T
Terrorizer2
Guest
I would be the happiest basketball fan if my bleak predicitons about the future of Russian basketball won't materialize. But sadly if we'll see the situation with Russian basketball (senior NT included) in dynamics then there are too many rational reasons to fear for the future.
You know, there is a saying here in Russia that a fish starts to rot from its head. It is the same with the situation in Russian basketball. Most of the current problems stem from a total disarray and chaos in federation. I'm far from being Sergei Chernov fanboy but since establishment of VTB league and especially orchestrated election of Yulia Anikeeva as a head of RFB (our basketball federation), it all went downhill in a blink of an eye. In a preparation period for the previous EuroBasket three coaches changed each other in quick succession at the helm of tour senior NT during one summer. Preparation period for this EuroBasket was also marred not only by players absences (some of them were really shameful) but by some backstreet intrigues in the training camp. For example, all of a sudden three backcourt players (Ponkrashov, Voronov and Vyal'tsev) were sent off from the training camp under completely fabricated injury pretense (Ponkrashov was fresh off the injury, it's true, but he was eager to play and already played a lot in preparation games). Public outcry followed and Ponkrashov and Vyal'tsev agreed to return while Voronov never came back under vague circumstances. You can imagine how good team chemistry is if situations like thisis a norm for Russian basketball. For a long time, Russian teams weren't known for their fighting spirit and strong will but in last two EuroBaskets we have teams which take it to the whole new level, they are just totally disjointed, unmotivated and completely unwilling to fight. Three losses in a row against inferior opponents with such little points difference confirm this. Yes, Pashutin's atrocious coaching skills influenced such a pitiful outcome but roots of all these problems lie deep beneath. There are too many other issues, most of them deeply internalized, like you correctly remarked.
So far, we don't lack that much on the pure talent (especially raw talent) level but since almost everything is broken in Russian basketball system for quite a some time we are starting to manage these talents even worse (much worse, I fear) than we did some 5 years before. Hence, there will be less and less local talents ready for the break-out into top level. Maybe, Kirilenko's election as RFB president will make some of these problems more public as aside from really narrow basketball community this rapid downfall of Russian basketball is some sort of non-news so far here in our country. Our basketball gets ruined and it seems that no one really cares. I doubt that in a near future there would be a radical change for the good... most probably, we shall just slightly more intensively bitch about 'how could we, a traditional basketball power, get this low' but nothing would change in a positive way and this 'fall from grace' will continue. Especially worrying is the situation with youth basketball since even if two years is a short span of time, comparing our results in 2014 and 2015 at all of U-16/U-18/U-20 levels (hm, remembering recent disqualification of our federation, results in tournaments where we had at least a chance to play) with what we had before is telling a lot.
I can only repeat that I would be totally happy to be wrong in my predictions but it seems that we need some sort of a miracle to get back on track. I agree with you totally that 'European basketball needs a competitive and motivated Russian team'. It would be great to see one in a near future but so far chances for this are slim. And for the last couple of years it only gets worse and worse...
INTEGRAL, do you really think that Turkish league outshines VTB league (or at least Russian teams from there) in sheer quality of players pool or recent results? Let's take last three years, for example.
EL 2014-15 is the only competition where Turkey is slightly better than Russia even though we had 1 FF participant and 1 more team in Top 16.
EC 2014-205: all 4 Russian teams and all 3 Turkish ones went to Last 32 stage where 1 team from Turkey and 1 from Russia were eliminated. Yet Khimki were champions, Loko was semifinalist (just like Banvit) and UNICS stopped in quarterfinals (just like Karsiyaka).
EL 2013-2014: Turkey - 3 teams of whom two were eliminated in Top 16 stage and one didn't survive quarterfinals. Russia - two teams of whom one was eliminated in Top 16 and one in the first game of FF.
EC 2013-2014: Russia - 4 teams participating, among them one team was eliminated in the first group stage, one eliminated in 1/8 finals (by eventual champion), one has fallen to the same Valencia in semis and one in the finals. Turkey: 4 teams also, all of them went to Last 32, where two were eliminated, among the remaining two one was eliminated in 1/8 finals and one in 1/4 finals (both were eliminated by Russian teams, by the way).
EL 2012-2013: Turkey - 3 teams of which two were eliminated at Top 16 stage and one was eliminated in quarterfinals; Russia - 2 teams one of which was eliminated in Top 16 (yet with much better result than two Turkish teams) and one suffered defeat at FF semis.
EC 2012-2013: Turkey - 2 teams and both were eliminated in Last 16; Russia - 4 teams out of which 1 was eliminated in Last 16 while three made it through with two being eliminated in quarterfinals while another won the title.
So it doesn't look to me that recent Turkish teams results are superior to Russian ones and I doubt that Turkey is better considering quality of rosters. You have more teams (it's a big plus) and for sure Turkish club basketball has made a lot of progress in recent years with league becoming much more compettive and full of quality players but nevertheless I doubt that TBL deserves a mention as 'one of the 2 unquestionably best leagues in Europe'. At least, not at this moment.