Calathes has improved his shooting because he worked with Oppenheimer in the national team in the summer

Bucks’ Josh Oppenheimer joined the men’s national team coaching staff this summer to continue working with Giannis Antetokounmpo. However, it seems his presence helped Nick Calathes a lot as well.

The National Guard has gotten off to a great start this season, shooting 54.5% to 3 points in the EuroLeague while shooting 29.6% in his competitive career. The sample is small. But he believes more in himself and his shooting style now and reveals in an interview with basketnews.com that this improvement is due to working with Josh Oppenheimer over the summer when he competed with the men’s national team.

“I shot a lot with the men’s national team. We worked a lot with Josh” Kalathis first explained after a related question, to add: “When Giannis was practicing shooting, I went and shot.”

In hindsight, however, Kalathis emphasized that the fact that Dimitris Itoudis put his faith in him now plays an important role, as well as his work with Turkey’s assistant coach Radovan Trifunovic :

“I just shoot with confidence. The coach believes in me, if I’m free he wants me to shoot. I work hard and I have to give credit to Rado (ss Trifunovic), our assistant coach who I work with after every training session. I hope it continues like this. However, it’s all about confidence and making him feel comfortable. I hope I can keep hitting 3-pointers.”