Euroleague Regular Season: Week 9

[Mindozas]

Does anyone have what Obradovovic said in the post game press conference?

Facebook offered to watch it live yesterday, so listened a bit, can't remember exact phrases, but smth like - players lack motivation, fighting spirit, we made only 16 (?) fouls, its the main problem, Fener has millions of fans, great support, so we must take that into consideration, play for them, I've been in this before, I'm in Fener for years, so will do my best to get the team motivated and ready for next game.

At first he was a bit pissed, but later made some jokes and etc. Also it was nice joke with that time-out and "may I ask you to play a little bit defence", good trolling

[EverGreen]

Does anyone have what Obradovovic said in the post game press conference?

It's ok. I found it.

From his words I conclude he's either lost the players or they arent giving 100%. This is where Ali Koc needs to step in and motivate the players by telling them Zoc will decide if some need to be moved on.

DPG for all his faults is a master psychologist and he's actions with players have always paid off. Example. In the 2017-2018 Greek Play offs, PAO loses game 1 at OAKA playing really poorly. The next day he goes to training and addresses the team.

DPG: "Who thinks Olympiakos are better than you?
Players: "......."
DPG: " OK. So you all agree that you are better than Olympiakos right?"
Players: "Yes".
DPG: "Good. It's good that you believe that because if you lose the title, you will share a 300.000 euro fine"

Two days later we won at SEF https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiZ1yc6HZU8 and went on to win the title.

[Adon]

It's ok. I found it.

From his words I conclude he's either lost the players. This is where Ali Koc needs to step in and motivate the players by telling them Zoc will decide if some need to be moved on.

DPG for all his faults is a master psychologist and he's actions with players have always paid off. Example. In the 2017-2018 Greek Play offs, PAO loses game 1 at OAKA playing really poorly. The next day he goes to training and addresses the team.

DPG: "Who thinks Olympiakos are better than you?
Players: "......."
DPG: " OK. So you all agree that you are better than Olympiakos right?"
Players: "Yes".
DPG: "Good. It's good that you believe that because if you lose the title, you will share a 300.000 euro fine"

Two days later we won at SEF https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiZ1yc6HZU8 and went on to win the title.

lol. After the development with Pitino any PAO fan likes DPG a bit more (at least) but naming his histrionics as "master psychology" is too much.

About Obra, I am shocked. He always could impose his authority but now he seems helpless, having lost their respect. Actually, this is the behavior of players who want to kick out their coach. Perhaps there is a backstory we don't know.

[saras]

obradovic is stack in his 2000's tactics. we will be entering the 3rd decade of this millenium in 40 days. he is stack to his old fashioned screen after screen low pace pick n roll oriented game. thats past. game has evolved going more and more to 1 on 1 matchups. add to that the fact that fener players (i dont know if he is also) have not been paid for months and there you have it. he is also the typical serbian guy that will support his serbians (i wonder if stimac was the only available center in the world when he needed a center) and he is also stubborn enough to admit that he has failed this season and accept a possible transfer in mid season

i thank him for what he offered to panathinaikos (still below than giannakopouloous that have been financially aided him with over 200million euros during his 13 years in the team) but he is not in the team right now so i have no reason to feel sympathy for him and his team and wishing him to recover from this situation. also i dont like fener and their fans so thats another reason i wish him all the worst this season, get eliminated from the qfs,lose the turkish league etc. who cares what he does when he is not coaching my team. after all he doesnt care about panathinaikos either and he shows that every time he comes to play at OAKA turning red from all the protesting to the refs,while sitting relaxed when his team get beaten at SEF by 20 or 30 points.

karma is a bitch dear zoc

[saras]

lol. After the development with Pitino any PAO fan likes DPG a bit more (at least) but naming his histrionics as "master psychology" is too much.

About Obra, I am shocked. He always could impose his authority but now he seems helpless, having lost their respect. Actually, this is the behavior of players who want to kick out their coach. Perhaps there is a backstory we don't know.

lack of $$$$$$ in their bank accounts. does this help you?

[Killer Bob]

I don' think Janketa's statement was that outrageous. On paper you could say it's a fair comment. With the Obradovic factor even more so but there a big suprises in sport sometimes. I don't even think a mad man could predict how bad Fener were going to be. I too felt Fener acquired well and had a good balance but you don't expect a whole group of players all playing their worst bar De Colo.

I just think it's a case that Fener have been found out. Their game hasn't evolved from the last 4-5 years. Who is to blame? The coach obviously. I've said it before the same thing happened a couple times at PAO under Zoc. Nothing seems to be working in offence and the team was greatly dependent on the brilliance of Diamantidis to survive and win games but still with all the firepower we had at our disposal poor Partizan handed us our asses twice (2007-08 and 2009-10). PAO had a 30 mil budget then. Partizan barely 3-4 million (if that!). Ofcourse, the current format allows big budget clubs to recover but to recover you may need 1 or 2 new players and that is something Zoc despises. Attaining players midseason. It never worked at PAO. All that came left as failures or were just stop gap solutions for injuries and the list is very long namely: Tracy Murray, Brandon Hunter, Haris Mujezinovic, Jurica Golemac, Nikola Prkacin, Marcus Haislip. Even at Fener his mid-season signings have had little effect or have been trash like Jason Thompson, Anthony Bennett, Blagota Sekulic, Pierre Jackson and Eric Green.

For Fener to get back on the road to victories, they need De Colo for starters. Then they need to get back to basics. The most basic of basics in to play defence. They didn't yesterday. They were constantly 2 paces behind the ball play of Barca. It's like they were constantly stuck in 2nd gear in offence. The Most suprising aspect in the game was that it looked over in the 1st quarter, heads were down constantly. Zoc was pacing, sitting down and looked completely out of morale. I've never seen him like that. The players were competely rudderless. Sloukas has shown in the last few games he cannot lead Fener. He simply isn't good enough.

I'm not close to Fener to know what the situation is in regards to the relationship between Zoc and the players. If he's lost them or there are problems between the playing group. The most appropriate action of Ali Koc to do is tell the players that they need to wake up. If they don't Zoc has the authority to send players home. He must support Zoc 100% if he is to save the season. The players may be thinking "Oh, we have sh*t results. This usually means the coach gets sacked so f*ck it. Let him be sacked and we have another lifeline with a new coach.". Sorry but you don't sack the greatest coach of all time. You might tell him in the summer that it's time for a change in direction but you simply don't sack him.

Look back a history. PAO had a disaster in 2009-10 in Europe. Knocked out in the 2nd group phase. In the summer we lose Spanoulis, Pekovic and Jasikevicius. Next season we win the EL again. The summer after that we lose Fotsis and Sato another 2 key players yet we reach the F4 and only go out to CSKA in the most scandalous of refereeing performances of all time after. leading pretty much the whole game. This team had dropped from 30 mil budget to 17-18 within 2 years yet Zoc was able to rebuild and put out a competitive team even with joke players like David Logan, Aleks Maric and Steve Smith as 3 of our 6 foreigners.

PS I laugh at people that think that Zoc telling the players to "Go f*ck themselves" had/ has a negative impact. That means they have no idea how competitive sport works. I played football at local league level until I was 24 and the coaches would verbally abuse us constantly during games. Maybe it's a Balkan thing. This would get a rise out of us, it wouldn't upset us because we understood it was "heat of the moment stuff". The coach doesn't mean it. He wants you to respond because sweet words aren't working anymore. I remember when I was about 17-18 I had this coach that was constantly on my back. Constantly. Verbal abuse, shoving me etc. I made a private complaint one day about his behavior towards me. You know what he said? "I abuse you because I believe in you. You are good but not doing what your supposed to. If I didn't care about you, I would simply ignore you, you'd be out and I would tell you to find another team".

I mostly agree with you. But comparing Barca's starting 5 and roster, it's just like day and night. You cannot seriously considere Dixon and Datome as top players anymore, they're in total decline. Kalinic is lost for some time now. Derrick is light years behind Mirotic. How many minutes is Sloukas getting between, Delaney, Huertel and Pangos? Then you have Davies, Tomic/Vesely, Ahmet. the only advantage Fener has is Nando and even there Barca has great Higgins, who is close to Nando in offense and much better defender. And after all that you have incredible deep Barca's bench. I cannot see how can even normal Fener win against this Barca.

[EverGreen]

obradovic is stack in his 2000's tactics. we will be entering the 3rd decade of this millenium in 40 days. he is stack to his old fashioned screen after screen low pace pick n roll oriented game. thats past. game has evolved going more and more to 1 on 1 matchups. add to that the fact that fener players (i dont know if he is also) have not been paid for months and there you have it. he is also the typical serbian guy that will support his serbians (i wonder if stimac was the only available center in the world when he needed a center) and he is also stubborn enough to admit that he has failed this season and accept a possible transfer in mid season

i thank him for what he offered to panathinaikos (still below than giannakopouloous that have been financially aided him with over 200million euros during his 13 years in the team) but he is not in the team right now so i have no reason to feel sympathy for him and his team and wishing him to recover from this situation. also i dont like fener and their fans so thats another reason i wish him all the worst this season, get eliminated from the qfs,lose the turkish league etc. who cares what he does when he is not coaching my team. after all he doesnt care about panathinaikos either and he shows that every time he comes to play at OAKA turning red from all the protesting to the refs,while sitting relaxed when his team get beaten at SEF by 20 or 30 points.

karma is a bitch dear zoc

You're talking smack about Zoc especially with the 2nd part of your post. He cares and loves Panathinaikos, their fans and the Giannakopoulos family. For crying out loud the man took time off work to fly in for the funerals of Pavlos and Thanasis only to return back to his work. He twice requested to be excused from a morning practices with Fener so he can be present and pass his condolences personally when he had all the excuses and reasons not too. For one of the two funerals I think Fener had a match day too.

As for turning red from protesting to refs, he wouldn't be doing his job if he wasn't. For 40 mins he battles for Fener's interests because that's his job. Anything less and he would be disrespecting Fener and the club that pays him.

I really don't get to hate someone who's done so much for us with such a passion. I can understand going cold on him for leaving but you're letting out hate. It's not as if he went to Olympiakos.

[saras]

You're talking smack about Zoc especially with the 2nd part of your post. He cares and loves Panathinaikos, their fans and the Giannakopoulos family. For crying out loud the man took time off work to fly in for the funerals of Pavlos and Thanasis only to return back to his work. He twice requested to be excused from a morning practices with Fener so he can be present and pass his condolences personally when he had all the excuses and reasons not too. For one of the two funerals I think Fener had a match day too.

As for turning red from protesting to refs, he wouldn't be doing his job if we wasn't for 40 mins he battles for Fener's interests because that's his job. Anything less and he would be disrespecting Fener and the club that pays him.

I really don't get someone to hate someone who's done so much for us with such a passion. I can understand going cold on him for leaving but you're letting out hate. It's not as if he went to Olympiakos.

i dont hate him. i just dont care about him anymore as long as he is not coaching panathinaikos.

as for the bold part. my problem is that i havent seen him turning red when playing against olympiakos. and there were multiple occasion this should have happened,it has happened in way less serious games. he was destroyed by 30 some years ago and he was sitting on his bench playing with his keys. plus i cant understand the fact that panathinaikos was playing to qualify for the f4 in 2017 and some fans were chanting his name and in general the arena's atmosphere was more like a summer friendly match rather than a crucial game.

in conclusion idc if obradovic fails in fener. actually this year he looks way too vulnerable and close to panathinaikos dynamic and he will probably fight for the same spots as we will. so why should i hope he finds his way back which might be against my own team's good?

[EverGreen]

i dont hate him. i just dont care about him anymore as long as he is not coaching panathinaikos.

as for the bold part. my problem is that i havent seen him turning red when playing against olympiakos. and there were multiple occasion this should have happened,it has happened in way less serious games. he was destroyed by 30 some years ago and he was sitting on his bench playing with his keys. plus i cant understand the fact that panathinaikos was playing to qualify for the f4 in 2017 and some fans were chanting his name and in general the arena's atmosphere was more like a summer friendly match rather than a crucial game.

in conclusion idc if obradovic fails in fener. actually this year he looks way too vulnerable and close to panathinaikos dynamic and he will probably fight for the same spots as we will. so why should i hope he finds his way back which might be against my own team's good?

I've seen him play with his keys before when losing to Baskonia by 30 points at half time. I've seen him sitting down pretty much the whole 4th quarter in a game PAO was losing by 25 to Barca again with Itoudis doing the standing and giving instructions. It's probably a way for him to calm down and not burst a blood vessel when his players aren't doing what he's telling them.

Ofcourse Fener now is a major opponent for us for a top 8 spot. I hope Maccabi fail, Khimki fails, Baskonia fails as well as Fener. I havent said the opposite. All I'm saying is how I would handle the situation. Do I feel sorry for him? No. Do i love him? Yes. Do I want him to fail this year? Yes. Do I want him back? If Pitino leaves, Yes.

Nothing I say or claim here will change Fener's fate this year. I'm just another fan expressing his opinion. I probably know nothing. I only know what is visible, what is said in the press and rumors. I'm not in house, neither do I know the guy that owns the mini market opposite Zoc's house, nor a cousin's friend who know's one of the trainers to have inside info.

At PAO after big losses or losses to lesser teams he would hold these massive torturous trainings session with workout and video which would sometime last 4-5 hours. Sometimes it had an effect, sometime it didnt. Does he/ has he done the same at Fener? Are the Fener players taking responsibility publically or not? PAO players would always take the responsibility saying they didn't do what the coaches asked them to do. Zoc on the other hand would never lay out a player to the vultures. He always supported his players 100% even when he told them "Picku materinu". Ask Lakovic, Becirovic, Scepanovic and Tepic. They know all about that. During a game Batiste and Winston were laughing not paying attention to a 30 point game we were winning. We conceed a basket, runs up to them and asks why Makedonikos scored. They stopped laughing. Went quiet and serious. "Ok. You laugh now. I laugh at training". The look on their faces was like he just told them he killed their mothers.

[vivo]

I don' think Janketa's statement was that outrageous. On paper you could say it's a fair comment. With the Obradovic factor even more so but there a big suprises in sport sometimes. I don't even think a mad man could predict how bad Fener were going to be. I too felt Fener acquired well and had a good balance but you don't expect a whole group of players all playing their worst bar De Colo.

I just think it's a case that Fener have been found out. Their game hasn't evolved from the last 4-5 years. Who is to blame? The coach obviously. I've said it before the same thing happened a couple times at PAO under Zoc. Nothing seems to be working in offence and the team was greatly dependent on the brilliance of Diamantidis to survive and win games but still with all the firepower we had at our disposal poor Partizan handed us our asses twice (2007-08 and 2009-10). PAO had a 30 mil budget then. Partizan barely 3-4 million (if that!). Ofcourse, the current format allows big budget clubs to recover but to recover you may need 1 or 2 new players and that is something Zoc despises. Attaining players midseason. It never worked at PAO. All that came left as failures or were just stop gap solutions for injuries and the list is very long namely: Tracy Murray, Brandon Hunter, Haris Mujezinovic, Jurica Golemac, Nikola Prkacin, Marcus Haislip. Even at Fener his mid-season signings have had little effect or have been trash like Jason Thompson, Anthony Bennett, Blagota Sekulic, Pierre Jackson and Eric Green.

For Fener to get back on the road to victories, they need De Colo for starters. Then they need to get back to basics. The most basic of basics in to play defence. They didn't yesterday. They were constantly 2 paces behind the ball play of Barca. It's like they were constantly stuck in 2nd gear in offence. The Most suprising aspect in the game was that it looked over in the 1st quarter, heads were down constantly. Zoc was pacing, sitting down and looked completely out of morale. I've never seen him like that. The players were competely rudderless. Sloukas has shown in the last few games he cannot lead Fener. He simply isn't good enough.

I'm not close to Fener to know what the situation is in regards to the relationship between Zoc and the players. If he's lost them or there are problems between the playing group. The most appropriate action of Ali Koc to do is tell the players that they need to wake up. If they don't Zoc has the authority to send players home. He must support Zoc 100% if he is to save the season. The players may be thinking "Oh, we have sh*t results. This usually means the coach gets sacked so f*ck it. Let him be sacked and we have another lifeline with a new coach.". Sorry but you don't sack the greatest coach of all time. You might tell him in the summer that it's time for a change in direction but you simply don't sack him.

Look back a history. PAO had a disaster in 2009-10 in Europe. Knocked out in the 2nd group phase. In the summer we lose Spanoulis, Pekovic and Jasikevicius. Next season we win the EL again. The summer after that we lose Fotsis and Sato another 2 key players yet we reach the F4 and only go out to CSKA in the most scandalous of refereeing performances of all time after. leading pretty much the whole game. This team had dropped from 30 mil budget to 17-18 within 2 years yet Zoc was able to rebuild and put out a competitive team even with joke players like David Logan, Aleks Maric and Steve Smith as 3 of our 6 foreigners.

PS I laugh at people that think that Zoc telling the players to "Go f*ck themselves" had/ has a negative impact. That means they have no idea how competitive sport works. I played football at local league level until I was 24 and the coaches would verbally abuse us constantly during games. Maybe it's a Balkan thing. This would get a rise out of us, it wouldn't upset us because we understood it was "heat of the moment stuff". The coach doesn't mean it. He wants you to respond because sweet words aren't working anymore. I remember when I was about 17-18 I had this coach that was constantly on my back. Constantly. Verbal abuse, shoving me etc. I made a private complaint one day about his behavior towards me. You know what he said? "I abuse you because I believe in you. You are good but not doing what your supposed to. If I didn't care about you, I would simply ignore you, you'd be out and I would tell you to find another team".

Good analysis. Our problems are a case of Zoc trusting in some players despite last year, which proved him wrong so far (Vesely and Datome mainly, Lauvergne, Kalinic, Sloukas to some extent) and also our playstyle not working anymore. We cannot do switch defense because Vesely and Lauvergne can't stay in front of perimeter players, but we also cannot defend them with our guards because they suck at man defense (Sloukas, Westermann, Dixon on this age etc.). It feels like every opponent team just tries to abuse Sloukas' terrible defense from the tip-off. On the other hand, our offense is extremely stagnant, Sloukas tries to create but opponents focus on him. Other players look at the guy with the ball and don't move. Even De Colo had a hard time scoring due to this stagnant offense.

Going forward, I believe sacking Zoc would be the biggest mistake we could make. He has 1 more year of contract iirc, but management should offer a new one and support him. After that we should do whatever we can to renovate the roster mid-season, which probably won't be too effective. Real cleanup would be on the summer regardless of how much we would improve during the regular season.

[Levenspiel]

....Do I feel sorry for him? No. Do i love him? Yes. Do I want him to fail this year? Yes. Do I want him back? If Pitino leaves, Yes.

if you have to make the decision today, would you prefer keeping Pitino or signing Obradovic at the end of the season?

Going forward, I believe sacking Zoc would be the biggest mistake we could make. He has 1 more year of contract iirc, but management should offer a new one and support him. After that we should do whatever we can to renovate the roster mid-season, which probably won't be too effective. Real cleanup would be on the summer regardless of how much we would improve during the regular season.

This would be smartest move, and Koc being as smart as he is, the most likely scenario imho. In the EL, you can put together a formidable roster in very short time, what you cannot do is to find the right coach.

[saras]

if you have to make the decision today, would you prefer keeping Pitino or signing Obradovic at the end of the season?

panathinaikos should keep pitino until saras or itoudis might be available and willing to coach the team. right now they are both better than obradovic

[EverGreen]

Going forward, I believe sacking Zoc would be the biggest mistake we could make. He has 1 more year of contract iirc, but management should offer a new one and support him. After that we should do whatever we can to renovate the roster mid-season, which probably won't be too effective. Real cleanup would be on the summer regardless of how much we would improve during the regular season.

Ok so Zoc has 1 more season after this. To offer a contract renewal would be an act of empowerment but Zoc doesn't do contract negotiations mid season. Telling the players that Zoc will be coach again next year no matter Fener make the play off's or not would still suffice.

If Fener make a change of coach now, they might get a response from the players for 2-3 games but soon they will fall back to their previous form. That's how I've seen it pan out over the years for most sports when a coach is sacked. Very seldom is the season saved.

When Pitino joined us last year in his first training session, he told the players straight up " Dimitris didn't fire your previous coach but you did. I saw the videos. He's a great coach. You didn't do what he asked of you". He continued "When the coach gets sacked and the team still doesn't play, the next people that are sacked are the players. You won't be sacking me."

[EverGreen]

if you have to make the decision today, would you prefer keeping Pitino or signing Obradovic at the end of the season?

God that's an awful question to ask. It's like asking me with one of my 2 daughters do I love the most but ok. I'll bite. I want either who will commit to a 3 year contract at season's end. If you ask me who I want coaching PAO next week it's Pitino because Zoc seems to be worn out by the drama at Fener. It's like he needs a month to get away from the kitchen and clear his mind. Pitino's is cleared after a 6 month break. If I had the choice to sign either for 3 years I would sign Pitino because he never finished the job he started last season which was building nicely.

[Toruko]

Will Giannakapoulos give him 30 million budget?