By Nikos Varlas/ varlas@eurohops.net
Ettore Messina left Europe for the NBA, but his opinion about European basketball will be always valuable and respected. That’s why Ohad Greenwald of Walla had an extensive interview with him, which started with the most juicy part of the last season, his departure from CSKA Moscow.
The following excerpt has to do exactly with that and Messina speaks about the rumors about last year’s CSKA and also the “divorce” despite having a contract for this season:
– People say that coach Messina lost control over the team, that the locker room is dismantled.
“People say? What people? You think that without unity, toughness and togetherness, we could have bounced back from the loss to Maccabi – which was probably the most frustrating I’ve had in my time with CSKA – and win 9 straight games, including 6 on the road, to win the VTB and the Russian league? So f… people and their comments. If you mean something a certain executive at CSKA said – I will not lower myself to that level. I opted out from my contract in February. Everything that was said and done afterwards was affected by my decision to leave. You never like it when your husband leaves you. You always prefer to be the one who’s leaving your husband”.
– Were you insulted by what was written about you?
“In Italian we have a saying – ‘The more you revolve it, the more it smells’. We mean shit. So let’s just leave that aside. Did you see the Superbowl? Didn’t the Seahawks played great? They had one messed up play at the end and lost. This is what happened to us in the Final Four”.
On the Euroleague’s financial status Messina expects more, even if he is now part of the NBA. As he said: “More than it’s unhealthy, I think it’s a dangerous situation. The product doesn’t grow as fast enough as was expected when the new Euroleague was founded in 2001. Maybe it happened because of the economic crisis, maybe it’s the difficulty to sign a big TV deal. In the NBA, TV deals are the base to everything. In Europe TV is not a factor Its unfortunate because for me, the Euroleague is a competition second only to the NBA playoffs. I hope the league will find a way to grow”.
On the Final Four system, Messina would love a chance and the use of play offs: “I am strongly against the Final Four, and I’ve been saying that for years. I was lucky enough to be a part of the first Euroleague final series in 2001, between Virtus and Tau, and it was a fantastic 5-game series. The arenas were sold-oud and everyone watched in on TV. I remember we went to a coach’s clinic that summer in Argentina and I was told all of South America was fascinated to it because of players like Ginobili and Scola. I won some final fours and lost some, but the bottom line is that there’s no justice in crowning the champion by a single game. The road to the final stages is so hard – you have 10 games in the First round, then super-tough 14 games in the Top-16, then a Quarterfinal series. So why play a single game in the Semi’s and a single game in the Final? I think we would lose nothing in terms of attractiveness if we switched to Semi and Final 5-game series. Just imagine a final series between CSKA and Maccabi or between Real and Maccabi. All Europe would be fascinated. The games will be shown everywhere. We should let the basketball fans that opportunity, instead of one game that could be decided by some players’ injury or a bad day of a team. So there is no justice and no sense in deciding the champion by a Final Four. And I’m telling you all the coaches I’ve talked to are on the same page with me on that”.