Bologna, June 27 –<\/p>\n
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These are the words of coach Sergio Scariolo in the press conference at the end of the season<\/strong>: “I think it is proper to say goodbye for now to this season by doing with a little stocktaking as it is normal to do but I wanted after Game 7 to stay on the game because on an emotional and rational level it is never the time to take stock of the season five minutes after the last game.<\/em> …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":57582,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[307,268,256,248],"tags":[308,269,265],"class_list":["post-57584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-euroleague-en","category-primo-piano-en","category-a-league","category-news","tag-euroleague-en","tag-app-en","tag-evidence"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virtus.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virtus.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virtus.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virtus.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virtus.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.virtus.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virtus.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virtus.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virtus.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virtus.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI want to express my thanks to all of you for the professionalism with which I generally felt I was treated and I hope I was able to reciprocate in that sense.<\/em>
\nI want to congratulate the club, the team and the staff for a season that I think was absolutely positive. Obviously, from my point of view as a coach I have to mainly look at the part of the quality of the work done and the quality expressed by the team. On the results we will get in but there is no doubt that everyone can have his say, just look at the last game and make his evaluations: the coach does not need to be there to do that. A coach in the first place has to say that he is happy with the work developed by the team and the staff in training: we have had all year very qualified people coming to watch our training sessions and we have had great feedback from everybody and after a few years of work I can have the feeling whether a team is really doing a high quality job or not, and I have no doubt.<\/em>
\nOn the quality of play I would say that, generally, I am also very satisfied here. I would say that it has been a good quality of play with peaks of excellent qualification especially coinciding with times when we have been able to rely on the completeness of the staff, with low, insufficient peaks coinciding not coincidentally when we have an impairment of the staff that is no longer sustainable or addressable.<\/em>
\nFrom the point of view of results, I believe that when you are the team unanimously recognized as number two, to get to play three finals, winning one certainly the least important of the three I have no hypocrisy in recognizing it, to get to equal points with the first in the regular season get to the seventh game in the playoffs, says that the results have been good in domestic competitions.<\/em>
\nIn the Euroleague we paid the price of the novitiate at the beginning, we went through a very good middle part, in which extrapolating the results we were fully in the playoffs, and a mediocre final part coincided with the non-constant unavailability of very important players, not one or two but three or four, especially because they were very heavy absences. I gladly went back to play the Euroleague, it was a very rewarding experience very enriching, instructive. It didn’t surprise me, more or less what I expected, but I learned that if you’re not in the top 7-8 budgets and if you don’t have a nucleus of high level national teams, especially from a physical point of view as Serbian , Lithuanian or French teams can have systematically, for the Euroleague which is a competition where physicality is the very first image you have game by game and over the whole league.<\/em>
\nIn the absence of these two factors the optimization of resources must be maximum. In building the team and counting on the largest and highest number on the number of healthy players present who can id perform to help the team. A couple of teams like Partizan and Zalgiris did a great job but the few injuries could reflect on the court the excellent quality of the work done.<\/em>
\nA couple of regrets like the Italian Cup final that surprised me: we played two great games in the quarterfinals and semifinals against two great teams playing two high level games. The day after the final had a mediocre first part, I could have some signals especially about the physical condition of important players however honestly I have to say that it surprised me and we did not recover. My history has accustomed me to play games in a row and win European, World and Olympic medals. We did not manage, to recover mentally and physically in the proper way even though we tried until the last, and this is something I value because when you end up down by twenty coming back within a shot of winning has value, but we did not succeed. In the regular season championship the Naples game more than the Treviso game, which we played in a difficult environmental and personnel condition, in which one minute to the end we were up by 5, in which the opponent was playing for salvation really super reason, then spoiled by the wrong refereeing decisions in a heavy way. I never comment and also give little weight to the examination after games: even then, I remain of the idea, there is not a person who cannot share it, as was also confirmed in the postseason meeting between coaches and referees. Big injuries and in the last few that decided the first place in the regular season, but our fault against Napoli because we should have won any way: that is definitely a point of regret.<\/em>
\nI think that’s a sufficiently comprehensive balance sheet: I wouldn’t go into the results because it’s a sterile debate debates are for building not speculating. I don’t feel that I brought anyone in but that I helped along with many to put bricks in place for this to happen. I am satisfied with the work of the basketball side. There is the real quality of your staff, injuries, opponents, and I am satisfied with this two-year period, and the feeling of consolidation and growth as well as some respect at the international level has been there. Any future projection in my opinion must stop because we are all aware that the scenario will change that there are different conditions than those that have accompanied the team up to here and of which I am perfectly aware. Beyond the personal aspects, the feeling of consolidation, of general growth in the panorama of European basketball of Virtus has been satisfactory.<\/em>
\nOnce more I take the opportunity to thank the fans and from the society there has been great support. During these two years I have always had the feeling of great support even if there is someone who has something to say, but that is there. Even on the street, in restaurants I had a great feeling of support and appreciation, making it so that personally and with my family we are very happy in Bologna, proof that now it becomes the city where I spent the most time after my Brescia. I think if you’re not happy with the people, it doesn’t happen.<\/em>
\nI want to make one last thank you to the fans because the feeling of unconditional support is the only thing you can ask for in return by giving maximum effort and commitment which then sometimes results in great results and sometimes less, although that depends on other factors. Going on the road and finding a large and important representative for me coming from the NBA where it does not exist was a rewarding and stimulating reencounter, very motivating. I don’t think it is necessary to confirm my presence because I still have another year left on my contract which is the thing that matters and determines. This interest on the part of the Raptors that Virtus was aware of, and which I have to thank for not hindering me, understanding that it could be something of a different size and color than normal, allowing it, without affecting the performance, in fact coinciding with the best performance of the whole season. Obviously if it had happened, it would have prompted me to go to my managers and I would have asked them to help me get out of this other year of my contract because it is a unique opportunity for any European coach. Other teams have also shown appreciation for my work is something you can be pleased with, but until it translates, which it didn’t, into a conversation that, when you have a contract you can’t produce, it’s something more for journalists. There’s no point in talking about things that didn’t get to the concrete stage because they could have gotten there only after the season was over. It is true that a couple of months ago Dr. Zanetti, whom we thank for his presence and generosity, asked me for an availability to extend my experience in Virtus, in the presence, I told him a couple of aspects to clarify this availability existed and exists.. In these days reflecting on the new economic scenario in which the company will have to move, I instructed my representatives to also be willing to make a certain sacrifice on the compensation already agreed and formalized for the contract of the coming year, in case the idea of extension came up. If it does not come no one should have any doubts about my and my staff’s commitment, about this last season of my contract, because I conceive of being a professional and reputable person who gives everything on the cause he defends until the last second and it is right that it should be so.<\/em>
\nWe’ll see, right now there’s to focus on the immediate future and if it’s roses come, I’ve taken a big step on my part and there will be no negative conditioning from the outcome of these negotiations. My presence? It has already happened that interpretations are sold for not being clear and honest to people. My stay is linked to a contract, to the decision to honor it, to how I am, to the motivation to do my job in the best possible way, it is not linked to a potential extension and I am perfectly aware that the situation will be different from those that were presented to me when I arrived, because of the circumstances that exist and that will be better explained by the company. The scenario is going to be different: they told me the truth, they told me things as they are, I appreciate that, they had that commendable transparency in explaining to me that things for economic reasons that seem respectable to me: those who have to make these decisions do so critically because they talk about theirs because I remind you where we would be if those who have to make the decisions, they had not come in. I am grateful to the company for the transparency in exposing the situation to me: I have not received any false promises of a different scenario than what it will be and I accept it, digest it and intend it. Having taken this step, with those in charge, we leave and go as if the Milutinovs, the Belinellis, the Teodosics, and the Shengelias were to arrive. This will not affect the quality of the effort and the attempt to do the best job possible.<\/em>
\nGoals? This is not the time for individual report cards or future plans. Today we are going to start reasoning: I have not clarified, it is not up to me, I have acknowledged, and I thank the company for that for exposing to me with great transparency the new economic scenario where we will have to move, I have not clarified anything because it is not up to me to do so and if it is wanted it will be done I think in due time. It is time to start thinking about it but it is not the time to communicate them because they are not there. I appreciate the transparency of the company but it is not up to me to communicate these kinds of situations, to avoid misunderstandings of the past: roughly I know the numbers but I will not be the one to communicate them. Priorities? It’s hard to disregard the budget: it’s like wanting a single player who can dribble, shoot, defend, ce perform well, but at that point get Durant. It’s right that at the collective level you make the same point, finding balance in the team, between interior and exterior, physicality, technical quality. You have enumerated legitimate areas for improvement if we improve in the quality of game generation, we are the team that had to play the least pick’n’roll in all of Europe, if we improve in three-point shooting accuracy and rebounding ability, we would improve the team but it all has to be optimized in an economic framework. On a technical level I agree with that but otherwise we will do supermanager but the money here is real so that has to be the framework within which the company has to move, because what I have done and will do is give advice opinions that can or want to be followed. It’s not that one doesn’t coach the team if they are not followed or listened to: from the beginning there was a need to improve the quality of the roster under the basket of Italian nationality: from there there were adjustments that made it useful posssible incorporation of a player who could improve the internal structure of the team. Not a phenomenon or the twenty-point player but someone who could be useful. I don’t think anyone didn’t see that and recognize that, but there was no opportunity to do that. Every coach quivers and would like to have the best team possible, but when the frenzy is over, the coach coaches and moves on, without stopping working or working worse or you create ruptures with the club if they didn’t accommodate you on something that seemed obvious. We were one of the few European teams that did not incorporate: clearly there was a concrete reason and that has to be accepted. Coaches would like to have the best team but then you have to understand and accept, maybe with three days of stomach ache, and go back to the gym with as much enthusiasm as possible, doing the best you can with the team that is there.<\/em>
\nI am here as a coach and budgets are up to the managers, I cannot give answers about budgets.<\/em>
\nEveryone’s desire and wish is to be in the Euroleague. I think we are it would be a surprise if that is not the case but you have to be respectful of institutions, practice and protocols so until an official confirmation comes we cannot say that. Obviously it is the expectation, the hope, the optimism of everyone is there.”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"