad.
Smith is currently the first assistant coach of the New Mexico University to look at potentially interesting players from this part of Europe for his college. Why is Smtih relevant to this story? In the 2008-12 season, Smith was an assistant coach at Arizona State at Herba Sendeka and spent most of his time working individually with James Harden. The story of the then still neatly shrouded bush has a tendency.

A good number of them are unfortunately not in these queues and mostly concern James's venture out of the field. Those in the field are equally interesting ...

"James is a boy from Calif. People born in California generally have a lighter approach to life, there is no hurry than most Americans." Harden is sometimes too relaxed but loves to compete. What I was thrilled with at the first training with him is what they have all the reactions to the attack in a fraction of a second. "Nothing is done in advance, but reacts at a given moment." He has a perfect instinct. "

What would you tell me, Harden knows he's playing basketball. It is not particularly fast, not particularly jumpy, not particularly strong but will effortlessly stride 30. Approximately 10 free throws, two to three trophies and an infinite series of intersections from different angles to the ball underneath the knees ...

"On the second year he had already had the reputation of a big shooter so that most of his opponents in his position were burned to stop him. One match was played by a guy two or three times with a good defense against him and then he spoke ... James looked at him then he has us on the bench and then asked for the next ball to go to him and he put 20 points in a row without fail in the upcoming 8-9 attack. "I was following his reactions ... it seemed to weep," Smith remembers.

Sam Presto was prepared in detail to draft Hardena. It has done a lot of homework. It was as long as Harden had filled up various types of tests and what did not, all in order to complete the dossier ... Oklahoma liked the fact that the attacking Harden could do anything.

If he needs to stand in the corner, he can. If he needs to translate the ball, he can do it. If he needs to play one by one or two on two, it's not a problem.

Harden needed Thunder to bring complete assault flexibility, as he did. Entering as the first reserve from the bench, Harden has passed the road from a stabbing spur from the ankle to the player who created the OKC attacks in the finals of the match to receive the best sixth player award. As Nick Collison said,

"You are surprised how many tricks you have in the attack and how much you have a natural feel to play."

Durant, Westbrook, Harden and Ibaka.

All are extraordinary in their own way, no one over 23 years at that time. A team that will likely win at least two NBA titles. The Nucleus that lets you out of this perspective make you feel when you think about what everyone can do. In reality, they played an NBA Finals where they were defeated and that was all. The sketch of leading people in Oklahoma is also out of this perspective unmanageable. All the stories about costly maintenance of such a team, the famous luxury taxi, drop into the water when you say just one word - the dynasty.

Oklahoma might have been the Sheriff of the West, the team through which all the way to the title goes ... now that story looks like a distant past.

In essence neither Harden did not help himself, playing probably his worst NBA partying career just against Miami in the final. Probably not even at its usual level, Oklahoma would not grab a wallet, but as if they were barely receptive to the story of how Harden is not a player for the maximum contract.



He did not mean the "dumbbell" from Houston Darryl Morey. He had Harden's Agent Rob Piggy promised the maximum contract and soon was agreed on the exchange of players in Oklahoma's journey to Martin, Jeremy Lamb and the choice of the draft that was later transformed into Steven Adams ...

Harden has been armed with a $ 80 million contract, a move to Rocket's celebrated in his favorite habitat - the Strip Club. Since joining Houston, "the beard" was armed with self-confidence and went quite aside as it did in Oklahoma.

Of the guy who talked about team and team victories, we came to James to declare himself to be the best player in the world, both he and Howard the game bearers, and everyone else in the "role players" team, and then pointed and Lotte Moteijunas with a statement that "Harden and Howard never eat with the rest of the team." His year-long vacation in defense during last season was a Youtube compilation.

Houston since joining Darryla Morey as a general manager trying to make the concept of the game form what advanced statistics say. Experiment with NBDL's Houston, Rio Grandeo, whose players simply silenced for three points and a free-throw racket, mostly ignoring a shot with poludistance, further convinced Morey that it was the best way to win them (the experiment was also brought by the players like Troy Danielsa, Isaiah Cananna, Roberto Covington who have developed into the right specialists of this kind of basketball

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ANIMAL

No fear, no preconception.
The basketball camouflage lives in Oklahoma, where he arrived from Los Angeles and at this time there is no person playing with less fear for his health than Russell Westbrook.

I remember the scenes from the final of the SP 2010 year. The rejected ball is played by Asik, Gonlum, Turkoglu and Chandler. From the fifth plan, like jumping into a pool with fully-fledged legs, as if he had a cloak on his back, down Westbrook. For the elbow is higher than the other in the skok. Grab the ball. Parquet flooring. He looks around, holding the ball in his hands like a waving bomber.

Moving in dribbling. It almost falls into the car. Throw the ball back to Igoudali. Run in defense. Bark around the center. He comes back. He is trying to take his place in the attack.

We just looked at the forums without words and started laughing.

Russell Westbrook is all this!

Courage that without a problem crosses the limit of madness. The man who most often makes you say "Stop the fuck!", "Add more" and "Haha, this is an impossible move" after full sprint slides into the hoop by spraying the dangling anger of the entire hall. And these are mostly reactions to some of Westbrook's moves. Any domestic or visiting ground fans stay silent on his spectacular breakthrough, as if they can not even figure out what they have just seen and strike the glances at the big screen waiting for a slow-motion shot and only then the enthusiasm moves .It was not accepted at the beginning. It is not yet fully accepted. Though he is a puppet, he is not. It's no shortage. While playing for the first year at UCLA, neither coach Ben Howland did not know what was in his hands.

Russell was a playmaker without a preview of the game and was kicking off without a shot. Then he created himself and his position on the ground. Self-taught. He did not have an influential coach in his environment as he grew up.

Dad kept him constantly training but the exercises he had invented and which with organized basketball did not have much to do. Howland used it as an aggressive defensive player and a player who mostly scored in the counterattack. About the NBA's future there was not much story, at least not his first year. After all, many were skeptical that the biggest star of that generation Kevin Love would appear in the strongest league with its 30 pounds of surplus, suspicious silence with distance and inadequate reflection. Westbrook was somewhere in the margins.

Then he started the second year. Howland, who during a stay at UCLA gave a large number of NBA players, realized what was available. The camera was still occasionally shown by the late John Wooden, who in the audience pulled a blindfolded eye on Westbrook's additions, but every little bit, Russ would start a rocket launch and then snatched everything to catch his head.

There was no one to set up a toy. In vain advice, guidance, criticism. Russell played his game and looks finally to win. More and more Basketball Puritans may be skimmed but accept Westbrook the way it is. More and more people realize that no matter what Durant is a better player and Russell with all his bosses - lost balls, Nerezons' whispers, excess dribbling, and quarrels with teammates mean for this team almost the same as Durant. The energy Westbrook has at the moment has no one in the league.

Two years ago, the boyfriend had never been hurt. Never. High school. College. NBA. He has played all the games since his style is another marvelous thing. There is no player playing Bolt in the first and 45 minute games. Except one. Which can also be silenced and 40 times in the match.

Westbrook has a little Scottie Pippen in it. In the sense that Pippen was a player who did not break into the air when he was hit, to strike next to his opponent. He always went directly. The same goes for Westbrook. He started right, jumped to the head of the defensive player, and what is it.

I dangled with Rob Hannigan, then with the right hand of Sema Performances, now the general manager of Orland. He talked to him that what Oklahoma played was street basketball. Yes, Scottie Brooks has no idea and style that can win adidas streetball but NBA titles.

Brooks has a special player in the game organizer's place, and if we're to get him to play like any other puppeteer, he'll lose what makes him special ... "

"He kills all the teammates in the term, and he does not feel like leaving the rest of the team." Send him somewhere and bring some normal play, "I said.

I was stupid!.

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Dominique Wilikins

They missed him in the famous selection for the top 50 NBA players of all time. He was not in the original Dream Team either. He was defeated by the champion title. Atlanta, his home team, sent it to Clipperse at the time it was first in the East. In Greece, he won the first important trophy in his career and packed his coats before the end of the contract. He was the best shooter of Spurs in their worst season. It is often omitted from various polls and voting, but no one can deny that Nique was one of the most attractive players ever playing this sport.
It is an ancient day, a traffic noise that cracks. A handful of journalists finish their questions with Panathinaikos players before the start of the first official training session. The goal is only one. Become a European champion in the end. Only, the main stars are not ... Constricted behind the knife, behind the backs of the construction Dominique Wlikins looks at the panel of the newly built OAKA hall and offers pumpkin with mouth ...

Božo Maljkovic and a fitness coach approach a man who will be in 1995/96. collect $ 3.5 million net, no bonuses, and ask what's the problem ...

- "I do not think I can train."

- "For what?" Ask the confused coaches.

- "Severance, punishment ... when my asthma is doing so," says Wilkins as he meets the pumpkin with his mouth.

"To try, though, the first training session ...".

"No, no, halfway," Nique said shortly.

So they went to the circle. Asthma, punishment, dying baby, and she has died several times. Judges who play the steps in the run. Run rackets. Zone. Fiskulturne rooms complimented as halls. Sliding terrain. Dominique landed on the Euroleague match against Maccabi landing in front of the OAKA, a helicopter. Fans fell into delirium.

Pavlos Janakopoulos, the boss, still liked to share the concerts. Legendary concerts. "Here's something to buy ... What did your mother come for? So why do not you talk!" Take her to dinner ... ". And follow the concave. You open it for "dinner" when there's $ 50,000 for "low costs".

Pavlos took the coffin to Dominique before the start of the Greek Cup. "This is for you if we win."

It is difficult to explain it. Big players mostly earn millions but sneak as little children when they see the envelope with the cabbage. Some because they can spend that money by supervising their wives, some because they just love the sight of the dollar versus some account number. Wilkins won the Cup of Greece himself. Even after the sagging tire was the beast when he wanted to be. To wrap the banana over the rim from the other side. He laughed as Sigalas tried to hit him on the jumpsuit, his, with his bent knees, where he often seemed to be flying from above.

"You are going to gamble with Jordan, and you will know Niquee to meet women, beautiful women."

It's an old, urban NBA legend. Mike had a lot of fun in black trying to keep the cache in the casino. Dominique has made it possible for all the young players who have gone through Atlantis to "socialize" with the beauties of the South. No, it was not scratch when women were concerned. "This is my dear friend, and this is Doc Rivers ...".

It had an incredible house in Athens. They led me to see her. The queens in front of that house were like a nightclub. Greeks love celebrities. That's right idolatry. According to them, they are sickly kind. Every comment is laughed that Eddie Murphy personally tells a series of jokes. The women came out of this house and walked in like a hairdressing salon. The traffic was so great that Nique left an open door on the flight from Athens, enough that passengers - enthusiasts would walk in and take the complete interior.

Euroliga, his only big trophy trophy, won in his hometown - Paris. Of course his dad was a military figure. That's why he was born there. I got CSKA Moscow. Kudelin, Karašev, Kisurin, Gundars Vetra, and JULIUS NIVOS. Wilkins drove them 35th in the final 16 with 10 rebounds and one downhill trajectory of Stojka Vranković. The first Euroleague in the history of Panathinaikos. On return, Nique slammed the car. Fourth of that season. He left him beside the road.

Before the Olympics, he began to get threatened with death. His other fitness coach named Gino was beaten by 10 Olympiacos hooligans in the gym. Those with metal rods. He's up to five pounds. A spit on life and death that passed on to a nearby pizza. There was Gino grabbing the kitchen knife .... Epilogue: Six Olya fans in the intensive care unit and Gino in the combo on the appliances.

After that, he overcame the cup, and Dominique packed, forgetting to return the money lent to some players. Yes, he loaned despite the 3.5 million contract. It happens.

In Spurs, he was the best shooter of the team who remained without Admiral Robinson. Nique never had a lot of conscience when it was a shot. It was about 40% realization. Spurs had the worst spell in the last 25 years, but they drafted Tim Duncan in the summer. Avery Johnson still believes that San Antonio should make one ring for Wilkins. He went to Fortitudo with David Rivers and Pere Scans, there he still remembered

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Dean Smith.

He was probably the best player of all time, and it would only be enough to write about him and the story forever, and that was just part of what Dean Smith represented.

Greater glory hardly could have led the humble man. He never wanted to win at all costs, he just wanted to convey knowledge. He raised dozens of top players and coaches and was there for them every day whenever he needed something, and he never wanted anything in return.

He went the way he came, quietly, without the pumps. Others simply did not know.

"I want to say something about Dean Smith ..." this is how Alexander Džicic turned to me.
How to refuse a man who runs on the bar almost 200kg. The crazed duo will continue to try to see what Smith all meant for basketball.

"Kouč Žile" is a great respect for the character and part of Dean Smith. Respect jumped to the sky when he and a couple of trainers from El Deano came to his office and talked to them as flush with them and patiently answered all the questions:

"I've been at 33, and I'm discussing with Dean Smith, you can understand my excitement."

Dean Smith on the bench North Caroline came after the NCAA sanction and the departure of the celebrated Frank McGuirre. McGuirre was pure charisma. He had anecdotes for every society but after his departure, the main men for sports at UNC have been looking for someone to do their job and to run the basketball program clean without any bullshit. The choice fell to the former assistant - Dean Smith.



The election has also faced significant public opposition. The coach's life is less - more everywhere the same. Discontent, criticism, ridicule ... At least, most of the beginnings are such. Later, those famous "I've always believed in you."

"The doll with Dean Smith's dress was hanged on Chapell Hill, his second or third year on the bench. The results were just not some, and most of the fans wanted to have a sounder name from the beginning ..."

Jille often tells this story when Smith is advised and she clearly shows that no environment is particularly different to coaches. When they get the results then suddenly they create those who "provided support from scratch ..."

Dean Smith played basketball under the guidance of one of the inventors of this legendary Kansas Phog Allen coach so he had where to learn this game from the start. What Dean did at the end of the day and did the best in life - taught others how to play basketball. John Wooden, who could always say for himself that he was the best coach of all time and a little bit to find the opposite, unconvincingly admitted:

"The best basketball coach ever is Dean Smith."

Not just basketball. With the media he was mostly silent, with no spectacular statements.

"I'm just saying what I mean. I'm just not saying anything I mean."

He was in the courtroom, but when something was to be done, something of social and social importance, Dean Smith did it without much philosophizing and empty talk.

"When I was a boy in Kansas with me in high school, American football played a different black skin color. It was very good in football and basketball but basketball did not play in our team. My dad was a drug with the school director and I left to ask him about the case, he told me that the problem would be a dance after school and that he can not play in our team. "I said hello and went out." I was stupid. "



The person who created racial equality in Chapell Hill was just Dean Smith. The first black sportsman at North Carolina University has been awarded a sports scholarship and Dean Smith ran into racist races at places where blacks were not allowed to eat, and of course both would be served. That's how it started.

"It's hard for me to list everything that makes this man a legend," says Jille.

"One thing I always think is that only the biggest ones leave behind great players and great trainers who follow their path and their basic philosophy, which can only be the greatest."

Especially in coaching. Leaving behind the trainers is not easy. There were a lot of big basketball coaches, but a significant number of them were very scanty about transferring knowledge. The assistants mostly took the clam and the obedients who were there to mass their ego or work those dull, sideways things.

Smith taught Larry Browne, Gregg Popovich, George Charles, Roy Williamson, Douglas Moore, Billy Cunnigha to trainee the most important ones ...

"The man has introduced a thank-you for basketball assistance, you know the one with his finger to the scorer after his knee, his invention, his secondary invention, his invention, the basketball analytics, the average number of points per attack, something that we call today's advanced statistics. 40 years ago, he was the first to change the defense, two of the three types in each game, he introduced a gay passing as an attack system, a flow of balls and players without a lot of dribbling and adultery.

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Garnett

Garnett's ability to not even notice 20 journalists in the dressing room and not react to anything they ask, so ... strange. But so. Garnett does not answer the questions before the movie ... learn about the mistakes of a fractured fellow (or his while you're in love with a girl who turns out to be Kevin's wife).
He was born in the village. Rural South Carolina. Where segregation, at least silent, always existed. He watched a pair of his companions lean on a white boy in the school who said, "We'll hang you again ...". He was watching ... like half the school. And they were caught among the guilty. Climate change was needed. He ended up in Chicago.

Farragut Academy. Ronnie Fields and he. Ronnie was a bigger talenat. So at least they say. Physical predisposition to export. The odds of 127cm but also the complete lack of understanding of the game and the desire to work. Ronnie was a creature she did not want to be perfected. He thought he could skip everybody. And the female "No" did not accept the right way ...

Garnett had always dreamed to wear a gold bracelet. Since his mother struggled to provide three meals a day for his kids, let alone a little bit more, Kevin found a transitional solution, a dinghy. What used to be an egg shell, Garnett wore his arm, hit the right shade.

Fields and he thrilled the audience in Chicago. Kevin looked like an alien. So elongated when you see it for the first time you think it has 230cm. So speed, jump, agility, movement co-ordination ... is incredible for someone of 211cm.

"I've never seen a child who enjoys so much in anything that has to do with basketball, not just play, but every exercise that has to do with this sport." Everything was done with the utmost pleasure and pleasure, adding his work habits to his talents. perish. " That's how Stan Hopkins, director of the school in South Carolina said.

Kevin took the Farragut Academy to the title of the City Champion. $ 2 cards were sold at 60! Everyone in Chicago wanted to see a new wonder from the player or to play against him. Garnett did not refuse any challenge.

"Chicago has shaped me as a player, I've been on all the best terrains, where you are not afraid of losing a basket but life, and no one has ever caught Faul's, and for the first time I realized there was no grace on the ground." Coach Wolf Nelson told me if you are a beast, be a beast. "

There were 13 representatives of NBA teams in the hall. KG did not have the grades to finish at college and it was already rumored that after 20 years a player directly from high school could go to the NBA. There were Flip Sounders and Kevin McHale. Most of them got tired as Kevin dribbled, shut up, jumped. McHalea bought it right away. Kevin went down to Kevin and gave him a couple of tips to fix a shot ... nothing more.

A little fancy to dress a Minnesota jersey one day, but Garnett was the term. McHale and the Sounders cast a cube on the fifth choice drawer and took 19-year-olds directly from high school. McHale believed from the beginning. Similar thinking was also the Flip Sounders who "pushed" in the fifth in the second part of the season.

In the following year, Minny moved the young New York child, one of the most talented ever, to Stephon Marbury. Only heaven had boundaries, did not it?

Yeah right!

"I'm the second violin for this farmer!" Marbury said in the dressing room. When you're in New York City for 10 years, you do not think there is anybody above you. You still punish yourself by finishing in Minnesota, the focus of the game is this slogan for you who worshiped Coney Island to Manhattan.

This is in the final line and cost Marbury. After two years he was sent to New Jersey where he wrote the first day on the pharmacy: "All I am". She did little to figure it out in the right way. Well, there is the fact that it is clinically insane, as we later found out.

In the meantime, Kevin was maniacally trained and in pairs watched cartoons. Shut up, brace yourself, drive you to the car ... now give Transformers and Inspectors Gadgets and so on. Sam Mitchell took him under his arm. He taught him how to tie a tie, how to curb the media, what girls to believe, how to be a professional. Minnesota hit Kevin Garnett and then missed everything after that, or almost everything.

What did not bother the team leaders took their destiny. Upon returning from his 24th birthday, Malik Sealy, the best teammate, was killed. He was killed by a drunk driver who never smoked alcohol.

The Wolves lost to Kevin Garnett's pure power and fell into the first-round and there regularly in the first round. There was no support. There were no real squads. Garnett had, for 12 years, perhaps, but maybe only, six of the real players. Marbury, Cassell, Sprewell, Joe Smith, Wally Szczerbiak and Terrell Brandon. We could take a long time to discuss at least three of these six ...

So there was money. Kevin's manager agreed in 1997 to extend the cooperation for six years worth $ 126 million.

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Zeljko-Obradovic

He opened the drawer and pulled out a thick book without a cover ...

"Look at this," with a smile, "I only consult this from time to time ..."

San Antonio's action from last, championship season. Season in which they cleared the floor with Miami Heath. The book for free evaluation has 150 pages of drawings. All kinds of combinations for all types of defense. From the front car, from the ball to the side. What is the Spur Specification, the release of a spell while you are thinking of building a position under the basket and anything else that throws an opponent's knee defensive.

Gregg Popovich had enough of his basketballs from Ivkovic and Obradovic. The basic principle of attacking San Antonio's "penetration and backward ball" was brought to perfection by Zeljko Obradović, the leading PAO. Gregg Popovich never bothered to admit where he borrowed this system. Before the match with Fener in Istanbul, Gregg complained to his new assistant Ettore Messina:

"Imagine, he does not drink ... not even a glass of wine. How can somebody be a good trainer if he does not drink?"

Popovich, with all the temperament and nervousness of a coach, has learned over time that the job is not being carried home. He does not usually wear it home.

"We're doing our best to win ... If it's enough ... great, if it does not ... we're going to dinner anyway ... life does not end there."

Željko Obradović and after eight European championship titles are burning for any defeat. His long-distance lines have long been legendary. His face absorbs an incredible shade of purple color as he stretches out his hands, lashes and turns his back on the ground and "heightened tone" explains the bench what was not right.

"Does anyone feel angry if you are silent? No ... If you hit haha ​​..."

He always found a way. Tactical is ahead of every European coach. How many just broke their teeth by trying to copy his style of play. Popovich succeeded, but he had a couple ... hm ... good players to do it in action. Others are not. Or they simply could not understand. A little bit of crying. You can watch the trainings. He says mostly everything in lectures.

In Partizana he had Djordjevic and Danilovic. In Juventus Villacamp, Jofres brothers and Corny Thompson. In Real Sabonis and Arlauckas and the most awesome possible group of blessings (as he once described to Dejan Bodiroga: "Antunjeza all called the Tantunjez in the dressing room ... because this one did not quite understand some things").

Benetton played Henry Williams and Zeljko Rebrača. Then came Panathinaikos and decades of rule. Players, good players changed. The system of games was changed as well, and the trophies came to fruition. Total five for 13 years on the bench. Only twice during that period were not Greece's premiers. Two!Boziroga, Diamatidis, Rebrača, Lakovič, Spanoulis, Batiste, Alvertis, Dikoudis, Tomasevic, Nicholas, Fotsis, Tsartsaris, Hatzivrettas, Kutluay ... The ball rolled under the basket, Bodiroga played one by one at the height of the penalty line. Middleton worked all over the country. Then the best pick'n'roll attack was played in the history of European basketball, a breakthrough and a return, and another, and another, while the defense did not rupture and the player remained silent.

He returned to the game with three low in five. The same game that Giannakis wrote over leading Greece to the title of the European Champion in 2005. It seemed, especially after the 2007, 2009, 2011 series, that Panathinaikos wins European championship titles when it wants. It only needs to add a couple of players each year to the nucleus that exists and ride to the sunset. But in all European countries, with the exception of Germany and somewhat of England, good things in sports do not last.

When something is wrong, then it needs to be changed because it is not worth it. When something is good, then that needs to be changed because it has been good for a long time ....
He left Athens and made a break for a year. They watched the pistons work ... Fenerbahce waited and waited for his chance.

Fenerbahce is among the two clubs in the world by the number of fans - 30 million ... Wait a bit to balance this information. Yes, 30 million registered people who really breathe and live blue-yellow. Basketball? Which black basketball player. The ball is there mom, daddy, shaved, aunts ... The containers are on Atišehir blue-yellow. Bus stops. Pools in the nearby restaurants are so color. People start to shake hands when Fener is mentioned.

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Chris Webber

Chris Webber united MTV and basketball, overcame shots and black socks and called for time-out that was not there. It was supposed to be one of the best in NBA history but it was still a step short. A good boy who wanted to be a rebel, a criminal, and a reperor. The most talented player of the modern age that this talent has never realized until the end.

"Unglaublih vas man trift! Kriz Veba! Traum !!" ... Frank Bušman from the German DSF fell into trans on Chrisa Webber's moves in his first year. Golden State Warriors. Tim Hardaway, Latrell Sprewell, beer stomach and unbreakable hand by Chrisa Mullin and a 20-year-old boy with fists like a shoe box. Naturally strong, extremely fast and spin-free with the preview of the game. He was blazing without mercy. Opposition centers could not get out of the box quickly enough. It was supposed to be a ticket to save Golden State, but did not want to play by the notes of Don Nelson. Donnie used it as a center, he wanted to play his natural position - the center. The others are moving. It's sent to Washington. There he reunited with his other Juwan Howard. Women could not look at him. Bullet's visit doubled as far as the woman was concerned. He had a contagious smile ... You know the story of the Sacrament ... It was the last chance for the ultimate glory but they could not over the Lakers ...

"Take the Christa Hunt!", Fans were screaming at Pallace of Auburn Hills, Piston Hall, when he was chosen as the first in the 1993 draft. Dad Mayce was crying out of luck. The entertainment that was organized into his honor that night could not get everyone interested. More than 300 girls left in front of the entrance. Men, of course, did not even let anyone in.

Chris Webber was one of those who were from the NBA primary school. His talents have been talked about since he was a founder. Detroit TV station made a story about Chrisu Webber, the best young player when this was the sixth grade of elementary school. She was already head taller than all peers. Not just higher. The larger. Webber was never a thin child. He looked like a tadpole, tried as a baby to bite and a basketball ball. He failed but he continued to play with her for 13 months.

Tata Mayce worked in the car factory. Where the other African American can honestly work in Detroit. Webber did not grow up in a devastated home. Mom and Dad had five children but the order knew every day. In later years, Chris has often talked about how Mom Doris had a "total silence" every day when she was not allowed to play music or watch TV. It was an hour since the children had to read the books and think.

Doris often went to high school near the Detroit Country Day high school and watched the perfect lawn and impeccably clean building and dreamed of learning there. When she has not succeeded, her son will go there. The Webbers did not have the money for such a school, but Chris was so good in low-heeled basketball that every school was waiting for his wide arms. So she ended up in a school where the kids come to Audi or BMW. He spent two seasons with sewing clothes and pharmacy on summer vacation stories in the Bahamas, Hawaii and the Azure Coast. He watched his team-mate from the table crying and ran into the classroom and reported that a car was stolen from the parking lot. Half an hour later when they called the police, a new Mercedes with a rosy butterfly on the roof appeared in the same place. Birthday present.

Chris hated Country Day. From the bottom of the soul. But he had been responsible and obedient since he was little. Tata Mayce was after Webber became the NBA star talking about the days when Chris was alone, without anyone saying that he fed his young brothers and sisters with a peanut butter sauce that I was crying to not wake up a mother who was obliged to sleep a little afternoon. Webber turned the stomach every fall when he had to go to Country Day but there was no talk to disappoint his parents and give up. He spent the summer on the land of the famous Detroit St. Cecilie where he played the best basketball in the city. They came to Steve Smith, Derrick Coleman. Sometimes Vinne Johnson and Isiah Thomas came. And every day there were Voshon Lenard, Chris Webber and his new best-selling Jalen Rose.

When it was time for Chris to choose where to go to college, there was no peace in Webber's house. The phone rang 200 times a day. Their number was in the phone book because Doris Dad was old and ill and feared he would forget the number to call if he changed. Phone ringing has become something that Webbers have begun to live every day.
Offers? Today, universities offer millions of talented children. If you can connect two, three in the package, it's a couple of millions pay for the parents plus a rich jackpot that manages to persuade them to come to the same college. At a time when Webber came to college the value of money was greater. There were 40, 50, 60 thousand dollars crates, cars. Bringing Dad Mayce has refused everything.

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Printezis

She was patient every morning waiting for some of the older players to drop off for training. Junior joined the first team as all juniors imagined to play for the first team. From the start he played unusual. It seemed as if he had come out of a Spanish workshop with all those darts with one hand and a shot from the ground.
Jonas Kazlauskas thought he was not good enough. He went for a good contract at Unica, where he mostly carried the epitaph of the predicted player. "Close his roling to the left and that's it." Then he broke his hand and slowly tune in oblivion. If you told a few years ago that Jorgos Printezis would be the king of uncertain endings and that his bases would be remembered, he would probably laugh with sourness.

The squad does not make a man. So tattoos do not make Printezis. It's hard to find a decent guy. He mostly looks at his work, playing field sports. Many Greek journalists say that all of these good things could not get to a more normal person. So Printezis became a real hero. Istanbul is for all time. The weight of the skein that he then struck was hard to discuss. I remember we all pretended "Oli" on the "Sinan Erden" halls. Not before the finals but immediately after they beat Barselon. "There will be 40 differences," they said.

The Olympics players worked totally relaxed. "What's the connection will be broken again" ... So it was either - three quarters. One of the "flippers" left and right hand that Printezis had hit close eyes was ruled by CSKA. You know who was on the other side? Kazlauskas. How fate takes care of some things.

In 1997, in Rome, Olimpijakos beat Barselon in the final. Barsa retired in 2010 in Paris. Two years later Ivkovic appeared with some Mancaris who played a fantastic defense against Navara. At that time, we saw Papanikolau, Slukasa ... on the big screen. Pero Antić described Jorgos Barcasas as a man who controls an aircraft with an autopilot. How is a team who knows what to do when it matters? This thesis was mostly accurate in London. It seems to be true right now.

If you could have heard timeshare Janis Sferpulos before the last attack, what he drew and what happened on the ground was heaven and earth.

Sferopulos drew the action for Spanulis, his shot and collective offensive leap, and the players played the feeling. They both slid for Slukas and this without looking at Printezis as if it was the most recent addition to the world. And then Printezis, who did not hit any torpedoes at Barselon at that moment. This Olympics is a tough team. Resistant to any changes. I just can not explain Olver Lafaye to stop. Oliver plays his or her own from Valenciy, ie, reigning while half the ballroom catches. Most of the team is not in love with Sferopulos, but professionally doing all their tasks. Many of them were shocked by the first Sferopoulos training, where he probably tried to hide behind arrogance, but who asks you now.



Olympics is the third F4 in the last four years, with three different coaches. Once dismissed Dorsey, great Hines, Papanikola, Pero Antić, Acie Law ... today Hunter, Dunston, Lafayette, Coach, Assistant Coach. While Spanulis, Printezis, Slukas, Mantzaris there ... almost no matter who they are. They do not play nice, far from it ... but they always find their way. In the end, it is just that important.

O BARSELONI ...

Barclays this season had perhaps the best team in the last three years, but in the end will not see either F4. Ćavi Paskval fell in 2011 against Panathinaikos ... now against Olympiacos. Both times in the quarterfinals. Both times with the advantage of a domestic pitch. Olympiacos plays very aggressively on the pick and roll. Highspeed players are also 10 meters away. On the other hand Barsa has the best pitcher among the centers and the best in the short opening after the block - Anto Tomic. That's why Olmpijakos seemed to have to drastically change his style of play and adapt Tom's ability to split the dogs five yards apart. That simply was not the case. Barsa throughout the whole series did not make any significant advantage in this way. The outside line with the exception of Satoran, who took over as the main organizer of the game, looked desperate. How to tell Navaru to stay on the bench? He is aware of Paskval that Navarro can no longer, but how to tell him after all. And it is evident that Juan Carlos is late for at least two steps.

A very important move at Barse's four-minute game from minute to end. At the footsteps of Spanulis, Navarro slides into the racket of all the men and leaves Mancaris completely alone. Vangelis hit 9 trophies in 10 series of 10 attempts. That you read good. If that was not enough enough, then the nine-meter-long stone stone that the attack should be ahead of. However, we will never remember Navarre as Joe Dumarsa. Its overtaking has come to an end but it is no longer the case. Too much lost balls, too much dribbling in empty, too inauspicious additions.

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Dejvid Blat

The American in Tel Aviv is all but a rare occurrence. Businessmen, politicians, spies, lobbyists and of course athletes from the United States often visit this city. American players, regardless of the tensions and the constant threat of armed conflict, are one of their favorite destinations. The answer is always the same: "It's like I'm at home." Everyone is talking English, TGI Friday, McDonalds, Burger King, Dunkin 'Donuts, Pizza Hut. A handful of US managers have strong ties to Israel, so their clients - if the small financial difference - prefer that league. Money is paid on time. Night life is great, women are surprisingly beautiful. The sun is stationed throughout the year. A lot more, no matter how you turn.

When you first visit Tel Aviv, the basic impression is - an artificial town. Like it was made for the purpose of filming a movie. In some respects, it reminds Las Vegas, because it works to be built in the middle of nothing but having one big advantage. The streets are never deserted. Clubs and cafes are full almost every night and there is simply a pulse that you can hardly feel in most European cities, where after 22 o'clock there is a lot of rolling ...

Through Tel Aviv, he accompanied my friends to the daughter of Maccabee legend Moni Fanan, Fani. Many had been a frenzied team manager for Maccabees for almost 20 years and worshiped him all. The players believed him so much that he got their money to continue investing and of course created additional profits. This is not a small thing, especially not in basketball in Europe, where most of the players are lustrous, in the sense that they rarely pay their coffee, let alone others.

Moni became famous for the fact that he was always dressed in black at matches and wearing a big "rolex". His investments made profit for some time, after which the head of the project, Nicholas Levene, began to turn the money into his pockets. In the end, Levene struck 200 million euros, and Moni remained in debt to his friends - as money was donated on a friendly basis - some 15 million euros. Fanan found himself in an inconvenient situation and ultimately took life away ...

For me, as I believe in most basketball lovers, Maccabi always looked like an impeccably organized club. Hall Jad Elijah, as one of the three best basketball I've ever seen. Plates that never get late. Precise skauting. Perfect marketing. Always a free place for the players and legends of the club. Ten thousand subscription cards. Pride of the state. The Israelis are watching and pushing each other, are not they? Sooner through the stories of former players and people from basketball, you realize that this, as well as many other things in life - a pure stereotype.

In Maccabi, my feet will get wet as well as with us. Negative actions and the elimination of unsuitable were brought to perfection. It's important to you, not what you know. David Blatt felt best on his skin. For years, it has been underestimated for years, irrelevant, except for those who know the situation in the club. Blatt baptized countless times where he most wanted to succeed. He was busy crafting. He has created a wall around him, he has worked on tactics and personal marketing, and at this point he may be the most sought after coaching name in Europe. It's not bad for someone selling Xerox copiers ...

David Blatt from this perspective has a basketball genius. He worked in Boston, played for the Celtics and listened to the Celtics broadcast on the radio. He studied at Princeton. Yes, he played for great Pete Carrila, the creator of Princeton's attack and that he was an athletically helpless puppet. Immediately upon completion of the college, Blatt went to Israel to try to play professionally. He has been for three years. The horse was pretty thin. He returned to the United States and started to visit the company by offering the Xerox appliance ... "Excuse me, do you have five minutes, I would like to show you our assortment ..."

He did not last long. He returned to Israel to play basketball. There was also the legendary long service of military service awaiting him. He completed his toy career with Achilles tendon cuff, and the trainer started to do what he remembered and learned from Pete Carrillo, and there really is something to be learned.

He worked as an assistant coach, and as a chief coach, and then returned as an assistant. It was saved by the fact that American coaches generally have no complex to be assistants after they have already tasted the position of the first trainer. Most European experts are below the honor, in America this is quite a normal thing.

The Maccabees had conveyed a few times and spat David Blatta. He was the first assistant to the colorful Pinja Gershon, who led Maccabi to the first title of the European Champion in recent history, then called Suproliga. Blatt was bleeding over the opponents' games, analyzing the mane, looking for places to attack. Pini, as the legend says, was mostly interested in tapping the phone bill and searching for quality dining places that also have home delivery ...

After defeating Panathinaikos in Paris, David Blatt received his chance at the position of the first coach. He has won domestic trophies in the next two years and has bet on the F4 Euroliga one day, but as soon as Maccabi made a team

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CIBONA

I still remember the first season of the Adriatic League. There was no drug in the cold Zetra viewers. Bosnia won two victories in this premier edition of this competition, and during the mandate of Draško Prodanovic he has drawn over 20 players. The best shooter of the league was Marino Baždarić, then Rijeka player, Triglav Osiguranja, as they were called at that time. Baždarić was also 13 years later in the league. His team-mates in the Cedevita training center cloaked a picture of this season, which he is set to miss, only with the ball in his hand - a huge brick.

During the ABA League we did not see too much surprises. The biggest one a few days ago was held by Zadar, who in 2003 defeated Maccabi from Tel Aviv in Ljubljana and won the trophy. Zadar had Marko Popovic in top form, Michaela Meeksa, Canada's representative, and nine-player rotation, where there was no room for then 19-year-old Marko Banić. Maccabi was extremely strong (Vujcic, Goree, Lewis, Sharp, Burstein, Bluthental, Udrih, Bechok), but they were looking for their identity after leaving Huffman and McDonald, and they just completed the team that won two Euroliga in a row.

Somewhere near this success of Zadar there are also two Reflex trophies, ie FMP. Especially the first one, won in Zagreb, with injured Reggie Freeman in the final against Cibona, which was then played today by two coaches - Slaven Rimac and Jurica Golemac. The second was in Sarajevo against Partizan. Both triumphs with the difference point. Krka played F4 in 2011 when it was a little anticipated. The first place in the league last season won Igokea.

Cibona in the Belgrade Arena exceeded all that. Both Zadar and Reflex-FMP, Hemofarm, and Krk and Igoke. Never the less resourceful team with the worse situation in the club, with a shorter rotation of players and coaches, did not win this competition.

Cibona is one of the largest clubs in the ex-Yu area. A double European champion. Dražen Petrović. Mirko Novosel. Perhaps also the best team in the field that was seen in this area. The first ones had the best conditions. The first ones had their own hall. Even the collapse of Yugoslavia did not affect Cibona, moreover. They became Croatian Maccabees. The most expensive paid domestic players, the best foreigners, the best deals, the withdrawal of young players who like it. Regular participation in Euroliga.I so until a few years ago ...
When 10 days ago we went to Cibona's training in the "Box of matches", they seemed oblivious to everyone.

From the nearby fitness center, someone would occasionally try to look at where the TV crew are and what they are doing, in the style of "Is anyone interested in Cibona yet?"

A professional man of two men. Team manager who has five more club functions. Equipment that looks like it was made from home. There was only one player in the training that he could play five to five ... Again, the love and respect between them were visible even after five minutes. The Blassing was scorned by the rest of the team, Šarić finished free kick on handball, they all flipped and shaken after a good move. Slaven Rimac emitted some strange silence. He looked and sounded like a man who deeply believes in his team and his players regardless of circumstances. Otherwise, I guess and can not work under the given conditions.
After the departure of Nevena Spahija, Strawberry, Janning and Žižić, Cibona had a visit to Kragujevac somewhere around the New Year. The defeats are in an uncertain ending. After the match, people close to Cibona thought loudly: "I do not know how to stay in the league at all. Our situation is desperate."

Cibona managed to keep Darko Planinić, who was far from the right form. Ivan Siriščević, who signed literally for apartment and food, was brought to the chips. A series of wins went to the team that saw a payout from the beginning of the season, whose 20-year-old was playing, whose career "cared for" the tens of baba, who had a single center, and at some moments only one change. The organization of the game was left to a sporadic US 175cm long, balancing between lost balls and love problems. Somehow, very often inexplicable, this company was down to F4.

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ALI

"How to strike, what you do not see ..."
As in every Yugoslav family and in my house, every possible sport was watched. Biathlon, nordic running, jumping, tennis, what your heart desires. Again, in addition to the usual football and basketball tournaments, the number one sport in Avdić's home was Boxing.

Daddy, and just before him, they were all around for important boxing matches. It did not miss it. Meza and drinks in pajamas like Reuf, Nele and Minka in Nadrealists. I remember sitting early in the morning in the living room after Tyson's shocking defeat of Buster Douglas, while the old man recalled: "Fuck, Lose Tyson" (I think the bettors did not exist there, the man was simply shaken).

Only one of the athletes I knew almost all of the oral tradition, without ever watching him live.

Muhammad Ali.

The details of the matches that the two gentlemen talked to me were so accurate and precise that I asked them years later that it was possible to remember so many moments from one look, but she probably meant how much it meant (again, the old could have 45 minutes to the story of Oscar Bonaveni, and my name was festoon. When I was eight, I wanted to call Oscar Bonavena.) Not just them. For entire generations of people who sat watching his mastery Muhammad Ali was and remained bigger than life. Compound everything. Looks like (Mom's Mom With It: "Extremely Handy Man For Boxer Pretty"), Wit, Talent, Stories, Attraction, Courage, Decisiveness. It's like letting you sing a singer, rapper, actor, writer, revolutionary, visionary into one person and give her the biggest boxing talent ever seen. That was Muhammad Ali. About.

The story has so much and it is so fascinating that there really is not an athlete who can approach it from this time distance. Everything they are trying today in any sport, But he worked in the 1960s and worked better ... "Sonny Liston is a big, ugly bear, after winning it I donate it to a zoo ..." Doctor of provocation, master of promotion. which black managers and portparoli ... But I was all alone.

After winning the Gold Olympic medal in Rome, Kasijus Klej went with a medal around the door to a nurse in his Lujvila to eat something. The landlord was waiting for him at the time with well-known words: "The blacks here are not good here" ... "I want to eat ... I'm an Olympic champion, see the medal!" Klej replied. "For me you are just a nigger".

There were also several local caucuses in the quarrel who were barely receptive to starting a quarrel with a black guy. They followed him after he left the restaurant in order to be beaten and of course made a fatal mistake. Clay beaten them in a row and then dragged the gold medal into the water that was never found later ...

The champion has been victorious by the terrible Sonny Liston of a man with the mafias of the ties and the blow he has been burning. Shortly thereafter, Kasijus Klej became Muhamed Ali. Shortly thereafter, he received a call to war in Vietnam.

Unlike most athletes who are mostly involved in telling what people like to hear or when they open their mouth, they say some things that kill you in the mind, But he was intelligent enough and brave enough to fight for his beliefs and not to take it. "I do not want to kill the Vikingsongers, they did not do anything to me in life, they never called me a nigger, unlike some others ...". He did not want to respond to the army. He was sentenced to imprisonment. He came to recruiting in Houston and after having named his name three times, he did not go out.

He was sentenced to a wholly white jury of five years in jail and $ 10,000 in fines. Given that the appeal was immediately made and that a paid deposit was paid But he did not go to jail, but he could not have officiated matches for three and a half years ... "He stole the three best years of his career, when he was at the peak he could not boxing. " - said his legendary coach Angelo Dundee ...

He returned after the Supreme Court pronounced the decision invalid and there was a boxing anthology in which two more men participated. Muhammad Ali, Smokin 'Joe Frazier and Big George Foreman. The greatest and best era in the history of boxing. Three uncompromising fighters. Ready to die for victory. Charismatic, original characters with film behavior and nicknames. Everyone with a special style in the ring and out of it.

Muhammad with his "I AM THE BEST! EVERY TIME !!" performances. Joe Frazier, a silent, always blurry lookout from the streets of Philadelphia and George Forman, the strongest striker in box history. A man out of his hands holding his hands in his pockets as if he was hiding guns ... But after three years the break did not "fly like a butterfly and beaded like a bee". The fastest leg in the history of boxing was no longer there, but the incredible desire to be a champion was still present ...

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