By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Fenerbahce Beko guard Scottie Wilbekin said that he realized 2021-22 would be his final season with Maccabi Tel Aviv after four years when the club fired coach Giannis Sfairopoulos last February.
“I think one of the biggest things was when they fired the coach (Giannis Sfairopoulos),” Wilbekin said in an interview to ONE when asked what was the moment that made him realize that it’s time for a change and that maybe he’ll need to move on from Maccabi. “I mean it was a tough year in itself, but when the coach was fired I kind of lost the wind in my sails, and I was like ‘we’re going to blame the coach for all the problems we have right now?’, and I didn’t think it was fair and to be honest it really pissed me off.”
Here’s what Wilbekin also said about:
Parting ways with Maccabi:
“It was quite strange, it’s a feeling I haven’t had in a long time, to be so sure about everything I guess. I felt very comfortable at Maccabi, I knew everyone and I knew everything about all the things I had to worry about about ‘where am I going to live’ and everything else then. Only the change in pace because I was so used to going back and knowing where everything was and knowing what everything was in Tel Aviv”
2019-2020 when Maccabi was playoffs-bound but the season was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic:
“I definitely imagined that we would do more, especially with the way the 2019 season progressed, I just imagined us taking the step forward on the way to becoming one of the bigger teams in Europe and just unfortunately we weren’t able to do that.”
Maccabi bringing David Blatt as a consultant (Wilbekin played under Blatt at Darussafaka Istanbul):
“Honestly, every year I was there I thought he could potentially come back in some way and when I found out he came back, and obviously not as a coach, I said ‘oh hell we could have used him (laughs) last season’. I don’t know how big his role is there, but I’m happy that he is back there and I know that everyone in the organization will benefit as a result.”