Ettore Messina met the media in his first day as Coach and President of the Basketball Operations of Olimpia Milan. Here’s the transcript, edited for convenience.
The choice to come to Milan – “After being Coach Popovich’s assistant for five years, I had reached the point where I had the desire to return to coaching. Having the chance to do it with trusted people and the right criteria for me was the most important thing. It is not a matter of control or power, but of not wasting nervous energy in situations where you do not have the possibility to relate to people you trust. Maybe they will tell me that I am fooling around, but through dissent, we always come to a point that is shared by everybody “.
From the Spurs to Milan – “When I decided to go to work for Coach Popovich, I was experiencing similar feeling, I wanted to work with certain people, like him, RC Buford, Manu Ginobili. The Spurs for me were the organization with the highest values in terms of doing things right, and together. The idea that I could be the heir or to coach somewhere else was born during that time, but I would like to immediately eliminate the thought that I’m here because I did not get a head coaching job in the NBA and so I was upset. It would be a human feeling, but we are talking about two completely different things. Coaching alone would not have interested me. But to coach, and to choose, to coordinate people, this is what convinced me, but at the end of the day I will coach: exactly like Popovich is doing in San Antonio. RC Buford is the one who does the job, except that Popovich has the last word on everything, on a player’s signing, on a trade, on strategies. The hope is to never use a veto power, because the machine should go on with an eye present, but not obsessive. I don’t want to be like this, I’ll already have my problems coaching the team “.
His responsibilities – “I feel the burden of having to do things right, because the expectations of owners and fans are very high, it’s human, it’s fair. But I also know that you can’t skip steps, some are physiological, you can’t go running all of a sudden to save time. But from the first day the team has to go on the court playing the right way, making people understand that we’re moving in the right direction. ”
What should we do on the court – “I do not want to look back, for me this is day one. What we should do, and I don’t have to say it, because it’s the same for every winning team in the world, is very simple: you have to defend like you are possessed, pass the ball, take responsibility.”
The organization – “Winning the Italian championship and making the playoffs in the EuroLeague is only possible through the right behavior of people, how you prepare yourself, how you practice, nothing is new. If it does not happen, obviously we have a problem. Soon, we will have a person working for the club, but right now we have Alberto Rossini, who is a crucial part of this club, there are people who work in the various departments, Mario Fioretti and the other assistants. I mean that we are not still, we are working.”
The Italian league and the EuroLeague seen from his vantage point – “The Italian league is competitive, then understanding whether the level of the games is going up or down is not relevant, but certainly if you do not put in preparation and commitment you can lose any time, and I know that winning is never easy. The EuroLeague is very competitive. Every year it loses players in favor of the NBA, it’s struggling to replace them, especially the young guys sometimes opt to stay in the G-League and wait for their time. But it is competitive, the arenas are full, the organization is very well run and the playoffs, the Final Four, are a very beautiful show. Europe in general is facing important problems, tensions, but Italy is my country, I have important people here, and I want to work to make sure that I can do something to help and maybe it is important in some ways”.
The Spurs way – “During the five years that I spent there, many have visited the Spurs, coaches and managers came, from Italy and from anywhere, but very few came to see the aspect that for me is the more interesting, I mean the work of the performance group, all the people who work for players and coaches, who study workloads, nutrition, recovery, injuries, playing time. This is the new frontier: to allow players, who are important and cost so much, to be productive, efficient and healthy for as many games as possible, avoiding injuries, or poorly managed workloads. I would like to get closer to that world in this aspect, I think I can do it, studying a play or a defense, we can do it on video. What happens behind the scenes for me is really important “.
Roster depth – “We are thinking about that. We have a budget that can be used for a large number of mid-level players or concentrate on a few better players and maybe complete the roster with young guys. There are different strategies on which we will think hard. Yesterday I started to talk to the players, I want to look them all in the face, and after doing so I will get a clear idea of what can be useful or not useful to the team “.
How to manage so many competitions – “I had the luck and the honor of working with the best of them all. He is a guy with a great ability to relate to people. He has an emotional intelligence that has always struck me. Popovich in the game has a gift for understanding when to push, when to slow the tempo down, and for managing workloads. I have seen things that I can use to keep the team at a good level all year round, physically. The key difference is that the emotional load of games in Europe is different. In the NBA losing three games is a serious problem but it is not dramatic. In Europe it is. It is important not to be affected by the previous game and by what could happen in the next. It would only waste mental energy. We must play one game at a time “.
About the new assistant coach – “Massimo Cancellieri chose to be a head coach before I came, there will be a new entry and he could be an American coach. We will be hiring him soon, it’s a possibility”.
Olimpia roster and the right way to play – “There are players under contract, there are contracts that have been renewed, some situations are favorable. I have coached some of these players. Many of them, I don’t even know them. There will be no revolutions. We are not going to start from the scratch. There are years in which you start well and everything looks beautiful, but something happens and everything changes in a second. Other times it’s the other way around. I’d like to be ready right away, but I don’t know if it’s realistic. Diving on the floor, and passing the ball is mandatory. The winning teams do it. If you don’t do it, sometimes you can win, maybe, but the effort, the attempt to play correctly, I want to see it immediately. “
How did he change after five years in San Antonio? – “The Spurs are the best sports organization in the world, and I’m not the only one thinking that, because they respect simple values that people try to follow every day, respect, the ability not to take themselves too seriously, the willingness to take responsibility without discharging them, unselfishness. Respect must be the same for the President and for the equipment manager. It is easy to respect the powerful. But I saw respect everywhere, when I spotted Tim Duncan and when I met the video guy. Similar behaviors correspond to similar treatments and the better you are and the more responsibility you have. In my imagination working there was a dream. It wasn’t always a cakewalk, but after an outburst every relationship was saved. It wasn’t easy to leave that behind, but I did it because I would like those things to happen here too. But they won’t happen in a day.”
The 2011 negotiation with Olimpia – “In 2011 I talked with Livio Proli about the possibility to come here and coach, but it was a particular moment for me from a personal point of view. There was the possibility of doing a year in Los Angeles, let’s say a sabbatical or some kind of regeneration, and with my wife we decided to do it and not take on as big a responsibility as coaching Olimpia Milan. Livio Proli understood the situation. Our life could have changed, of course. Each of us can be demanding with himself in more or less obsessive ways, but after five years with the Spurs I hope to be less obsessive, I have always admired those who appreciate the journey and not the final result, while I have always been very dramatic in defeats and moderately satisfied in victories because I was already worrying by what could happen next. Now, I would like to enjoy the journey a little more: in this Popovich is a master. If I managed to learn a little about this, I could be a better coach for my players and for Olimpia “.
Gregg Popovich – “It has fascinated me to see how he and RC Buford, the general manager, interacted. I talked a lot with RC about this, especially during the last week. He has an ability, experienced over the years, to work for Coach Popovich. The greatness of the Spurs is that every morning we got up thinking about what we could do to allow Popovich to think only about basketball. It was not a written rule, it was a pleasure we all had. It was his greatness, to lead everyone behind him. Buford is the first to understand what is needed. And we shared the decisions. I do not compare myself to Popovich, but in my small way I would like to be like this. ”
The Italian players role – “If Messina does not do well, I will fire him and take another coach. I honestly don’t have the energy to think about what happened here, it’s a useless exercise, while it’s more productive to think about what can do now. Even when I was in Russia I was not able to distinguish between players of different nationalities. I only distinguished between those who can play and those who cannot, and those who are cooperative and those who are not. People identify with the attitude, not with passports, here we have had Arthur Kenney, Mason Rocca, the great Mike D’Antoni, Bob McAdoo and his famous dive. They weren’t Italian. Bruno Cerella was. The passport doesn’t count”.
Kawhi Leonard – “I was with him for four years, including the one in which he played a few games and also with Danny Green. On a sport level I thought about what would have happened if they stayed with us, how close we would have been to a championship. Personally, I was pleased to see them win. ”
