The Italian quarterback once again demonstrates his ability to create teams with identity from loose shafts
Sergio Scariolo entered the press room of the current Fernando Buesa Arena in the summer of 1997 for Baskonia to introduce him as the team’s new coach. And at the appearance of the newcomer there were quite admiring exclamations. There was the human representation of the Italian. A man combed with hairspray, dressed in a suit and tie with a generous knot. The pristine appearance of what is attributed to the men of his country. He was 36 years old at the time and wanted to plow a career based on deep furrows. And since there was a lot of basketball dust in that aesthetic shell, the Brescian native accomplished it in more than enough ways.
Before sailing the vast sea of his virtues, I ask permission to comment on other aspects of his personality. Sergio feeds, perhaps more than now, a justified ego based on his vast and unquestionable knowledge. The same ones who examine their interlocutors to know whether they understand, or not, the most minimal notions about the sport they are passionate about. His professional priesthood, his raison d’être – even – couples. And they will also have verified through his public statements that he is used to bandaging himself before the wound bleeds. A preventive shield against unwarranted euphoria, a way of explaining the impossibility of exchanging dollars for four pesetas.
But in its final twist, the unthinkable qualifier for the Eurobasket final comes after the farewell of a generation that embodied a past past, denying that claim. In fact, he played the shell man’s trick. They give Scariolo some rickety rods – with all due respect to the soldiers he trains – and he feels able to assemble an umbrella. Exactly what he did with a tender and inexperienced group -for the most part- for major challenges, where nearly two-thirds of its components had not been seen in any other comparable circumstance.
The ‘credit’ column in the Italian preparer is the size of a sheet of paper, while the ‘debit’ column barely fills a napkin. He is one of the best known strategists with the blackboard in his hand, that object that he turns into a chessboard on which he guesses the moves of each piece. In this modern basketball that sanctifies individual defense to the point of adopting it as a monoculture and despising other variants of containment, Sergio justifies the value of decoys and traps. Against Germany, he deployed zonal tributaries with Rudy in the advanced center and allowed some safety spaces in exchange for the fierce defense of Alberto Díaz that contained the hitherto unfathomable flow of the fast and vertical Schröder.
Already in full maturity, the coach of the Spanish team and husband of former player Blanca Ares retains the qualities that have distinguished him since landing in the ACB through Vitoria’s door. He is a very hardworking, methodical and detailed man who prepares the matches completely conscientiously. He hates loose ends, preferring the rival’s changes warn him. And it creates a good work environment because it seriously conjugates the verb ‘delegate’. In this way, he is watering the confidence of his employees, as Josu Larreategui, an assistant to the Baskonia coaching staff during his first leg, said to whoever writes this in his day.
Among the best flowers to be dedicated to a team, identity comes first. And the Scariolo teams, based on the rigor with licensing, have it to create good basketball and an undeniably competitive gene. Despite his eagerness for the plasters for the scratch, the Brescia tactician boils his ambition inside. An Italian league, two ACBs (Real Madrid and Unicaja) and as many cups (Baskonia and the entity from Malaga) in his club work. But where this Raptors (NBA) assistant has detonated the arsenal of his pyrotechnics is at the head of the Spanish team. The one who, again and with his determination to nationalize Lorenzo Brown through the coercive decree, has led to an area this time unheard of.
Source: La Verdad
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