Woj: Masai Ujiri interviewed Zalgris (Lithuania) coach Sarunas Jasikevicius

[NinjaBro]

Another thing regarding Jasikevicius, he had a final say in the roster moves of Zalgiris. He coached the team that was constructed by him and the Zalgiris GM.

Bro whats your insight/opinion on this dude? I know nothing of him.

Didnt see that many games of him but he is a very agressive coach. Meaning he will get plenty of techs from NBA refs. Alsso he holds every player accountable - so if say DD or JV misses defensive assignement he will bench his ass and can even scream in his face how much of an useless idiot he is.

As far as his tactics go - he really likes forcing others adopt to him rather than adopting himself to others. Doesnt like iso and wants ball movement usually accompanied with number of screens. And he always want max from a player. Doenst matter is a player is his team's star or his personal friend - he will bench his ass if he feels he isnt bringing what he wants.

I can't take no more.

[shmoosicle]

I like this.

[Inevitable]

Thespy like

HOOOOO MAN

you're goddamn right.

Saras is a legend. what he achieved with Zalgiris this season with overmatched players + no budget was incredibly impressive.

Has he ever coached a 'talented' team? It feels like the reason he is fiery and takes a no nonsense approach and holds everyone accountable is cause due to the lack of talent, and being underdogs with tiny margins of error. I'm sure even with a talented team he would be, but to a lesser degree. I don't think he would be screaming in the faces of top tier talent in the NBA.

[Alfred]

This would be amazing but that **** doesn't fly in the NBA... Stars run the show.

And it is why NBA will never see coaches like coach K into the league.

Also why they give Coach K carte blanche on the US Men's National Team. He can cut whoever he wants to (even a guy like LeBron).

[bon]

Someone posted the reddit thread earlier. (https://www.reddit.com/r/torontoraptors/comments/8jztwi/want_an_external_coach_here_is_the_option_for_you/)

Just skimmed through it and found this gem:

Also he is the goat at after timeout plays, 2nd in euroleague after CSKA, which has the biggest budget (Žalgiris budget is 15th out of 16 teams). Fun fact, he called the most timeouts and substitutes amongs all euroleague coaches.

I'm sold. Casey was the woat at after timeout plays.

The # of times we'd struggled to inbound the ball after timeouts, during Casey's tenure, was insane.

If anything changes, please make that change.

I'll never forget that FVV halfcourt heave after a timeout in Game 3

[WeTheNorth123]

What do we know about his coaching style and systems? How does he deal with players?

WOW this is far and wide coaching search.

https://www.amazon.com/win-not-enough-life-basketball-ebook/dp/B017DPZVM6

Watch on YouTube

I'll be disgusted if we sign Nurse or Stack over him.

100% people going crazy over a 905 championship by Stack.....what Sarunas did is much harder to do

[ATLTimekeeper]

It's not just yelling, but no GM wants to bring in someone that is likely to put their big contracts in suits. Coaching is just way more than accountability and Xs and Os in the NBA.

[Fairview4Life]

This would be amazing but that **** doesn't fly in the NBA... Stars run the show.

And it is why NBA will never see coaches like coach K into the league.

Also why they give Coach K carte blanche on the US Men's National Team. He can cut whoever he wants to (even a guy like LeBron).

Lol, I bet that carte blanche would be a carte **** noir pretty quickly if coach K tried to cut Lebron.

[alienchild]

This would be amazing but that **** doesn't fly in the NBA... Stars run the show.

And it is why NBA will never see coaches like coach K into the league.

Also why they give Coach K carte blanche on the US Men's National Team. He can cut whoever he wants to (even a guy like LeBron).

And no NBA team will pay Coach K the money he's getting. I heard 8.89 million.

[WeTheNorth123]

It's not just yelling, but no GM wants to bring in someone that is likely to put their big contracts in suits. Coaching is just way more than accountability and Xs and Os in the NBA.

I think he is smart enough to adjust...considering he knows the culture....he went to high school, collage in the states and played in the NBA

Us fans in realgm know you cant go all out on NBA players so you can bet a professional like him knows

[Duffman100]

Someone posted the reddit thread earlier. (https://www.reddit.com/r/torontoraptors/comments/8jztwi/want_an_external_coach_here_is_the_option_for_you/)

Just skimmed through it and found this gem:



I'm sold. Casey was the woat at after timeout plays.

The # of times we'd struggled to inbound the ball after timeouts, during Casey's tenure, was insane.

If anything changes, please make that change.

I'll never forget that FVV halfcourt heave after a timeout in Game 3

It's why our players looked genuinely frustrated when we'd be bringing the ball up, to run a play and Casey would call a timeout. No faith that we'd produce a good look, late in the game.

[Sakkreth]

I like him, but I feel like Demar and Kyle won’t listen to him.

Ohh yes they **** would, u don't know his character.

[BackseatBoss]

Oh man, do I like the idea of this! After initially hearing that Stack and Nurse were the main people to take over for Casey I was incredibly disappointed. But after saying that Messina and now Sarunas are in the running, I’m extremely excited. This guy is a young, forward thinking coach that holds everyone accountable. I doubt that he would make the same mistakes against the Cavs that the great Casey did. Also, this guy is a freaking winner. Did you see how much he has won as a player? In his second season coaching already brought his team, which was basically the poorest team in the league, to the final four. That’s insane. Masai needs to jump on this and do it quick. I really hope that it will be either Sarunas or Messina, god forbid Nurse or Stack, I want someone with a fresh way of looking at things.

[MavCarter]

If the raptors hire him there's no way they put the "winning" expectations on him in his first year. Not even the celtics put that on brad stevens, they tanked his first 2 years. Raptors are probably going to do the disappointing thing and hire nurse while trying to "win" next year, whatever that means.

[Alfred]

And it is why NBA will never see coaches like coach K into the league.

Also why they give Coach K carte blanche on the US Men's National Team. He can cut whoever he wants to (even a guy like LeBron).

Lol, I bet that carte blanche would be a carte **** noir pretty quickly if coach K tried to cut Lebron.

They almost did cut LeBron in 2008 if I remember correctly. They were concerned about his ego and behind the scenes drama.

[HankMoody69]

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Textbook Jasikevicius attacking philosphy. Ball movement and mismatches exploitation are two main keys. Zalgiris players very rarely try to play 1 on 1.

1 on 1 play is still crucial in today's league with all the switching. The best teams switch 1 through 5 and take you out of your offense.

Yeah, having that in mind I mentioned mismatches exploitation. Maybe I wasn't fully clear talking about 1 on 1 situations. I had in mind straight up situations 5 vs 5, 4 vs 4, 1 vs 1 and etc. Of cource if you have Harden or similar type player, you have to make an exception.
Jasikevicius values high percentages shots above anything else. Zalgiris was leading Euroleague in 3pt percentage, but at the same time was at the bottom in attempted 3's per game. If opposition teams switch 5 on Zalgiris 1, Saras always wanted that PG would pass the ball to 5, who had smaller player on him. Zalgiris didn't have good 1 on 1 players in the backourt. So Saras always chose high percentages shoot from the paint as his first option in the mismatches situations.

[NinjaBro]

With him as coach we won't be seeing Love posting up Miles for 10 straight possessions basket after basket before our coaching staff makes a change that's for damn sure.

[Kevin Willis]

Holy crap, this is what I call news, Zalgiris is my favorite Euroleague team, he did an amazing job this season.

Altho he is very young, he is kinda oldschool authoritarian type of coach. He is not afraid of getting in players' faces, always on his feet yelling something to his players who are on the court. But he has personality to pull that act off, dude screams leader, different than Blatt in that area.

In your face coaches can still work. Pop is never one to tread lightly. Udoka said that the one thing he took away from Pop was how much he cared about his players. I think if guys know you're really there for them, they'll go to hell and back for you and not get offended when you're rough on them.
I'm very curious as to what led Masai to expand his search to the European leagues.

I think he wasn't impressed with what he saw. A lot of guys are similar - Udoka/Stackhouse are former players with fight and learning how to coach. Former assistant coaches. Former G-League coaches. Former mature European coaches. Masai probably has a feeling on the type of coach he wants and he wanted to look elsewhere for it. I'm down with his choice if he feels that way.

[Zhilvis]

It's not just yelling, but no GM wants to bring in someone that is likely to put their big contracts in suits. Coaching is just way more than accountability and Xs and Os in the NBA.

I think he is smart enough to adjust...considering he knows the culture....he went to high school, collage in the states and played in the NBA

Us fans in realgm know you cant go all out on NBA players so you can bet a professional like him knows

And this knowledge will preserve him to sign with any NBA team in near future.

[Denisaur9]

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