By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Barcelona General Manager Rodrigo De La Fuente shed some light on his club’s search process for a guard, while discussing a wide range of topics about the recent past, present and future of the Blaugrana.
“What I want people to know and understand is that there aren’t any players around who score 30 points per game. The great players already have a team,” he said in an interview for Catalunya Radio. “After Ribas’ injury I think that players like Tyrese Rice and Brad Oleson are playing for many minutes. Our approach in the beginning of the season wasn’t that they would play so much because of the injury risk. We are looking to reinforce our backcourt and a transfer will arrive soon. We are discussing several options.”
The ideal transfer would be of someone who won’t be registered as foreign player. “It would be an option to sign a player without a passport, but not one that we’d prefer. We have three foreign players now and play with two teams in two competitions. It’s not easy.”
He also talked about the preseason period and the initial difficulties he faced when he assumed the GM position. “Our planning hasn’t been easy from the start. When I arrived in the team we had 12 existing contracts. You would have liked to do things otherwise, but you have to respect the existing contracts. It took us eight days to convince Giorgos Bartzokas and then two of our players (Alex Abrines, Tomas Satoransky) left for the NBA. It wasn’t easy to sign players, many said no. I want people to understand that we are working from day one. We are privileged with our budget but you can’t change seven players per year.”
The Spanish club has been suffering some almost unreal injury problems since the beginning of the season and is currently missing… five key players (Pau Ribas, Justin Doellman, Victor Claver, Juan Carlos Navarro, Shane Lawal). A full Euroleague-level squad.
“Bartzokas has been barely able to train with all of his players. That costs when you try to create a project. At a positive side, the injury plague arrived at the beginning of the season. If it comes on April or May… then it’s deadly.”
Injury issues haven’t struck only Barcelona, but other Euroleague teams as well. “You have to take into account the demanding schedule. James Gist was injured in Panathinaikos, Nando De Colo in CSKA Moscow. And there are teams that are having bumps like Fenerahce. We make a huge effort to stay on top.”
De La Fuente also addressed the blowout defeat by Real Madrid in the recent “clasico” for Euroleague. “Truth be told… it was a very hard night. The next day we had an important meeting where I believe we reached some conclusions on how to move forward. We have to get our injured players back.”