By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
CSKA‘s coach Dimitris Itoudis gave an interview to hoopshype.com in which he speaks about the possibility of coaching in the NBA, even if his priority and focus remain the Euroleague title with the “Army team”.
After all Itoudis is no stranger to the NBA and specially to the Pistons: “First of all, I would like to say thanks to Joe [Dumars]. He invited me for many summers and we know each other very well. Panathinaikos and Detroit have a long, good relationship and I worked with them in the coaching staff during summer league. It was a pleasure to work with many NBA players like Rodney Stuckey, Drummond, Bynum… We could see closer how the organization works. One year we visited Detroit for a month during training camp. We traveled with the team, we attended all the practices… It was nice to talk basketball on a daily basis with people like Joe and the coaching staff, sharing knowledge and talking about the game itself”.
On the matter of the European mentality of David Blatt and the way he applied it with the Cavs, Itoudis supported the Israeli-American coach: “I actually think David Blatt did a very good job there. Everybody was surprised [he was fired] with all the respect to the owners. He actually advertised the European mentality and European coaching style. Every team, I assume, looks to combine and to marry the two continents and put it together because basketball is universal. When two different type of basketballs come together with the same purpose, the game can win after that”.
And he doesn’t believe that you have to be first an assistant in order to coach an NBA team: “I don’t think an NBA background is necessary. What is necessary is the knowledge of the game because the game is universal. Maybe it’s always good for all of us to experience such situations, like summer leagues or spending some years as an assistant coach… I don’t know what’t the best transition. A lot of people talk about the relationship between players and coaches. At the end of the day, when players have the same goal as the coach, then they can really be well coached. Everybody needs a guidance, everybody needs a plan, everybody needs a philosophy. We cannot go down there and just play like it’s a playground. The teams that win are those with a good culture, clear rules and a good system. My motto is that nobody is better than the system. Whoever follows that is in a good path”.
As for his future, it seems that this can be an interesting summer:” Listen, like I said, I’m very happy over here. I’m a professional working on what I can control now and my only goal is to see how I can help my team to play better basketball and to win games. That’s what I concentrate on. I’ve got great agents there at BDA – Bill Duffy, Rade Filipovich, Nikos Spanos, Quique Villalobos… Everybody is working towards that direction and looking at the options after the season ends, but my first option is to help CSKA. NBA is great. It’s the greatest organization, for sure. I’ve seen it from the inside, I’ve talked to a lot of general managers. Sure, this is something you should try to duplicate in some ways. We should all learn from them. Although the NBA should also learn from Europe, learn from the good things we have here”.