What is the value of a coach?
October 21, 2007 by Christophe
ALBA Berlin had some injury trouble already this season. But they also had some problems with their new head coach Luka Pavicevic. He got ejected during the regular season game against Göttingen this week and got an 1 game ban.
And this one game was the only loss of the German powerhouse so far this season. After having dominated their three first games this season, and of course the game where Pavicevic got ejected this week, he could not be with his team on Friday when they played the Bayer Giants in Leverkusen. And the result was a severe loss by 16 points.
This Sunday, Pavicevic was then back on the bench for the “Albatrosses” and they had no trouble to dominate the team from former Serbian NT player Sasha Obradovic Köln 99ers. The Berlin squad is actually pretty reduced as they still miss their two severely injured guards Joe Herber and Goran Jeretin.
The team has in fact changed pretty much over this summer. After having been a more US-dominated lineup these last seasons, the signing of Pavicevic dramatically changed this philosophy. The signing of several players from former Yugoslavia and only having three impact US-born players is how the Berlin team is trying to win finally the supreme title again. And for the moment, it looks like the team is playing a much better basketball and is having also already good results.
Pavicevic is not only a part of all 3 teams by split who won the european threepeat at the end of the 80’s but also an exclent coach. he did very well in Hemofarm and than in Greece. he was a great adition by ALBA last summer.
I totally agree with ZIV. Pavicevic had an offer from TAU last season to replace Perasovic, but he was tied with a contract and they turned to Malkovic (i bet they still regret about that one).
He was probably the coach of the year in Greece last season and Panionios lost the Euroleague ticket for just 1 game.
Just see how many players of that team are playing in Euroleague now. Hutson, Arslan, Perperoglu, Kafkis…
[...] talked already about the value of a coach in the playing style of a team and their success. And I talked also already about the fact that a ref can have a huge influence on [...]