It’s hard to believe, but only eight years ago the Israeli coach was standing on the lines in the NBA finals. David Blatt During his career, he reached heights that perhaps no other Israeli could reproduce, and in honor of the country’s 75th birthday, he came to the special interview series of the sports channel, “Zo Agada”, with some of the most prominent sports figures in the country to go back to some of those moments, and started precisely with Terpod His appointment as coach of the Israeli national team.
“It’s a memory that hurts me to think about,” he says, “I don’t like to get into it, but there were people from a certain group who didn’t like Maccabi Tel Aviv that much, where I worked, and decided to put pressure on the person in charge of the union and threaten to sue if I will train the team, they will make a mess. The same chairman said that I will not be able to enter the hall until I complete the course. I was on my way to getting the approval, and I had coached enough years in the league. At that moment I said ‘so far’. I wasn’t offended, I just said it was enough for me. I will continue in other directions.”
To train against the Israeli national team with Russia
“I didn’t have a good feeling, because some of those players that I love so much to this day were in this team. I remember standing on the line before the game with the Russian national team, which I was proud to coach, and in front of me stood the Israeli national team, and I hear the anthem and I sing it and tears fall from my eyes.”
The semi-final against CSKA in 2014
“The life of a basketball player and an athlete and a coach… you see things in a special way connect to each other. Hariappa lost a ball that… it doesn’t make any sense, there’s no way it could happen. He was my player in the Russian national team. It’s like he did me a favor. I He sure didn’t do it for me. There were moves we worked on. Things happen and everyone thinks, ‘Oh, luck.’ You say, ‘Catch the ball with your hands.’ on him”.
Ness Zalgiris
“For example, Gor Schlef’s huge pass to Derrick Sharp in Ness Zalgiris. Everyone says, ‘How lucky he was to make that pass.’ . He was also left-handed, so sometimes it was misleading to the defender. The one that Sharp scored… I saw him in practice after practice with Anthony Parker shoot 50-100 three-pointers. I felt that the game against Zalgiris went. When Charas left the game with 5 fouls some Seconds before the end and I saw him walking and hugging the coach and players of Zalgiris, I felt bad. I felt he gave up at that moment. Saras was a big winner. It was a class act to pay respect to the people he knows and grew up with, but it was giving up. So I felt Not good. In overtime I knew we would win. As soon as Derrick scored, the game was over. I started thinking about the wine after the game. It didn’t matter who the coach was. They had no chance.”
Euroleague final against Real Madrid in 2014
“In the first half we were quite significantly behind and we came back little by little and finished the first half in a reasonable situation. We made many moves of a team that knows what it wants from itself. We learned this during the season, with quite a bit of suffering. We had to go through things in order to come to an understanding of who we are And how we should play. We identified a specific weakness in Real’s defense. They couldn’t manage it. Tyrese was a master at how to operate it. He and Hickman didn’t come from the big teams. We always tried to bring a combination of personalities and skills that suited the way we wanted to operate as a team and as a system. To be Israeli and coaching Maccabi Tel Aviv in your country and reaching the top of the top, part of the history of this magnificent club… it is significant.”
The appointment to coach Cleveland
“I also talked to other teams, but there were two very tempting offers on the table. One of them was to be Steve Kerr’s chief assistant. The other, which came later, was to coach Cleveland, which hadn’t made the playoffs for several years. Steve found me and asked me to come and visit Him. I came to the US because I went to my father’s funeral in Arizona and on the way back I stopped in California and Steve called me to express his condolences for my father and asked to sit down and talk. I agreed and we talked. I won’t forget it. Shortly after that he told me he wanted me to come work with him. I was the happiest person. I agreed to come and work with Steve and a few days later I got a call from Cleveland to come in for an interview. I called Steve and told him that I had been offered an interview for the position of head coach, but I already told you I was coming. He told me that he wanted me to go do the interview because he himself had almost agreed to a contract with the Knicks and shortly after that he received a call from Golden State. He and Bob Myers didn’t believe I would get the job, but they told me to do it because later it could help me.”
LeBron’s decision to return to Cleveland
“I came to the team and I wanted it to succeed. I didn’t expect that a month after I arrived, everything changed from zero to a hundred. It was a big surprise. I supported it. We brought the best player in the NBA to your team. It may not be easy to coach him, but as a coach you have to be Ready to accept the challenge of training players who can lead the system as far as possible. I didn’t come there to prolong my career, but to help the team succeed, and it succeeded.”
The difference between Europe and the NBA
“The game in the NBA, in all respects, is a different game. Both on the court and off it. At the higher levels of the teams, the players are dominant. If you are not a coach with a large number of years in the NBA, then you do not have the ability to convince that there is To Gregg Popovich. It’s not easy to put in the things I wanted to do and to convince. I wanted to play regionally. At that time, it was impossible to convince them. Today all the teams do it. They looked at me like I was a UFO. We reached the finals and I’m not sure that without the injuries of Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving we don’t win a championship.”
The relationship with LeBron James
“Relations were all right. In the second year we went through quite a few difficulties, both within the team and in how I wanted to manage the team. We were in first place in the East when I left. This means that probably some of those people didn’t believe in me. I don’t know all the reasons. I don’t regret leaving From the NBA. I didn’t like it as much as I liked working and coaching in Europe. Basketball is different and the structure of everything was very different. I missed being closer to my children, to the people I am close to.”
Being the father of a basketball player
“Tamir gives me a feeling and a sense of fun and pleasure that cannot be explained. When I see him play and have fun and give teams and teammates the special things he brings to the table every day, it fills me with happiness and pride. He is special in the way he is able to activate others. I have worked with Tamir since he A little boy and they ask me, ‘How did you teach him to pass like that?’ I didn’t teach him and I point up. It’s a talent. From the age of six I knew he would be a player. He loved the game, loved working and when I saw him play with players a year or two above him, he would pass where that the players have to go, I understood that he would be a player.”
His top five all-time
“If I have to put together a team of players I’ve coached, I would start with Nicolas Zisis from my time with him at Benton Treviso. Anthony Parker, who in my eyes is the greatest foreigner ever to come to Europe in terms of what he brought and his achievements. LeBron James, you can’t not include him Because in terms of his abilities, there is no one like him. Andriy Kirilenko, who I worked with in the Russian national team. He was a great player precisely in things that you don’t see in the statistics. In his ability to influence the game and as a winner and as a special person of his kind. In the center position, I have a hard time choosing between Nikola Wojcic and the late Nate Huffman He was a one-of-a-kind player. It’s hard to choose between them.”
