By Nikos Varlas/ varlas@eurohoops.net
The ultimate protagonists on the big stage of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague are the players! They are the ones who are on the court, the ones who decide games in one way or another, the ones who are responsible for executing their coaches’ instructions.
And of course we’ve all heard of some players who are given the great compliment of being “like a coach on the court.”
With that in mind, Eurohoops is going to look into the future and think of five active EuroLeague players who could become coaches when they stop playing and command our attention for many more years to come!
The way they play, their smartness, their passion for winning and for the sport itself, and how communicative they are; those are just some of the reasons that, after much thought, we came up with five specific individuals that currently grace the courts of the EuroLeague! A starting five of future coaches!
Our choices to run games someday with suits and ties instead of short pants are: Sinan Guler, Vassilis Spanoulis, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Nicolo Melli and Pero Antic!
All of them are unique, and of course they would form a very powerful line-up on the court at this very moment! Can you picture them in a few years with a drawing board as head coaches of big European clubs? We can!
Coach Sinan Guler: Finesse and a basketball DNA!
He has all the elements that can make a good coach! First of all, he’s the scion of a basketball family. His father, Necati Guler, was one of the most famous and important Turkish players of his generation and era. His older brother, Muratcan Guler, has been playing professional basketball for many years, and since 2012 has been playing in Besiktas.
Sinan? He is the active captain of Galatasaray Odeabank Istanbul and of the national team of Turkey, as well as a true general on the court! The definition of a team player and a good teammate who not only works for the whole, but also guides it. His experience in the USA, where he played college basketball, enhances his basketball background even further.
Off the court, he’s a very smart, active person and a charismatic communicator, too. He has tremendous popularity in Turkey and not just among the fans of Galatasaray. He’s a guard who understands basketball very well, with a high IQ, and has the historic understanding that comes from being part of the Guler Legacy, perhaps the best-known basketball family in his home country.
What more do you need to imagine Sinan Guler as a head coach? It’s as though we can already see him before our eyes in a suit and stylish glasses, sitting on the bench!
Coach Vassilis Spanoulis: Players-soldiers and a clutch team!
Alright, perhaps not many words are needed here! A man who lives for basketball and thinks about it 24 hours a day, 365 days a year! He has said many times that he can’t live away from the sport he loves and that as soon as he retires from active duty, he wants to work in a post that will give him the opportunity to remain in this line of work.
His case is slightly reminiscent of another big player, Sarunas Jasikevicius, who made the transition from EuroLeague Legend to EuroLeague coach pretty quickly! We are picturing a coach who is going to hold on to some habits from his career as a player. He will push his players in tough daily training sessions, he will ask them to spend countless hours on the court for their individual improvement, he will demand that they have the proper routine not only on the court, but also off of it. He’ll be a lover of discipline and will make sure his players are… soldiers!
From coach Spanoulis we are expecting to see teams with aggressiveness, with charismatic creativity and, of course, with clutch players that will score big shots when the ball is “hot”. With a coach like him, one way or another, they’re going to learn the art!
Between you and me, when we’re talking about Spanoulis, the transition from player to coach might take a while… It wouldn’t surprise us if he was a player-coach for one or two years, throwing himself in the game as a substitute for a few big shots in games that are decided by a point on the brink!
Coach Bogdan Bogdanovic: Basketball instincts and a… Plavi style!
He still has a bright career in front of him, but we can easily imagine him 15 years from now as a coach! He has a good knowledge of the basics of basketball and all the secrets of the sport. He has a wellspring of genuine basketball instincts and is learning a lot alongside the Lord of the Rings, Zeljko Obradovic. A scenario that seems quite likely is if he launched his coaching career on the bench of his beloved KK Partizan!
He has a strong personality, he’s good at communicating with the media and we picture him as a classic child of the Plavi coaching school who will have the gift of getting 100% from his players and at the same time keeping them calm and collected in the closing minutes of crucial games! His teams will definitely produce high score lines on offense and will feature many players with good shooting ability!
For some reason, we believe that, no matter how many years go by, Bogdanovic will not gain weight, he will be fit as a coach, too. He will be stylish and will often bet on shooting competitions with his players during practices, win them and not give them their money back!
Coach Nicolo Melli: Tough teams that will play intelligent basketball!
A new force in the coaching manpower of Italian basketball! Another player who still has a long way to go in his career as an athlete, but who brings together all those characteristics that make us see him as a future coach!
A collected personality, mature from an early stage as a player, whip-smart on the court, he does everything and contributes in many ways. We’re thinking of a coach with clear principles in his game, who will serve intelligent basketball and have a lot of plays in half-court situations. His teams are going to be tough, they will play team basketball and won’t give away anything to the opponent.
Picture Melli in 10 to 15 years, dressed to kill in stylish Italian suits and a trimmed beard, guiding his players from the bench, combining decisiveness with calmness! We see this image in our mind and it already inspires confidence and great respect! A possible first team for him? Pallacanestro Reggiana, in his home town!
Coach Pero Antic: Streetwise veteran and a hoot in press conferences!
We think that Antic is almost already… primed to take off his uniform, put on his best clothes and do great things as a head coach! He knows basketball like few big men do and he combines toughness with a high basketball IQ!
He has learned by winning titles alongside coaching giants such as Dusan Ivkovic and Obradovic. He has a very strong personality. And it’s well-known that he has a gift for communication! We picture him as a coach with a huge impact on games. He probably won’t be too concerned with scouting and the like. He will leave that to his associates. Inside the game, though, he’ll be sharp-witted and always prepared to make drastic moves and apply neat coaching tricks!
His teams are going to be tough, hard to beat, and always ready to bring out their best in crucial games. As for the contractual requirements that follow every professional coach, the one that involves communicating through the media to fans will put Antic on another level. If we now say that characters such as Andrea Trinchieri or Pini Gershon before him are “factories that produce one-liners” and make the lives of journalists and fans more beautiful and more interesting, rest assured that head coach Antic will be churning out banner headlines and front pages every day!