By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Summer in Badalona, Spain is always great. The weather is sunny, the beaches are full of smiling faces. But if you are a basketball coach of any level, you have an even bigger reason to be there.
Six Turkish Airlines EuroLeague coaches are joining forces this weekend in Badalona for one of the biggest coaching clinics ever in European basketball history.
The first-ever EuroLeague Coaches Clinic will be held this week. For the first time as a group, Ettore Messina, Xavi Pascual, Georgios Bartzokas, Sarunas Jasikevicius, Pablo Laso and Zeljko Obradovic will be speakers at the same clinic.
Five of them have already won the EuroLeague, and Saras – who did so as a player – can be considered one of the best young coaches in the world.
“It’s the full package,” Jasikevicius, head coach of Zalgiris Kaunas, told Eurohoops.net. “I don’t know if a young coach can learn anything better than from coaches like Messina, Obradovic and Xavi Pascual. Obviously, that clinic is the place to be this summer.”
The clinic is an initiative of the newly created EuroLeague Head Coaches Board, whose goals also include this kind of event. Their objective with the clinic is to begin a knowledge transfer of what they have learned at the heights of the game to a younger generation of coaches.
“We all feel that we are very lucky, and we need to do something for those younger who are coming after us,” Messina, the new head coach of AX Armani Exchange Olimpia Milan, said. “It’s just a matter of leaving something to the new generation. I think it’s a pretty nice panel of coaches. There are a lot of coaches who have not only won a lot of EuroLeague titles but also have become points of reference for a lot of our young coaches.”
The program of the clinic, which runs from now until Sunday, includes a variety of topics that cover vital aspects of modern basketball.
Messina kickstarted the first day, talking about pick-and-roll offense and pick-and-roll defense. Still, we have three more days to go.
Pascual will analyze preseason offensive strategies and preseason defensive strategies. Bartzokas will talk about switching defense and how to attack it. Jasikevicius will present his ideas about the full-court zone press and how to break it. Laso, of Real Madrid, will explain set offenses with screening series and defense against the same. Last but not least, Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul’s Obradovic will dwell on low-post offense and low-post defense.
Taken together, that’s the definition of a masterclass and a clinic unlike any other that has been held in the past.