Watching Timofey Mozgov playing well on Sunday night with the jersey of the New York Knicks vs. Armani Jeans Milano, and knowing that Mike D'Antoni and his staff are happy with the way he has begun the season, it reminded me of two years ago when I arrived in Khimki, where Tima was a player of the second team.
I immediately decided he will be part of our starting five and when I announced my choice nobody could believe it, not even in the club.

Thanks to the hard, daily work, characterised by ups and downs, with great days on one side and not so good ones on the other (typical breaks of the very young players), Tima gradually came to be not only a player with a decent present but also with a great future in the NBA: I am also convinced that his style of play fits well enough in the league.
There have been other occasions when I have taken great pride in working with young players that at the end of the season joined the NBA: from Enzo Esposito in Bologna, an athlete with a great natural talent but that needed polishing and learning to coordinate within a better understanding of team play, to Raul Lopez in Real Madrid, a player coming from Badalona with great enthusiasm and quality but with very little experience in leading a major team, who then went to the Utah Jazz despite a serious injury had slowed down his development.

Then there has been Fran Vazquez, during my second year in Malaga: Fran returned to Unicaja from a loan to Las Palmas where he had played about fifteen minutes per game, he was promoted to the starting five and, after a season of steady growth, was chosen in the first round by a very high level NBA team like the Orlando Magic, opportunity that, with a respectable, personal choice, at the end he decided not to accept.

It is a source of pride for me the acknowledgment that these players have given me later on, and I consider it almost like winning a title or reaching an important final.

Being a basketball coach doesn’t mean only focusing on winning, but also on developing young players, who obviously need to have some talent to start with (without which we wouldn’t go very far), but who are also in need of a guide for their development, a coach that can help them to grow as persons and as players, who doesn’t only teach them how to shoot, pass and jump, but also to understand all the thousand little shades of this wonderful game, basketball.