Why does Prometheus fail at the beginning of the season?

Six months ago on the pages of our website we praised the “giants” for their excellent 2022/2023 campaign. Even in the conditions of a large-scale war, “Prometheus” did a very large and high-quality job and showed one of the best results in the European arena in the history of Ukrainian basketball. But last season ended, the off-season passed and a new playing year began, but little remained of the same “Prometheus”, who brought victories on the assembly line and delighted fans with his magnificent game.

Although Ronen Ginzburg remains in the coaching role and half of last season’s players remain on the roster, the team appears to have been replaced. And the recruits of the Ukrainian club were positioned by him as very talented players. Despite this, “Prometheus” is more disappointing, both in terms of the team’s results and the quality of basketball shown. What is the reason for such negative metamorphoses? Let’s figure it out.

Players are not performing at the expected level

After last year’s semi-final result in the first season of the European Cup, the team management quite logically planned to at least repeat it. For this purpose, expensive foreign players and many well-known Ukrainian basketball players were invited, but at the moment only a few of the Slobozhan squad demonstrate quality basketball.

Particularly disappointing is playmaker Marcus Keane. The American looks like a foreign object in the team right now, dragging his team down rather than helping himself on both ends of the floor. Yes, he plays a good game (for example, the first quarter with the Riga club VEF), but Keane’s confusion and excessive game egoism are much greater.

The performance of another American, Rashard Kelly, also matched Marcus. However, in his justification, we can say that he signed the contract during the off-season, when the club was urgently looking for a player to replace the injured Arnoldas Kulbock. Accordingly, Kelly has not gone through pre-season training at the club and has not yet fully examined the new team, but Rashard does not show anything that could explain his invitation to the team at the moment.

Ronald March, another American who transferred from the French Championship to Prometheus, also receives many questions. However, March is slowly adapting and has looked noticeably better in recent matches, but it gets worse when a professional sniper fails to score three consecutive free throws with his club three points behind (match against London Lions). I wonder about the accuracy of this signature.

The only legionnaire that Prometheus gets right is the center Tai Odiase, who immediately starts showing a good level. It is difficult to evaluate the performance of another US representative, Davon Reed, as he was quickly hospitalized, we will talk about this below.

However, even if we don’t get too personal, it is worth saying that “Prometheus” does not display good team play. Serious competitors in the European Cup are reading and solving Ronen Ginzburg’s players. Moreover, the Slobozhansky club loses not only in slow and long-playing basketball (Beşiktaş in Istanbul), which is unusual for them, but also in the fast and transit game (London Lions in Riga), which is the favorite of the “giants”. ).

In each of the three matches lost in the European Cup, Prometheus started well but then faltered under the pressure of their opponents. The team no longer has a leader or leaders who can lead in difficult times like they had two DJs last season. Yes, Balvin and Odiase are trying, but due to their positions and playing styles, it is very difficult for them to organize significant breakthroughs. It seems that many Prometheus players do not have a twinkle in their eye and a desire to gnaw away victories, and this is exactly what distinguishes last year’s beloved team.

Managerial mistakes in team building

However, players cannot join the team themselves. Administrators fetch/save them. I would like to mention a name in this context. Bronislaw Wawrzynczyk. In the summer, a Pole with a really good CV came to Prometheus as sports director and started building a new team. However, he had somehow assembled the puzzle incorrectly.

Here we involuntarily recall a story from the archives of Ukrainian basketball from almost twenty years ago. After a very successful 2004/2005 season, when BC Kiev reached the finals of the FIBA ​​​​Champions League, the capital club strengthened its administrative staff with the appointment of high-status Israeli Rani Kahana, who was appointed as the sports director of the Kiev team. Despite last season’s team being well-rounded and almost completely balanced, the new top manager has released many proven players and replaced them with controversial candidates, to say the least. Yes, the team had the season but had huge problems and the final results shown were worse than last season.

Something similar is happening now. The two defenders from the French championship, March and Keane, are unimpressive, to say the least. Marcus is short, Ronald looks physically weaker, which creates a huge space for defensive mismatches to please the opponent when used simultaneously on the field. Does the attack compensate? It doesn’t seem particularly from Keene yet. It’s still a long way from the level of TJ Shorts in Paris.

It would be interesting to see if Prometheus’ recent experience signing Davon Reed would be explored if they were invited. Like Keane and March, the American defender came to the club as the top scorer in the French championship. However, he did not perform as well in Prometheus and was sent home soon after. Perhaps the players in the French Pro A League should be examined in more detail; They are talented, individually strong, but often have excessive play and personal egoism, which hinders their integration into the team.

It is already clear that Prometheus wants to build a more challenging team than last season. But then instead of signing a contract with representatives of the French middle peasants or a player who has no experience of playing in Europe, even from the NBA, why not invite experienced players with a lot of matches in European cups to the team? It’s always a lottery.

Of course, it is stupid and wrong to put all the blame on the Polish coach. He is not alone in management. There is a selection department, and the signing of this or that basketball player is tightly coordinated with the coaching staff and top management of Prometheus. But Bronislaw Wawrzynczyk’s first pancake turned out to be lumpy.

Constant injuries in the team

It is difficult to find a team in European elite basketball that suffers so much and regularly due to injuries to its players. Basketball fans correct me in the comments if I’m wrong, but the team where injuries often destroy athletes is neither in the Euroleague, nor in the European Cup, nor in the FIBA ​​​​Champions League.

Prometheus’ infirmary has not been empty since the middle of last season. Never. At least one player is always there. Yes, injury is unpredictable and anything can happen. But how can we not remember the ordinary: once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern. And in “Prometheus” there were already four, five and six. At the end of last season, the “Titans” often played with seven players. If we consider in general the players who spent the last playing year in Prometheus, there will be almost no one left who will complete this year without various injuries. Now the situation has taken a new turn. Issouf Sanon has already managed to return to the field from injury, and Davon Reed continues his sick leave after several games this season, and it is still unclear what the current NBA champion is like.

Moreover, in Prometheus, players suffer very serious injuries that knock them out for a long time. DJ Kennedy and Denis Lukashov suffered this way last season, and now the situation has repeated itself with Lithuanian Arnoldas Kulboka. One of the key players on the new team (as planned) will most likely not play in Prometheus this season. Without being inside the team, it is difficult to evaluate what the medical service does and what the criteria for work are, but there are many questions for this, since the number of injuries in the Slobozhansky club is abnormally high.

***

After the weak-willed defeat of the French “Paris”, club president Vladimir Dubinsky announced changes in the team. Yesterday, “Prometheus” lost in sensational fashion to the Latvian “Ogre” at LEBL – 76:85, and it looks like the time for these changes has definitely come. We still have enough time to fix the situation, but we need to start changing something (or someone) now. Otherwise it will be too late and the team will risk failing for the entire season. Of course, a lot of critical arrows are flying at the Slobozhan team (which includes this text) at the moment, but I wish the team and the organization as a whole to successfully overcome this difficult moment. The overwhelming number of fans of the orange ball in Ukraine, as well as the author of these lines himself, are eagerly awaiting the return of that “Prometheus”, who returned to our high European Cup expectations in basketball and the joy of victory in the international arena. .