In the first row of guests at the Badalona Olympic Stadium was Pablo Laso. The former Real Madrid coach couldn’t help but bite his nails when he saw how his former team was shipwrecked in the semifinal against Unicaja. Hours before some fan joked assuring that John Laporta he had to dare to test Laso as a successor to Jasikevicius. The Lithuanian ends his contract on June 30. and his future at the Palau is not clear. Such as Chus Mateo in charge of Real Madrid. If applicable, the contract is extended for another year. until June 2024but the feeling in the team and its surroundings is that after Barça’s elimination in the quarterfinals, a great opportunity to strengthen the commitment to the former Laso’s assistant has been wasted. From Italy, “Il Corriere de la Sera” points to a possible return of Scariolo. The best coach in the history of Spanish basketball has contract with the national team until the Olympic Games in Paris and with Virtus de Bologna also until 2024.
The hole in the direction of Madrid is undisguisable. And the Llull’s lesion, the soul of the team, did nothing but multiply it. Chus Mateo is very inspired by little confidence Williams-Goss and Sergio Rodríguez. He places you as a starter almost out of obligation, but what he gives you in defense is taken away in attack. And with El Chacho the opposite happens. For this reason, without Llull, the decisive moments remained in the hands of Build. The Hungarian was key in the final pass of the ACB, but now he is far from the best version of him. The solution? In the medium term: recover in summer to Campazzo that you can leave the Red Star for 50,000 euros.
Only two players did not leave Badalona marked: Deck y Tavares. The Argentine is indispensable without the need to make noise. Tavares responded, but … he wastes energy with referees and opponents have discovered that one of the few ways to downplay him is to subject him to relentless activity and lose at least some of the fear he instills. No one is safe from the rest and that means that the assignment of roles (Cornelie and Poirier, for example, were anecdotal against Unicaja) by Chus Mateo is questioned again. Hezonja and Yabusele slacked off when they were most needed. Musa had the misfortune to end up touched, but he had already shown signs that she was beginning to fade. And the coach himself suffered a lot with Álex Mumbrú’s change of plans after the break and succumbed to Ibon Navarro.
The Jasikevicius thing has more to do with wear and tear. Before the Cup, he assured that he had not spoken with the club about a possible continuity. After the defeat to Juan Carlos Navarro he had no choice but to say that they continue to trust the coach and players. From the club a first approach is suggested, but with conditions that the Lithuanian does not accept. And they have to do with a salary reduction and a decrease in the budget of the section.
In his third season on the Palau bench, Saras has accumulated two Cups, one League and two appearances in the Final Four (final with loss against Efes and semi-final with loss against Madrid). The departure of Calathes, with compensation included, did not grace the club or any heavyweight. The half dozen additions remain to be seen as important. So the names as possible substitutes for Jasikevicius were already heard in Badalona. Yes Xavi Pascual (which is not disliked in Madrid either), yes Jaka Lakovic… the Gran Canaria coach spent time at the club as a player between 2006 and 2011 and then worked as player-coach for Barça B.
Road to the decisive stretch of the season, the future will be marked by the Euroleague. With ten games to go in the first phase, Madrid and Barça are second and third. What both fear the most would be a crossover of the quarterfinals with the two-time champion Anadolu Efes. For either of the two benches, the not being in the Final Four in Kaunas would be a threatening guillotine.
Ibon Navarro, from spectator to champion
In the edition of the Copa del Rey played in February 2022 in Granada, Ibon Navarro had barely been coach of Unicaja for a week. In the last week of January he had been dismissed as coach of MoraBanc Andorra, a team that would end up being relegated. And on one of those mornings before the quarterfinal matches, the coach arrived in a car from his new club to the Andalusian city to witness the tournament as a spectator. His challenge upon arriving in Malaga was to avoid relegation. He did it and a year later this 46-year-old from Vitoria was proclaimed Cup champion and great winner of the tournament.