By George Adamopoulos / info@eurohoops. net
The US power forward Zach LeDay is playing his third season with Partizan Mozzart Bet after signing a two-year extension last summer.
Talking to Eurohoops, he confirmed there were many clubs interested in him after his first contract with the Belgrade team expired, including Olympiacos and Panathinaikos.
“I had an interest in both places, and I’m grateful for that. I decided to stay here, and keep growing my mind and game. The coach said he wanted to build a Final Four team, and considering that he has been to so many Final Fours, I took that into consideration. With some of the guys coming back as well, I feel that we have a good chance within the next two years that I’ll be here,” LeDay said.
He explained the process behind his decision to stay with Partizan and sign a new deal.
“Me and my family always come together. Obviously, money is big because as a professional athlete, you only get so many years to make a certain amount of money. It’s not like a job, where you can be a doctor for 50 years. You get 10 good years, the best out of your legs and your mind, and you keep going. People need to understand it’s about family, comfortability, and overall making good decisions for yourself.”
A couple of other players also decided to extend their stay with the club, like Kevin Punter, who joined Black and Whites in the same year as LeDay. After going on the brink of playoffs last season, Partizan showed ambition to step up by keeping players like LeDay and Punter and adding former NBA players like P.J. Dozier, Frank Kaminsky, and Bruno Caboclo.
“It’s definitely good to be around familiar faces. Our team changed a lot; we lost big pieces, and it took us a little bit to get some chemistry. But we’re picking up some steam, and we gotta just keep capitalizing on that.”
Last season Partizan returned to the EuroLeague after a big pause and went 2-0 up against Real Madrid in the quarterfinals. The fight broke up in the last seconds of the second game in the Spanish capital, and after that, the Spanish team won three consecutive games, made it to the Final Four after a historic comeback, and won the title.
“It’s obvious that we would have made it to the Final Four, but you can’t look back on things like that because you won’t be able to go forward.”
Before joining Partizan and Zeljko Obradovic, Zach played for David Blatt at Olympiacos, Sarunas Jasikevicius at Zalgiris, and Ettore Messina at Olimpia Milano.
“All of them are completely different people. I’ve had completely different relationships as well, but I was able to win and learn from them. Knowing that I could play for tough coaches and continue to have success is definitely a blessing.”
The EuroLeague is getting more and more competitive each year, with many teams fighting for playoffs.
“Competition is getting tougher and better every year. When you see the teams from top to bottom, it’s crazy that the talent level is going up. A completely different talent level from when I first got to the EuroLeague. There are no nights off; there used to be a couple of them, but now there are none, so you have to bring your hard head every game.”
After establishing himself as one of the best power forwards in the EuroLeague, is Zach LeDay still considering his NBA chances?
“For sure. That’s always been a childhood dream, and I work my tail off every day, every summer to prove on both ends what I could do. If I were to make it to the NBA, it would be as a role player, to be a high-level role player playing hard, making the most of possessions. That’s something I do at a high level.”
The NBA is looking at Europe more than ever, and LeDay didn’t see that coming growing up.
“In five years, maybe half of the NBA will be European. As an American player, I thought I would never see that, growing up seeing people like T Mac, Kobe… In 2000 you would rarely see European players, but now you see the skill and talent level. That’s the beautiful thing about basketball; it’s going global,” Partizan’s Zach LeDay said to Eurohoops.