Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Eurocup, round 6: KK Partizan - Alba Berlin 80:96

There’s not much left to be written about the basketball team. All that I’ve written (cursed…) earlier are still true. Nothing ever changed. We played awfully, dull, with no motivation, while Alba won over us with half speed. They lead from the beginning to the end, sometimes with just a few points, sometimes with almost 20. 19:21 (1st quarter), 40:54 (half-time), 58:73 (3rd quarter).

Small things to note: Veličković is getting more and more bald, while even the Hungary vs Costa Rica football friendly is more exciting than this.

Two things still made this game interesting, though not necessarily in the positive way. First was the newest bullshit - heard from reliable source - that Eurocup is not a priority for us, for us ABA Liga is the priority, therefore we won’t play as hard in the international tournament than in the regional.

This totally freaked me out. First, everyone should go and fuck themselves with this shit, second, this is too obviously a very crappy excuse.
No, we don’t play better in ABA Liga. But there even this shit called performance is enough. (And that speaks volumes about ABA Liga as well.)

The other was Samardo Samuels’s half-time interview. Some TV presenter caught him for a quick resume about the game, and Samuels had a very honest, very angry outburst, live, on air. He spoke about the lack of communication within the team. The after the game he continued on his Instagram. (source: screenshot/b92.net)



I’m not a fan of Samuels, I find him slow and sluggish on the court, he seemingly won’t be MVP too often. But I have to agree with him here. Because the team is fucking disfunctional (and players know best what doesn’t function, as they are the ones who are there and not us), and the coach’s duty is to put all available players on court, esp. when the opponent is ahead with almost 20 points, and ours function only as fumbling, lame ducks. Samuels might have been vulgar, but perhaps this is what’s needed for a few eyes to open up and end self-pity. No, he is definitely not my favourite player, but we do need more of such open and honest people.

(photo: Facebook/KK Partizan)

Update: a media shitstorm is on the way. Samuels is still fuming on his Instagram and I still agree with him. Head coach Nikolić had a press conference where he said without the blink of his eye that it’s not him to blame for this situation, it’s Partizan (ie. the team) to blame.
Idiot.

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