Euroleague Regular Season, Round:14

[Killer Bob]

By the standards he is by far the best passer and defender
in his position compare to any other player. Generally he make his teammates and team so much Better when he plays. As for ghs seasons with Pao, Pao took homecourt Advantage BECAUSE of Nick . In Playoffs against Fener he underperformed , i just wonder which team could win this Zoc Fener with Vesely Udoh Bogdan ...
Against Real he was actually really good next year, still Real better Roster than Pao, Refs did their Job too..
Saras doesn t help Nick so much , no fast play- transition at all, still he plays good, check out Mirotic number against Zenit to see who really underperformes, final 4 too...
It is true that Nick's shooting disability seems worse in playoffs, still he is the best.. who is better ?
Maybe only Cambazzo had similar impact with Nick, but left for NBA

He underperformed against Baskonia too.

Problem with Pgs, who cannot shoot, is that RS and playoffs are totally different, because coaches actually prepares and adjusts game in playoffs, every game unlike in RS matters a lot. In Calathes' case, coaches leave him open 3 and trying to take away his driving and passing. So even, if he hits those open shots, his teammates have no spacing, have to play 4/5 a lot.

Series against Fener is exactly what I'm talking about, fantastic performance from Bogdan and bad from Calathes made all the difference. Switch those 2 and Pao wins easily.

Are you sure that Real had better roster that year? 18 years old Doncic only PG left after Llull and Campazzo got injured. And don't forget Pao had home court advantage.

1/13 in Pao are brutal numbers. If you praise him for RS, you should put at least some blame on him for disastrous playoffs results. In the end for clubs, like Pao was in that time, only playoffs matter and there is where your leader has to show.

Would Diamantidis or Spanoulis be considered as great players, if their clubs had results like Pao in Calathes' era? In the end is only winning what matters, and going down 0:3 year after year in playoffs is hardly sign of greatness.

[ronmercer80]

Panathinaikos, far better defense with Nedovic absent. A player to release signing someone else.

[menos]

He underperformed against Baskonia too.

Problem with Pgs, who cannot shoot, is that RS and playoffs are totally different, because coaches actually prepares and adjusts game in playoffs, every game unlike in RS matters a lot. In Calathes' case, coaches leave him open 3 and trying to take away his driving and passing. So even, if he hits those open shots, his teammates have no spacing, have to play 4/5 a lot.

Series against Fener is exactly what I'm talking about, fantastic performance from Bogdan and bad from Calathes made all the difference. Switch those 2 and Pao wins easily.

Are you sure that Real had better roster that year? 18 years old Doncic only PG left after Llull and Campazzo got injured. And don't forget Pao had home court advantage.

1/13 in Pao are brutal numbers. If you praise him for RS, you should put at least some blame on him for disastrous playoffs results. In the end for clubs, like Pao was in that time, only playoffs matter and there is where your leader has to show.

Would Diamantidis or Spanoulis be considered as great players, if their clubs had results like Pao in Calathes' era? In the end is only winning what matters, and going down 0:3 year after year in playoffs is hardly sign of greatness.

Yes he underperformed against baskonia but as a Pao fan i can assure you that Pao had a very bad team this year. Baskonia so much better. Sale made terible recruitment.
Calathes needs good shooters and P&R center. Instead Sale took Pavlovic, had Gist as PF, and Randulica as C. Disaster.
It s not that simple that you leave Nick open at 3 point and win matches against Pana, otherwise all coaches would do it.
When Nick had Rivers Lojeski Singleton and Gist as Center! he made MVP season. Actually against Real 2018 he was really good in all playoff matches.
Pana lost because Laso outplayed Pascual ,Rivers key player was injured and couln t score and frontline of Real so much better. Real didn t have llull and Cambazzo but let s
compare rest of roster. Ayon or Gist , Tavares or Payne , Lojo or rudy , Thomkins or Gabriel , Taylor or Thanasis ? Carroll or Denmon ? ...
Only Players better head to head were Nick and Mike, both of them played really good.
For the series against Fener , maybe Golden State would win them only by this year second half of the season. Zoc has done this at playoff series a thousant times.
To talk in general about Calathes era, only two years Pao had a team that can contest F4, 17 against Fener and 18 against Real (guess who won Euroleague that years ) . I explained everything about this series
This is not Calathes fault. And Pao made playoffs 2016 and 2019 because Nick was so good in RS. That s something to praise Nick not to say he lost 3-0 to Real when Real had Tavares and Pao Vougioukas for instance. that s a joke.
refs against Real always did thei job too.
It is true that Calathes needs specific Recruitment to be at his best because of his disability at shooting, still he makes team sooooo much better, he does everything.
To finish, it s not only offense in Basketball , who is the better pointguard defender by far all these years??
ps : Maybe Diamantidis was better, but by that time Pao had 25-30 M budjet with teammates such as Saras Siska Nikolas Fotsis Batiste Pekovic .. find the differences
enough said

[janketa]

Djordjevic has to give him freedom because he has limited ability in designing an offense where players are utilized with their best abilities, so it's up to his point guards' decisionmaking. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. We all knew Henry was not as good of a decision maker as Teodosic. He has other redeeming qualities as we have seen last year and in the last couple of weeks.

'designing an offense' isn't words that could describe Ataman for instance and still they are EL champions. Of course individual quality is the most important and that's why Kokoskov boys are so weak in decision making. It's not Djordjevic guilty. But if he do nothing to bring new pg he will be the main culprit for possible failure

[Killer Bob]

Yes he underperformed against baskonia but as a Pao fan i can assure you that Pao had a very bad team this year. Baskonia so much better. Sale made terible recruitment.
Calathes needs good shooters and P&R center. Instead Sale took Pavlovic, had Gist as PF, and Randulica as C. Disaster.
It s not that simple that you leave Nick open at 3 point and win matches against Pana, otherwise all coaches would do it.
When Nick had Rivers Lojeski Singleton and Gist as Center! he made MVP season. Actually against Real 2018 he was really good in all playoff matches.
Pana lost because Laso outplayed Pascual ,Rivers key player was injured and couln t score and frontline of Real so much better. Real didn t have llull and Cambazzo but let s
compare rest of roster. Ayon or Gist , Tavares or Payne , Lojo or rudy , Thomkins or Gabriel , Taylor or Thanasis ? Carroll or Denmon ? ...
Only Players better head to head were Nick and Mike, both of them played really good.
For the series against Fener , maybe Golden State would win them only by this year second half of the season. Zoc has done this at playoff series a thousant times.
To talk in general about Calathes era, only two years Pao had a team that can contest F4, 17 against Fener and 18 against Real (guess who won Euroleague that years ) . I explained everything about this series
This is not Calathes fault. And Pao made playoffs 2016 and 2019 because Nick was so good in RS. That s something to praise Nick not to say he lost 3-0 to Real when Real had Tavares and Pao Vougioukas for instance. that s a joke.
refs against Real always did thei job too.
It is true that Calathes needs specific Recruitment to be at his best because of his disability at shooting, still he makes team sooooo much better, he does everything.
To finish, it s not only offense in Basketball , who is the better pointguard defender by far all these years??
ps : Maybe Diamantidis was better, but by that time Pao had 25-30 M budjet with teammates such as Saras Siska Nikolas Fotsis Batiste Pekovic .. find the differences
enough said

I'm not saying that Pao should have necessarily won some of those series, but losing close series and losing 12 matches with just 1 win is a big difference.

Pao had very good team in 2016/17 season. The difference in crucial first 2 games in Oaka was, Calathes with 6.5/5/4 against Bogdan's 24/5/6.5. Do you see a difference? Switch those 2 players and Pao would have swept Fener. You cannot praise Obra and don't see the difference in performance of 2 leaders. Playoffs and F4 is where leaders have to show their true value. Honestly, nobody cares about RS in this format.

Comparing Real's and Pao's roster. Tavares was total non factor back then. He averaged less than 10 minutes in Real's 3 wins. Pao had the best Pg of last 5 years, your words, and one of the best SG. Real was left with only 18 years kid on Pg in hostile Oaka and Pao decided to go, understandably, full on him, but in crucial game 2 being bitten by grandpa Reyes. Pao was because home court advantage and Real's problems with injuries clear favourite in that series.

Sure coaches left him open to shoot. Why do you think he was shooting so many 3s, making just 25% of them? It's all about efficiency. You would rather risk low efficient shot by Calathes then let him make assists for others. In good shooting night that tactic would kill you, but those nights don't come very often.

We can talk about Calathes great passing skills, how he's the best pure Pg, whatever that means nowadays. We can praise his D. But in the end everything goes down on his playoffs record. 1/13. It's very difficult to say that all 4 Pao teams totally failed only because others. Those teams were built around him and at least 2 with pretty good budget. Those failures are a lot on him too. I agree that Calathes with just average shooting would have be one of the best players in Euroleague history and very solid Nba player. But unfortunately he's probably the worst shooter among Pgs in Euroleague history and that was proven to be to bigger disability for playoffs.

Don't get me wrong. I believe that he's very good player. He's just not good enough to build a winning team around him, him being the leader. His position in Barca is much more appropriate for him.

Simmons is very similar to Calathes. Fantastic Pg, a monster physically, fantastic defender, can defend every position. But because of his shooting almost unplayable, when it matters the most. So instead being multiple MVP, nobody even want to trade someone good for him.

[vivo]

'designing an offense' isn't words that could describe Ataman for instance and still they are EL champions. Of course individual quality is the most important and that's why Kokoskov boys are so weak in decision making. It's not Djordjevic guilty. But if he do nothing to bring new pg he will be the main culprit for possible failure

All coaches design an offense, or try to. Ataman's offense is also very simplistic but he got away with it when Larkin and Micic are exceptionally in form. Henry might be below them, but he is still above average in Euroleague. But a coach needs to have his team playing according to the personnel and their skillset, otherwise there would be one "best" offensive sets and everybody would do the same.