By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Following the team’s defeat to Valencia, the Argentinian former player announced his decision: “I am not Baskonia‘s coach anymore. I apologize to everyone. I don’t want to do any more harm”.
Prigioni spoke in the post-game press conference and explain why he is leaving the team: “I will not comment anything about the game, so I will go straight to Spanish. I am not going to continue coaching the team. To tell you the truth, I feel very frustrated for not being to able to meet my own expectations and mainly, the expectations the club had for me. I am apologizing to our fans, the president and the entire organization because I am not being able to help my players play good basketball, and that is what hurts the most. I feel very responsible for this and I don’t want to damage the club or my players. I would rather leave the team to a different coach. I am sure they will find a qualified coach who can help this group of players gets out of this situation”.
It was not an easy decision to make, as he admitted: “My coaching staff tried to stop my decision, but they know how I am. It hurts leaving the club in this situation and not matching its expectations, but I mainly feel bad because of my own expectations. I feel I am not able to improve the players individually and make them play good basketball collectively. This is the reality and our results are there. We can argue about a thousand things – a tough start, the calendar, injured players, but I don’t like to use all those excuses. The truth is that the team is not in a good situation in the EuroLeague and it is soon enough for someone to step in and refresh their heads, take them out of this depression. I took the decision; there is no chance for me to stay. Once again, I apologize to the fans, who were excited about this project. I thank them for thinking I could do well, but I would rather leave soon so that the club has a margin to react, being early in the season. I haven’t talked to the club yet, I am telling you first. I don’t feel like carrying on coaching the team, for all these reasons I just told you. It is a sad day for me but you get to learn when you are hit hard in life. I wish the players and the club to have someone more capable than me so that he finds the rhythm, as the club has a good group of players, someone with a different vision, a different energy to help them carry on.”
As a player, Prigioni is one of the club’s all-time great players and helped the club reach four consecutive EuroLeague Final Fours from 2005 through 2008. He played parts of eight seasons for Baskonia and retired ranked fifth in assists on the EuroLeague’s all-time list (804) and third in steals (322).