Paspali: “We had the best player in the NBA and the best player in the EuroLeague, but that doesn’t guarantee success”

Serbia’s failure at EuroBasket 2022, where they were eliminated by Italy in the round of 16, made noise. Before the start of the event, Zarko Paspali had warned of a possible failure. A few days later, in an interview with informer.rs, he reiterated the structural problems of Serbian basketball.

The Serbian basketball legend – and former player of Olympiakos, Panathinaikos, Panionios and Aris – first stressed after being asked about the reasons for the failure: “The lack of talented players in Serbian basketball was not obvious yesterday. We have a problem. Not only this generation has a problem, we have had problems for many years. Something has changed.

Pardoned Dusan Ivkovic said 15 years ago that newcomers don’t work like that. Of course, Duda was a coach during the unified Yugoslavia era, when basketball was different and we were treating the world to consistent success. It happened to the generation before me, and my own generation continued it.”

Paspali then made an interesting point about the claims made because of the glorious past: “We have set the bar high, to levels that are difficult to surpass today because the country is also smaller. We mentally accepted that we deserved the gold medal or the silver medal at the Olympics with the logic that “we are a basketball nation”. In Serbia we had good years, great years, but, my God, we also had bad years. Now we are in a time when nothing is going well. It’s been a long time since we’ve achieved anything significant at a young age.”

The legend of Serbian basketball was pessimistic about whether anything could change: “I’m not sure in which direction things have developed. I know that the road to success is difficult and that we are impatient, so I’m afraid we won’t succeed. I’m not optimistic. I’m also worried that we have older players in the squad, I don’t know which player we’re going to build our future on.”

On the fact that Serbia failed despite NBA MVP (Jokic) and EuroLeague MVP (Micic): “Yes, we had the best player in the NBA and the best player in the EuroLeague. It’s incredible. But having two players like that and a few other good basketball players doesn’t guarantee success. Some question these children’s love for the national team, but there is no such question.”

Paspali also referenced Teodosic’s “cutting out” from the mission: “I didn’t like the timing and how it was done, but it was the coach’s decision. I wouldn’t blame just one person for the failure. it is a product of many different things. And we’re not the only ones who got lost.

Basketball has changed. We have teams like Poland in the top four, which used to be unthinkable. It turns out that teams with players who have spent time together have a better chance of succeeding than teams who bet on one or two stars. In my time, the preparation of the national team took 3-4 months, now that has changed due to the demands of the clubs.”

In conclusion, Paspali reported on the Serbs’ march: “I certainly didn’t expect what happened. We had a good team and a good coach, but we failed. At the end of the day, Predrag Danilovic (former federation president) and Svetislav Pesic (former coach) admitted it was a failure but said they will keep working to be successful in the future. We are in a situation where if we don’t qualify for the 2023 World Cup, we won’t be playing at international level again until 2025.”