By Stathis Trapezanlidis – Berlin
A few minutes of conversation with Pini Gershon are always enjoyable, even more a meeting with him at the hotel where Maccabi Tel Aviv stayed in Berlin and a 45-minutes interview on all hot issues of European basketball.
The 63 years old coach after his explanation of the reasons that led him to take on his shoulders a fan of Maccabi, refers to the series with Fenerbahce, deifies once again his big opponent on the court, Zeljko Obradovic and tells us why he does not consider the hosts Real Madrid as the top favorite to win the trophy.
Eurohoops opened the folder Euroleague and the conflict with FIBA, which claims back (?) the league and Pini Gershon clearly says his opinion. Read on which points the experienced coach agrees and supports the Euroleague and on which issue he takes the side of FIBA.
Among all others, “Pini” reveals that he does not say no to his return as a head coach and supports the models of teams like Olympiakos and Maccabi which managed to win the Euroleague without paying surplus value to their players.
Pini Gershon for the series against Fenerbahce
– Mr Gershon, I saw your reaction at the end of the game against Berlin. I was a little bit surprised because you were part of even more important games so I did’t expect to see you so anxious.
“First of all it depends on the targets. Our main targets this season are to take the title in Israel and to qualify to the quarter finals of the Euroleague. This year Maccabi is a very good team. It happened also in the past. Although we did’t have always the best players we qualified to the Euroleague Final Four and sometimes we won it. This year if you compare our players and our budget with other teams, it is easy to notice that they have better players than us. We qualified because of the two wins against Real Madrid and Barcelona who have better players and much bigger budgets”
– What are the possibilities of Maccabi Tel Aviv against Fenerbahce without the home advantage?
“If you look at the targets for us, it is a big success to be here. I don’t say that this is the end because when you qualify you never look back, always forward. We want to continue, of course we want, but as we see CSKA is a very good team, Fenerbahce also. There are a lot of good teams. If I tell you that we have better players and better chances it would be a lie. We want and we will try. You need to know that it is not easy also for the favorite to play against Maccabi!
I talk about this team, this club with all the tradition we have. I believe that they also worry for the series and my experience says that the two home games in a row is not something easy. There is a lot of pressure. Ι have been in this situation. In the first two games there are a lot of new situations. You have only to lose something. I know that Zeljko (Obradovic) is a great, great, great coach and have lot of experience but still the players no matter where they play they have a lot of pressure. You saw it today (9/4 for Alba Berlin’s players). It was the last game of the Top-16 and it was very important for both teams. To have a game do or die away is very very tough, but if you look also the home players you can see that it is not easy”.
– One more time against Obradovic, a good friend and a big opponent on the court.
“When you play against him you don’t know what to expect. He is the best or one of the best basketball masteminds ever. He has succeeded with all the ways, with the best teams and with worse teams. He is the biggest because he always thinks out of the box. He finds new things, variations, he takes risks, if you miss the contact with him for some seconds you can lose the game. It’a always tough, you need to be focus 46 minutes! 24 seconds in every offense to be focus. They will succeed because they have a very good coach. The best players can not always succeed because the team is more important and most of the times the team wins. Obradovic makes every player – no matter how good he is – better and a team player. He is a great tactic coach, he finds every time something new, he is always one step further from other coaches”.
– Is there one defeat and one win that you will never forget against him?
“Against Zeliko there are not big defeats. You lose and you lose from a better coach. I lost the first final in Thessaloniki, I was rookie in Final Four. One of the biggest wins was in Bercy (Paris, final of the Suproleague in 2001). We won by 14 points which was then a very big gap for a final. And we succeeded against a team which is always very tough no matter who is the coach, the player etc”.
– Who is the favorite this season in your mind?
“I think CSKA. A lot of people say Real Madrid because they are the hosts but I remember also when I was the head coach and we won it (2003-04). We almost didn’t qualify for the Final Four. You remember how (ed. Maccabi sent the game to the overtime with a three point buzzer beater followed by two lost free throws from Zalgiris). If Fener is there, Zeljko could surprise the others. There is always in Final Four a “dark horse”, someone you don’t wait. They beat CSKA away. This is very, very, very tough. If CSKA wants, they can win every team home by 20-25 points easily. He knows Dimitris (ed. Itoydis, coach of CSKA) very well, so maybe this is an advantage.. But it happens also the opposite. I can say because Dimitris knows him very well too. I believe CSKA has the potential to be the European Champion”.
– Which teams are going to be in Final Four?
“I believe CSKA will be. Real Madrid – with ease or not – will be too. Olympiakos could do it. If someone could beat Barcelona away, it would be Olympiacos. They are the best team to do it because of their defense, which is the best in the Euroleague and their experience. The have the bodies defensively to do it. They did it in past, that means they can do it again”.
– You made it also, so you know what Maccabi needs for the repeat.
“Because I have to finish the season I won’t tell you (laughs). I don’t want them to kick my ass. The other teams have better players. I have no complaints from my players, but this is the reality. No one has a Devin Smith in his team but still they have better players. If they play on their best and as a team, then the potentials are on their side and not on our side. We have to be very very good, 30-40 % above our quality if we want to be there and take it. If we are there, then you never know”.
Pini Gershon about Euroleague, FIBA, their dispute and National Teams
Euroleague is challenged by FIBA this period. What is our opinion about the league as it is right now?
“The direction that Euroleague goes to make, something like a closed league in which teams get the money and they can’t change during the season is a very good idea. You have to make a league with teams that got budgets, crowd capacity, television rights. I don’t say that they can make money but they can make events. I know that everyone wants to be in Euroleague. Every team and every player wants to be there. Eurocup is also good and tough. There are a lot of good teams. For example teams like Berlin and Partizan have a lot of fans and big arenas.
If you have asked me yesterday I would tell you that at all the games should be the same day, same hour. I feel that its impossible, even nothing happened, that Efes and Laboral didn’t play the same hour. It’s the same also for us. Nothing happened. Everybody knows that this is not the way to make it. But this is not a reason for a team to change the league. As I can know most of the teams are satisfied with the competition, money and administration”.
– Are they really satisfied with the money?
“I don’t know what every team gets, but I see that the gyms become bigger and most of them are full. Even mid-level teams “jump higher” because of the Euroleague. That means that the competition is important for the players, the clubs, the crowd so there is no reason to change it”.
– There are also some rumors about two competitions next season if FIBA decides to make a new league.
“You say two competitions, that means one more tournament at the same level with Euroleague. I don’t think that this could be happen. I don’t think there are enough clubs in Europe to compete in a second Euroleague. The NBA takes more than 100 players from Europe and this is something that reduces the quality. I don’t see many teams from Euroleague to go to other competitions. For example, there are 4-5 teams from Spain, one of the best leagues. I am not sure if they want to go to FIBA”.
– What is your opinion about tournaments or games for the National teams during the season?
“The players are not machines. If they finish the seasons in local leagues around June and they need to start immediately preparations for Eurobasket and then again preparations with teams it’s impossible. All the injuries come from this. You can’t take the best players in national teams for ten years. And I don’t talk for U-18, U-20 National Teams etc. If you are healthy, you can not rest. So the Eurobasket could be good during the season, Euroleague could stop 2-3 weeks but then, in summer the players would get 2-3 months off.
The qualification round is not a big problem. It is not difficult to happen during the season. You make a break one week, you make 2-3 games and it is over. But if there is every summer a big tournament, this is tough for the players. You force the players to be in national team and this is not easy. Finally, the machine stops”.
Are you satisfied with this new role in Maccabi Tel Aviv? You prefer it more than being the head coach?
“It is tough to say but this is the best I can have now. All the other options were not better than this one. I love basketball, I think it is a very good position, so I took it. I don’t know what is going to happen in the future but at this moment I like it. I took it and I try to do my best to help the club to succeed.
After I earned my first championship I said ok I did it and I will stop coaching for one or two years. Then I wanted to do it again and I won two Euroleague titles in a row. To make the repeat it is not easy. Especially for a club like us. I am not young enough to make three in a row. I want to do my best with what I have. I am not greedy. I am happy with what I do”.
– Olympiacos as a low budget team made the repeat in Euroleague. Maccabi followed this way next season too. Could this be a start for budgets of the teams and the salaries of the players to be closer to the European financial status reality?
“If you take a player for 500.000 dollars and you pay double you won’t take double points and double rebounds. Players who help their teams to be better are the players who deserve the money they got. Everybody says about Saras and Parker but when they won their first championship, they were 500.000 dollars players. So I know many teams which waste millions and finally take nothing. Good coaches make good teams and take championships. These two things bring titles and some other stuff that you in Greece know better than me! But I am not going in to them right now.
Mr Aggelopoulos (the president of Olympiacos) can tell you what I told him when I left Olympiakos and finally this happened. When I came to Piraeus the budget was 7-8 millions euros. It is not only the money, you have to make better teams. Since I saw Zalgiris Kaunas winning the Euroleague (1998-99) I was young but old enough to understand that you have to make teams, systems, experience to be there.
To qualify, to be part of the Final Four and then to take it. To be there and to be part of Final Four it increases your possibilities to take it next time. Almost all the teams before they win the Euroleague, they were there at least once in the past. It is easier for them. There are surprises of course because it is just two shots. It depends on the condition you are at that moment. It is a long season and there are a lot of good teams”.
– I would like to tell me the top-5 of the players you coached in your career.
“I can not. I don’t want because I have coached a lot of good players. However for me the teams are more important than the players. The sixth or seventh player of my team in 2004 made me a great coach because of that shot. In other case you might not be here right now to interview me.
All my players are important for me. I don’t want to say this one or this one. There are some who played in the NBA of course they were good, but what I know is that all the players that come in Maccabi – and not only – they become better because of the club. These kind of teams can make careers. For example Devin Smith didn’t play in the NBA but he is one of the best players I ever had. But it is not fair for others who helped me to win championships to not mention them”.
– David Blatt or Gregg Popovich this season?
“It is like you say Obradovic or Gershon. Obradovic got better teams, got more experience, got more championships than me and for sure he got better chances to take the European championship. Popovic is a great coach who makes great teams. It is not the players, it is the system and the roles. If Blatt is there in his first season in the NBA, then he will be great. Popovic got a very big advantage because of experience, the same players and the same team. If Blatt wins the title, he will be great! It is very difficult”!
– Maccabi is going to have some exhibition matches in the USA in the upcoming off season. This is good for the preparation of a team or not?
“It is not easy to play in the USA. The travels are difficult, but you have to make it. We have to fix our schedule to their schedule. Euroleague teams have to make it. First of all to see the differences and their level, moreover it is the connections. Some teams have also fans there. Olympiakos, Maccabi, Armani Milan”.