By Antonis Stroggylakis / AStroggylakis@eurohoops.net
Picture a 22-year-old U.S. player. He’s fresh out of school and goes undrafted despite a productive run with his college team. He looks at his options and decides that what he should do right now is head overseas, to Europe so that he begins playing professional basketball.
It’s literally a trip into the complete unknown for this young baller. A dive into some uncharted and potentially not-so-friendly waters that he must successfully navigate himself through during the first steps of his career if he wants to make it as a pro.
Before he established himself as an elite guard in Europe and began winning all sorts of titles and collecting big MVP awards in every single major continental championship, Tyrese Rice was exactly in that position. And this is what his own experience taught him.
“The first thing that I’m telling younger guys now about going to Europe is to learn about the culture,” Rice told Eurohoops in a live video interview. “Learn about where you are first. If you learn about the person and the people it’s easier for you to do the things that you want to do. When go to these countries, you have to learn about the people. I was in Greece first and I didn’t understand anything. Now, I look back at it and I realize that I learned about the Greek culture and know about the Greek guys and understand how they think about things, it makes it easier for me to play basketball.”
“Basketball is easy. But, if you are struggling off the court, you’re going to struggle on the court,” Rice added. “And it goes hand to hand. Some things that we don’t take as seriously as we should because we don’t think that their ‘comfort level’ really matters like that. But if you are comfortable off the court, it makes it much easier to play basketball on the court, when you understand what’s going on.”
Rice’s own journey began in Greece in 2009 with Panionos and likely also finished in Greece, as he hinted back in October after the Basketball Champions League Final 8 with AEK Athens. In between, he achieved something that no other player has managed to do: Being named the EuroLeague Final Four MVP as a Maccabi Tel Aviv player plus the EuroCup season and Finals MVP with Khimki Moscow while winning those titles in a sequence in 2014 through 2015.
Years afterward and when he made his BCL debut with Brose Bamberg, he added yet another season MVP silverware to his trophy case.
In the anniversary of the 2014 EuroLeague Final, Rice (wearing a Sergio Llull jersey) talked to Eurohoops about life without basketball, looked back at some of the most memorable moments of his career and explained why he wouldn’t change anything in his run as player. He also picked the coaches he’d want to play for and gave his 2021 Final Four predictions.
Here’s some of the things Rice said on:
His current activities:
I try to put together some programs for some kids back home. Doing some stuff with my community. Starting my own business. I’m doing a lot of things. Trying to stay busy. I’m also about three classes in now [getting his Master’s Degree in Psychology]. It’s been great, very informative. Learning a lot about people. It’s a great process.
If he changed his mind about returning to basketball:
No. I haven’t completely closed the door but as of right now… I don’t really see it. There have to be some extreme circumstances [to return to playing].
Being without a team and not practicing or playing:
During a pandemic it wasn’t a big deal. You play the game all your life with fans, atmosphere and your people watching you. Family with you. And it was none of that this year. So I can’t say that I really missed it. At all.
If it was normal, then yeah, I would definitely think that. But nothing’s been normal all year. So it’s just adjusting and trying to evolve.
The strongest memories from the 2014 Final Four:
The joy in the end it was something… a lot of emotions were poured all out. We went through a lot. We had a crazy year. At one point they were saying that we were the worst Maccabi team in Maccabi history. Crazy. And we were on a crazy rollercoaster so we understood everything and where all that was coming from. But we also understood where we headed. And for us to get to that point and to win a Final in a year like that… it was like a lot of emotions in the end.
Identifying with Maccabi being an underdog that season:
It felt like an underdog your whole life. Anybody that comes from my city and make it to professional basketball and have a long career, it’s like a big thing. Everybody are underdogs from there, If you were a little bit further up in the Maryland DC area it’d be a bit different because they have more guys. It’s a bigger pick of the litter. But to make it out of my city, go to college and just have any type of career, you exceeded expectations.
The 2014 championship game against Real Madrid:
What I always tell people about that because they were having an amazing year for sure. I always tell people to look at the scores when they played them. They beat us by one in one game. We always played them well. I thought we matched up to them well because I thought that our defensive scheme kind of slowed down their offense. We were the only team that had the scheme to be able to slow down their offense and the guys who were able to attack their guys on the other end. Obviously we had to play well, we had to do a lot of special things to overcome that obstacle because that was a juggernaut.
I was more afraid of Barcelona, to put it like that. If we played Barcelona, I’d be like “Hmm, I don’t know if we can beat them.”
The iconic moment of his son hugging him during his MVP coronation:
Actually, he looked like he was running because Shawn James pushed him. He was standing in front of Shawn when I walked over there and then Shawn pushed him out there and he just ran and grabbed on to me and held on. That was definitely a very special moment. Probably my favorite picture of all time by far. I have that in my house as well. A very, very special moment.
How did his life change after that Final Four:
Let’s be honest: Financially things were just totally different. I was able to take care of my family in ways I wasn’t able to do before. I was able to position myself to do certain things that I wasn’t able to do before. It just changed everything. In one weekend it went from one thing to the next. Just being able to do some things in the community and things with my family that were definitely needed at the time and be able to position people to do some of the things they wanted to do as well. Life changed.
I don’t know if you are thinking that when you first go in there. But you are definitely thinking about winning. And you understand that when you win, things change. It is what it is. Anybody who was ever won any type of major title: Spanish league, EuroLeague, EuroCup, whatever… they are going to the next element, the next stage of their career. That’s what changes. And it’s going to usually be a big change. You definitely understand what can happen before you go into that game.