J
Joško Poljak Fan2
Guest
I wanted to respond to CoachZ regarding Croatia not fullfilling it's potential in the past, but imo it's a broad topic, that might deserve a separate thread.
Not intended for an ex-Yu development solely, as you might've guessed as comparing difficulties, strenghts and weaknesses of various developmental programs can be really informative to base NT's performance on.
Ex-Yu area has an incredible mix of advantages in terms of the competitiveness of bball on outside courts,% of overall population involved in systematicall bball in some way (see brothers, father-sons relations etc.), really experienced and systematical coaches that worked or played with [insert names] behind almost every corner, compared to many other countries, average height, tradition and considering bball as a systematical sport from younger cathegories on (making it short, it has + and -)... simmilar as it could be said for Lithuania (at least I'm sure of some of those points). But... among some other things pressure for the results at early stages, accompanied with coaches being evaluated to a large degree by those, financial pressures to "grow a player", bigger talent pool compared to ability of national leagues to absorb that and increasingly more clubs with youth programs being at the amateur level... coaches are oftenly subdued to go for the "sure thingers".
There is a difference between C+PF and the rest of course - those are given more time and attention because they're fewer in numbers (at least over here in SLo), however with the rest there is so many of them, that eventualy it comes to a point when it's the seemingly safest way selecting the guys due to their offensive provess when evaluating between two players, instead of actualy long term potential, unless one particular player is just screaming of it. That's still often that very tipping point when two players are in question, as with constant selections some of the IQ, psychologicaly stable, defensive skills get left out - and consequently with more NT youth games, training capabilities, level of practices and such which youth selections are able to provide those neglected players eventually don't evolve as well as they might (that later on gives the wrong positive confirmation that they weren't good enough in the first place).
With the changes of the game lately, athleticism started to play a bigger role, however IQ, devotion for the game (it does vary!), mental state (oftenly missunderstood as coaches have little patience for troubled individuals, yet imo you need to have some psycho aspects of personality for bball
) aren't taken into consideration enough, as I said defense and understanding the game do tend to get overlooked and sometimes it takes a strong effort and will by very confident coaches to push further the individuals they see would make a much better players when they fully develop compared to youth cathegories.
Numerous coaches don't have that confidence or experience yet and in case they're coming from a smaller club, not neccesarily taken seriously either. While majority of those "talent evaluators" that might actualy get the whole picture regarding the youth development can be considered impartial either working in one of the clubs or working with agents etc.
And that's the part where in particular Slovenian and Croatian basketball failed in the 00ies. Some clubs/coaches desperate to make a "sell" at various levels, could sell those scorers easier than the rest, the way I'm being told it's still surprising how many clubs with some money still depend on "youtube scouting" based on stats some highlights and let's go. After these players were given more offensive responsibilities, they inevitably switch some of their overall focus towards offense, within years of doing so, they're to some point transformed into one sort of a player.
Getting all of those offensively skilled players in the team, potentialy marked even as representatives of the old-Yu romantic basketball they had troubles adopting their roles in the NT's, which only had a limited in game possesions, various players had their share decreased and were expected to do things they weren't used to do as much within their respective clubs and subconciously adapting to a "lesser role" won't neccesarily go with some of the competitors most of these players are, even if they're saying differently. They were never expected to get used to it, untill the point they reach NT as largely already formed players.
In 2005 Slovenia, Serbia in 2007 Croatia, Slovenia nevermind the other difficulties, that played a noticable share. And as much as fans love to evaluate players from statistical point of views, eventhough those actualy were fails, some of the ex-Yu NT's were heavily overestimated by fans and public in those times. With the problem being systematic, as described above.
I'll give an example with the team I obviously know the most. In case Udrih, Goran, Nachbar, both Lorbeks healthy, Vujačič and let's say Brezec would be motivated to still play at this level - you can see a pattern here. Not saying we couldn't use 2-3 of them, but in case all would be present, other guys with some usefull intangibles would surely be left out such as Klobučar, maybee Vidmar, Balažič or Zupan - and the situation was even slightly more extreme in the past when most of our NT played heavy offensive roles within their teams through career.
I'm sure you could make the same case with Serbia in 2009 and 2014, when some immense offensive firepower was believed to be wrongfully left at home, yet ussualy with all those present, the results kept being somewhat a dissapointment.
And as you can see from Djordjević's case, there are some noticable pressures, whenever someone doesn't get selected to the NT, when the public or people with different bball mentality think that individual should be there.
I don't agree with the whole "not reaching their potential" thing accordinly. Parts of those are surely true, however the general conviction those players should achieve medals on 9/10 occasions is on sloppy basis. Those fails imo weren't as much of a coincidence or a fail as most fans want to believe, but more of a systematic thing and some parts of the game from the 80ies, when defensive differences weren't as crucial and obvious as they are nowadays.
Not intended for an ex-Yu development solely, as you might've guessed as comparing difficulties, strenghts and weaknesses of various developmental programs can be really informative to base NT's performance on.
Ex-Yu area has an incredible mix of advantages in terms of the competitiveness of bball on outside courts,% of overall population involved in systematicall bball in some way (see brothers, father-sons relations etc.), really experienced and systematical coaches that worked or played with [insert names] behind almost every corner, compared to many other countries, average height, tradition and considering bball as a systematical sport from younger cathegories on (making it short, it has + and -)... simmilar as it could be said for Lithuania (at least I'm sure of some of those points). But... among some other things pressure for the results at early stages, accompanied with coaches being evaluated to a large degree by those, financial pressures to "grow a player", bigger talent pool compared to ability of national leagues to absorb that and increasingly more clubs with youth programs being at the amateur level... coaches are oftenly subdued to go for the "sure thingers".
There is a difference between C+PF and the rest of course - those are given more time and attention because they're fewer in numbers (at least over here in SLo), however with the rest there is so many of them, that eventualy it comes to a point when it's the seemingly safest way selecting the guys due to their offensive provess when evaluating between two players, instead of actualy long term potential, unless one particular player is just screaming of it. That's still often that very tipping point when two players are in question, as with constant selections some of the IQ, psychologicaly stable, defensive skills get left out - and consequently with more NT youth games, training capabilities, level of practices and such which youth selections are able to provide those neglected players eventually don't evolve as well as they might (that later on gives the wrong positive confirmation that they weren't good enough in the first place).
With the changes of the game lately, athleticism started to play a bigger role, however IQ, devotion for the game (it does vary!), mental state (oftenly missunderstood as coaches have little patience for troubled individuals, yet imo you need to have some psycho aspects of personality for bball
) aren't taken into consideration enough, as I said defense and understanding the game do tend to get overlooked and sometimes it takes a strong effort and will by very confident coaches to push further the individuals they see would make a much better players when they fully develop compared to youth cathegories.Numerous coaches don't have that confidence or experience yet and in case they're coming from a smaller club, not neccesarily taken seriously either. While majority of those "talent evaluators" that might actualy get the whole picture regarding the youth development can be considered impartial either working in one of the clubs or working with agents etc.
And that's the part where in particular Slovenian and Croatian basketball failed in the 00ies. Some clubs/coaches desperate to make a "sell" at various levels, could sell those scorers easier than the rest, the way I'm being told it's still surprising how many clubs with some money still depend on "youtube scouting" based on stats some highlights and let's go. After these players were given more offensive responsibilities, they inevitably switch some of their overall focus towards offense, within years of doing so, they're to some point transformed into one sort of a player.
Getting all of those offensively skilled players in the team, potentialy marked even as representatives of the old-Yu romantic basketball they had troubles adopting their roles in the NT's, which only had a limited in game possesions, various players had their share decreased and were expected to do things they weren't used to do as much within their respective clubs and subconciously adapting to a "lesser role" won't neccesarily go with some of the competitors most of these players are, even if they're saying differently. They were never expected to get used to it, untill the point they reach NT as largely already formed players.
In 2005 Slovenia, Serbia in 2007 Croatia, Slovenia nevermind the other difficulties, that played a noticable share. And as much as fans love to evaluate players from statistical point of views, eventhough those actualy were fails, some of the ex-Yu NT's were heavily overestimated by fans and public in those times. With the problem being systematic, as described above.
I'll give an example with the team I obviously know the most. In case Udrih, Goran, Nachbar, both Lorbeks healthy, Vujačič and let's say Brezec would be motivated to still play at this level - you can see a pattern here. Not saying we couldn't use 2-3 of them, but in case all would be present, other guys with some usefull intangibles would surely be left out such as Klobučar, maybee Vidmar, Balažič or Zupan - and the situation was even slightly more extreme in the past when most of our NT played heavy offensive roles within their teams through career.
I'm sure you could make the same case with Serbia in 2009 and 2014, when some immense offensive firepower was believed to be wrongfully left at home, yet ussualy with all those present, the results kept being somewhat a dissapointment.
And as you can see from Djordjević's case, there are some noticable pressures, whenever someone doesn't get selected to the NT, when the public or people with different bball mentality think that individual should be there.
I don't agree with the whole "not reaching their potential" thing accordinly. Parts of those are surely true, however the general conviction those players should achieve medals on 9/10 occasions is on sloppy basis. Those fails imo weren't as much of a coincidence or a fail as most fans want to believe, but more of a systematic thing and some parts of the game from the 80ies, when defensive differences weren't as crucial and obvious as they are nowadays.