By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
From the first day of the 7DAYS EuroCup season, it was a more-than-possible scenario, even for the final. And now, sure enough, one step before the last game of the season, two old friends will be fighting each other for their lives and a shot at reaching the 2023-24 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague.
Gran Canaria hosts Joventut Badalona in an all-Spanish duel on Wednesday in the EuroCup Semifinals. There’s a long history between the two clubs and, of course, one thing stands out.
Joventut head coach Carles Duran will face Gran Canaria’s Jaka Lakovic, his former assistant at both Bilbao and Joventut.
To be exact, Lakovic was hired by Carles Duran as his assistant in Bilbao back in the summer of 2017. The Slovenian former player had already had his first coaching experience with FC Barcelona B team, but Duran gave him his first chance at the top level.
It was not an easy season, with Duran being replaced in November by Veljko Mrsic, Lakovic staying as an assistant, and ultimately coaching the team in its last four Spanish League games.
That was not their only collaboration. With Duran moving to Badalona in the summer of 2018, Jaka Lakovic followed him. Their partnership ended in the summer of 2019 when Jaka Lakovic had the chance to become the head coach at the German club ratiopharm Ulm. It would take three seasons playing in the same competition, but they finally met face-to-face a year ago in a game that only one of their teams could survive.
Different paths, same result
Carles Duran Ortega was born in Barcelona in 1976. Jaka Lakovic is two years younger, born in 1978 in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Duran played basketball in the youth teams of Joventut, however, he was already coaching at 22 years old in 1998, becoming an assistant to the legendary Aito Garcia Reneses in 2003.
With the exception of six years in CB Prat (2005-07, 2010-14), two in Valencia as an assistant, a short stint as a head coach (2014-16), and some months in Bilbao, his 25-year coaching career is totally connected with Badalona.
Lakovic, on the other hand, is EuroLeague royalty. His 55 index rating with Krka Novo Mesto against Real Madrid, in just his second EuroLeague game ever, remains a among the best performances ever in the competition. It was his passport to a contract with Panathinaikos Athens, for whom he played from 2002 to 2006. He then moved to Barcelona, winning the EuroLeague in 2010.
He remains one of the top guards in the history of the competition and, in addition to his ability to score, Lakovic’s playmaking was always there, making his jump to coaching feel totally natural.
Now, on Wednesday, these two former partners will go against each other on the biggest stage so far in their careers, with a huge challenge on the line.
Second EuroCup knock-out duel
It has to be noted however that this is not the first matchup between the two on the EuroCup stage.
Almost one year ago, on April 19, 2022, Lakovic and Ulm prevailed over Duran and Joventut, 79-73 in the EuroCup Eighthfinals despite playing on the road. It was the first of the new do-or-die, single-game elimination rounds, and Ulm used the opportunity to ambush the top team in the competition until that moment.
Indeed, after the win, Lakovic stated: “I want to congratulate Joventut and Coach Carles Duran for the great season. They are still the best team in the Eurocup, in my opinion. But it’s one game, and this is the bad side of a do-or-die game.”
That result may even be a motivation for Duran to not relive what he felt that night. “I can only tell our people that I am sorry,” he said after the loss. “I am honest and am always the first who always asks fans to come to see us and help us. They came today and the team failed, I failed.”
Stakes are high
In a normal year, Wednesday’s winner would go to the EuroLeague next season. But this year, due to former EuroCup champion AS Monaco making the EuroLeague Playoffs, thereby holding its spot in that competition, only the new EuroCup champion will earn the right to move up. Now, Gran Canaria or Joventut will have to win twice – on Wednesday and in next week’s EuroCup Final against the winner between Prometey Slobozhanske and Turk Telekom Ankara – for that privilege.
Gran Canaria has never won the EuroCup, losing to Khimki in 2015 and making it to the next season’s EuroLeague as the finalists.
Joventut was a true European powerhouse, winning the EuroLeague in 1994, two Korac Cups (1981, 1990), and four Spanish League titles, and later had a renaissance during the era of Ricky Rubio and Rudy Fernandez, winning the EuroCup in 2008, with Duran as an assistant coach.
It has been a while since Joventut was among the elite and Duran now has the chance to rectify that – unless his good friend and old assistant Jaka Lakovic has a different opinion.