By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Barcelona coach Svetislav Pesic heavily criticized the EuroLeague Players Association (ELPA) and its Managing Director, former NBA and EuroLeague player Bostjan Nachbar, following the away EuroLeague win of his team over Crvena Zvezda.
“We miss players but others miss players as well,” Pesic said when asked about the injured players of Barcelona during the post-game presser. “You know there was the World Cup and that practically all the players that played got injured. I didn’t injure them, they did it themselves [by participating in the World Cup]. They only played at the World Cup and didn’t train. When you don’t train… and now that Nachbar [Bostjan] is making new rules that the preparations for next season should start on August 24. He’s not a normal boy. He doesn’t even know that we are in Europe, we’re not in the NBA. We usually take from the NBA what isn’t good, we don’t even think about taking what actually is good.”
“Imagine, he’s [Nachbar] asking in front of the players association that the squads start training on August 24 and we have the Supercup on 21st, or all the teams,” Pesic continued. “The season starts in the last week of September. And he says four weeks of preparations for the whole season that lasts ten months. The man is completely abnormal.”
“We have that situation and not only us, Fenerbahce, Real Madrid, all the teams that gave most players,” Pesic added. “It’s usually the European teams that gave the players for the World Cup. Everybody’s injured. I don’t know how those people don’t ask us, who actually know. Usually, when I don’t know something, I ask. And they don’t ask if there’s a training method. They think it’s only ‘buy the player and win’. You need to prepare the player, he needs to train… maybe training shouldn’t exist at all. We know everything without training. That’s the reason there’s a lot of injuries and it’s not good overall for European basketball.”