By Oleksandr Proshuta/ info@eurohoops.net
The year 2014 was expected to be the peak of Ukrainian basketball. And it was. After sensational perfomance in Eurobasket 2013, the Ukrainian national team qualified to the FIBA World Cup for the first time in its history. On the same time the armed conflicts in the Eastern part of the country were a harsh reality, so everyone understood – the end is near.
Ukraine had the great opportunity to write history in Spain, but after a good 2-1 wins start, it was demolished by New Zealand’s Tall Blacks in the crucial fourth group game and missed the next round by just one point in the tie break.
The last game of the group stage – a historical game vs Team USA – suddenly became the swan song of Mike Fratello’s era. Fratello arrived to Ukraine in 2011, when basketball was blooming in the country. A strong league was forming (arguably knocking the door of the Top-10 in Europe) which included a good mix of talented young players and experienced veterans. After two years, the American coach was the main factor of the Ukrainian miracle in Slovenia. And after the FIBA World Cup, it was pretty clear that the chances to keep Fratello in Ukraine were low. The coach and his numerous stuff had big contracts paid in USDs. Taking into account the triple devaluation of hryvna (Ukrainian currency), they were more than huge for the local federation.
Since 2011 Oleksandr Volkov, former NBA player and then head of Ukrainian basketball federation, has managed to find sponsors for the national team. After the World Cup, the financial situation inside the country was more than bad and no one had extra-money, especially for basketball. It was one of the main reasons why Volkov – who was at the helm of federation since 2011 – stepped down.
On the 29th of last May, Mikhaylo Brodskiy won the elections and became the new president of Ukrainian basketball federation. Brodskiy is a long-time basketball sponsor: in the nineties he owned the team Dendy-Basket, then invested to Ferro-ZNTU (Zaporizhzhya). In the middle of the last decade he created a new club in Cherkassy called Mavpy (Ukrainian: monkeys). Brodskiy is a very active basketball figure in the country, a creative man, but has very controversial relationships with many other pillars of Ukrainian basketball, including Volkov and Ihor Kolomoyskiy, who recently was the main sponsor of seven league clubs.
Brodskiy confessed: the federation hasn’t paid its past debts to Mike Fratello and his stuff – one of the reasons the Czar didn’t continue his work in Ukraine. From the very beginning, the federation turned into saving mode – no jets and 5-star hotels for the men’s NT, an Ukrainian coach, no 9-10-man coaching stuff, low expenses for youth teams. Brodskiy also announced that the federation budget for 2015 is around 12.000.000 hryvnas (500.000 USD) and extra expenses would be paid by himself. We should note that new head of Ukrainian basketball is a wealthy man, but not even close to an oligarch like Kolomoyskiy (In March 2015 “The Economist” listed Kolomoyskiy’s net worth as $1.36 billion”.
Mikhaylo Brodskiy started his reign with some controversial moves, including the appointment of Evgen Murzin as the new head coach of men’s NT. Murzin – one of the best PGs in the history of Ukrainian basketball – is considered to be among high-level Ukrainian coaches, but his recent success in the league with Hoverla was clearly based on using import players. In 2011 the Ukrainian portal “iSport.ua” made a research for the play time of Ukrainian players in the Ukrainian Superleague – as a result Murzin was called “anti-Ukrainian coach”, because in his team Ukrainians were only role players with limited minutes. However, Brodskiy and Murzin are long-time friends and this is enough to explain the choice of the federation. Most basketball experts wanted to see Ferro-ZNTU head coach Kirill Bolshakov at the helm of NT. But Bolshakov preferred to take control of the Russian club Red October.
The name of the new head coach didn’t excite most of the core national team players. Some of them finally came to national team training camp, some others rejected the invitations. Ukraine could have a much different group for the upcoming Eurobasket, if all the best players were available this year. Veteran power forward Sergiy Lishchuk and star-guard Sergiy Gladyr are injured. The best Ukrainian prospect, shooting guard Svyatoslav Mikhayliuk decide to stay in Kansas and prepare for the next NCAA season that should be crucial for him – Svi is going to declare for the NBA Draft in 2016. Alex Len’ never came to Ukraine after his departure to NCAA in 2011. At least this year Len’ and his agents had numerous talks with the federation and the player – as it was announced – promised to play for NT in 2016. Power forward Joel Bolomboy of Weber State, who had been found by Fratello’s stuff last year (surprisingly has Ukrainian roots), didn’t answer any calls this year. Oleksiy Pecherov, despite the highest PER in the NBA Summer League, didn’t get the call from Murzin, who trusts younger bigs. The same applies to veteran small forward Artur Drozdov.
Pooh Jeter, Kyrylo Natyazhko and Slava Kravtsov were core players of Fratello’s team. Kravtsov is the latest loss of Ukraine: he decided to stay in the USA waiting for the NBA training camps despite his earlier promise to play for NT. Natyazhko couldn’t show up for the first week of training camp due to personal reasons, so Murzin cut him out of his list. Finally, Pooh Jeter also had personal reasons to decline the invitation after a great season in France. Among this group, Jeter is the least criticized person in Ukraine for his rejection. He helped the national team the best possible way for the last two years and he is beloved in Ukraine for acting as a real “patriot” of his new country. It’s clear, however, that Pooh is Fratello’s man: no Fratello – no Jeter.
Compared to the World Cup roster, Ukraine NT will be 50% changes, missing some of its marquee players. Coach Murzin has nothing else to do, than to give chances to younger players. The only good news for Ukraine this year? After fantastic season in VTB League Avtodor, former Utah Jazz center Kyrylo Fesenko is back. Fesenko is the captain of the team and will be its starting center. An other new addition is Jerome Randle, who became next Ukrainian naturalized guard after Steve Burtt and Pooh Jeter. Randle played in Ukraine (Azovmash-2012) and he is expected to sub Jeter, who had terrific influence on team results.
Still the interest for basketball falls dramatically. Due to the war, Ukraine lost the right to host Eurobasket 2015, the real chance to raise basketball status as a national sport. The federation already applied in order to host one first round group of Eurobasket 2017 (in Kyiv), but the chances to get it, are really low, while war is still ongoing. Also, hosting one group in one city it’s something much different than hosting a tournament in 6 cities with a bunch of new beautiful arenas. Leading Ukrainian ballers are leaving Superleague and are ready to play everywhere else in Europe, even for very small salaries compared to what they got paid in their country 2-3 years ago. The next Superleague season is already set to be the worst level-wise since the early nineties, when the situation was pretty much the same. The Ukrainian U-16 team competes in the Division B Eurobasket and recently lost to Portugal by 30 pts…
Considering all these fact, expectations in Ukraine before Eurobasket 2015 are rather low. “People expect us to fail. Mentally, it makes us feel more free”, Fesenko said. The situation is pretty similar to 2013, when Ukraine also was somewhere in the 19-21 place of FIBA Power Rankings and nobody even in Ukraine predicted the “miracle” that was coming. However, this time there’s no Fratello on the bench. Still the Ukrainian NT has no choice but to fight hard and make Ukrainians a bit happier. And who knows? Another unexpected success can make people – amid a much more grave conflict – believe that Ukraine and basketball can co-exist successfully.