By George Adamopoulos/ info@eurohoops.net
From basketball to several more chapters in an absorbing interview with Eurohoops, Nigel Hayes-Davis set the pace with his 50-point game, which Sasha Vezenkov nearly eclipsed, all the way to the best cheesecake ever.
Nearly one year since breaking the record for the most points in a single Turkish Airlines EuroLeague game, the 30-year-old combo forward revisited the history-making meeting with ALBA Berlin on March 29, 2024.
“After it happened, there was still a lot of talk of who I did it against. That’s kind of where I flipped my motivation,” he explained to Eurohoops.
“It’s the most childlike I felt playing basketball since I was a child, honestly,” added the former Wisconsin standout.
Stopping at 45 points on January 10, Vezenkov led Olympiacos to a home win over FC Bayern Munich in Round 20 of the 2024-25 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Regular Season.
“Big fan of his. I couldn’t wait for EuroLeague to put the highlights and watch how he did it. And then I found out it was three dribbles, it was even more impressive,” said Hayes-Davis, “Unbelievable, honestly.”
“Completely different games”
The discussion naturally spilled into comparing the EuroLeague to the NBA.
“They’re two completely different games. They’re not the same game at all,” he pointed out, “When they’re compared like that, I think it takes away from EuroLeague standing on its own and saying this is what we do and this is our product.”
An attached topic was spending a large chunk of the offseason with the Select Team of Team USA and helping in the training camp for the 2024 Olympic Games.
“That was the happiest I have been in my life,” the explosive forward of Fenerbahce Beko told Eurohoops, “I’ve never stayed awake at night so long and woken up so quickly so I can enjoy those days.”
His summer experience was directly connected to his comment about the lack of joy in playing basketball in Europe. From Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant to sharing his opinion on the constant pressure surrounding basketball in Europe, he piled up even more differences between the culture of sports in the United States and the Old Continent.
“The curse of his genius”
Before switching to Fener in 2022 and reuniting with Sarunas Jasikevicius in 2023, he worked with the 48-year-old Lithuanian tactician during spells with fellow EuroLeague clubs, FC Barcelona and Zalgiris.
“I think he’s trusting the players more. He’s allowing players to play more. He’s not being as stringent with the rules and the things he wants,” he said on the current approach of Saras, “That’s the curse of his genius and his talents as a player is that now that he’s a coach. He’s like, ‘I know the right thing to do because I’m so smart and also as a player, I did the right thing because I am so good.’”
Additional features went from comparing Jasikevicius to the previous head coach of Fenerbahce, Dimitris Itoudis, to talking about his family.
Nigel Hayes-Davis on Eurohoops
Photo Credit: EuroleagueBasketball.net