Caption
Close
Spurs assistant coach Ettore Messina recently said down with The Vertical’s Adrian Wojnarowski to discuss life with Gregg Popovich, his relationship with Manu Ginobili and more.
Here are a few key excerpts from the podcast.
On recently practicing at the Palestra in Philadelphia, known by many as the “Cathedral of College Basketball,” and sightseeing with Popovich: He has a lot of respect for history, for the history of the world, the history of mankind, the history of our sport. I think, for him, it’s special, but for all of us it was a special moment to be there.
On how being around Popovich has affected his outlook: In the big picture, being here has been a unique opportunity to reaffirm something that you have believed in all your life and career. How things should be done; things should be done professionally, things should be done with commitment, things should be done without taking yourself too seriously – and Pop is very big on that. Things should be done looking for character, for accountability.
Differences between coaching in the EuroLeague and NBA: First of all, the surroundings. In Europe teams play in three different competitions at the same time: the EuroLeague, the national league in their country, and then the national cup which is a kind of consolation tournament that you play during the year. So you don’t have an overall standing.
You end up playing about 70 games a year but these are split between competitions. If you have a good team but you lose three games in a row, in the NBA it’s a problem but it’s not a big deal. You lose three games in a row in the EuroLeague you drop from fourth place to ninth and panic starts. So the pressure is, I would say, probably more in that specific situation because as soon as things go downhill they might want to change players, change coaches. It’s different.
Second is the length of the game. The length of the game forces you to have less possibility to adjust and correct what’s going on. In Europe the games last 40 minutes like in college. If you have a decent lead in the middle of the third quarter, in the NBA there is still a game to play, in Europe you’re probably going to see a game already decided.
Athleticism – we don’t have the same athletes that we have here in the NBA. Here in the NBA a lot of situations you can watch where there is a mistake and it’s covered by the athleticism of the players. In Europe you make a mistake in terms of positions, in terms of basic fundamentals. Not everybody has the athleticism for make up for that.
Last but not least, much less timeouts. So you as a coach cannot have your input in as many specific moments of the game as you would like. So you need to work before in practice on many situations because they’ll be going on the fly, you don’t have time to stop the game.
On building relationships with players: As you know, in Europe, the team dinner is a big thing. Most of the players, especially in Italy, we used to have dinner after the game like Pop sometimes has here in the NBA when we travel and stay overnight in a city.
What I saw with Pop is, in those moments it goes beyond basketball. Your relationship, the relationship between players and coaches, players and players, coaches and coaches, goes beyond win or lose. It’s not just about what you accomplish on the court. You’re expected to be professional, you’re expected to play well, but there is a person behind that. Sitting and talking about different things, it’s impressive that we almost never talk about basketball at those dinners. There is a life aside from basketball, and the life that you’re living is not decided only by basketball. Basketball is a big part of it, but there are relationships and other things that are more important. That’s something that Pop is really big on and I really respect that.
Is Pop uniquely qualified to introduce things like team dinners? Can the culture he has created be imitated?: Of course, it’s even a little embarrassing to stay here and talk about Pop, meaning that he has such great credibility and he’s such a great coach and person. I think that the biggest thing is that if you want to try to duplicate or imitate, it’s not going to work. I think you can get an inspiration for what the, the Spurs, R.C., the organization has done over the years and take tips from that and try to implement in your system and your relationships. And those are big values, starting with respect for people and trust and accountability. You’ve got to be sincere, you have to be who you are. You can’t just try to be a poor imitation.
It’s like when, for some reason Pop is out of the game. The very first time I coached because he was not there, you think about what Pop would do here. It’s easy to start trying to imitate him or take the exact steps that you assume he would take, but that would be a mistake I think. So you need to get away from that, you need to keep the inspiration that he gives but you need to try to be yourself.
On relationship with Manu Ginobili (Messina and Ginobili won a EuroLeague championship with Virtus Bologna in 2001): It was very special back then because, people probably don’t know, Manu that year was not our first choice. He knows that and we still laugh about that. I was coaching in a very accomplished organization and he was in this small club in Reggio Calabria where he came up with a very good coach, and he had a great season. But our target a player of the national team of Italy that eventually ended up with our crosstown rival, Fortitudo Bologna.
So Manu became our first target. And he came and he blossomed so quickly. He was such a competitor, such a sponge in learning. And the other thing that happened was, he was supposed to be in his first year a backup to the famous Sasa Danilovic, the great Serbian player. And the plan was to develop Manu into what hopefully he would have become. Long story short, Danilovic that summer decided to retire so Manu all of a sudden is in the starting five. Then boom, he starts flying.
The same thing, a little bit, happened here. He came to the Spurs after two years in Bologna and the beginning was rough. He also got a little bit hurt, had the ankle injury. And his way of playing sometimes drove Pop crazy, but you know, he’s Manu. And then he starts flying, eh starts going better and better and he became who he is.
I’ve been lucky enough to have very determined players, especially players coming from the former Yugoslavia. What always astonished me in Manu was the ability to hit the wall, bounce back, even maybe with a very bad game, but then boom, put in his mind what he had to do and just move on to the next level.
I will always remember his first game in the Euroleague he went scoreless from the court. I think he just scored four free throws. I remember we lost at the buzzer in Greece. I go out of the court and tell my lead assistant, I say, ‘Look, if this is our go-to guy we are in deep trouble.’ Six months later Manu was the MVP of the finals.
nmoyle@express-news.net
Twitter: @NRmoyle
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
