"Dumars absolutely in love with Obradovic"

[triplet1984]

Hmm. Is Joe interested because he thinks Obradovic is great...

or is Joe interested because no US coach worth a damn wants to work for Joe?

[Pharaoh]

Hmm. Is Joe interested because he thinks Obradovic is great...

or is Joe interested because no US coach worth a damn wants to work for Joe?

Honestly hadn't thought of that but it could be true.

Who has interviewed for the position? Hunter and who?

[mercury]

We might be underestimating the culture difference and the fact that Money players run this show not dictators.

[Gokey Balboa]

IF Obradovic was an American and instead of having all these league titles they were playoff appearances would we even have a chance to sign him?

The comparisons have gone from Phil Jackson (the article did call him the Phil Jax of Europe) to Sloan and Pop... but maybe Larry Brown is closer to the truth?

Obradovic has moved from this league to that league, from this team to that team and always wins! Sloan and Pop didn't moved around and prove to be winners in every possible scenario - they rode great players for a decade and look like legends because of it.

Nothing wrong with that, I'm just stating the obvious.

Larry Brown moved around all the time, coached different talents everywhere and more often than not his teams won enough to make the playoffs.

I don't see any other candidiate that can deliver what Obradovic might be able to deliver... he's my guy

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZwaTbdKqgU[/youtube]

This video shows that. Some familiar faces are there, too.
True highlights are on 13:00 - crowd reaction was epic. So far, ZO won big trophies in his 1st season in every single club where he had worked. But big question is: what will he do if he fails to deliver in first season?
I can imagine amount of pressure he would be exposed from fans or guys like S.A.Smith or Skip Bayless who don't know nothing about real basketball. That would be the test Obradovic never had to face and I don't think that he would know how to deal with it.

[Piston Pete]

ZO!

I like it!

[GeorgeLovesCats]

As someone who watches Euroleague week in week out I feel I'm fairly well qualified to weigh in here.

The main thing you should know about Zeljko is that his basketball knowledge is probably unrivalled by anyone, he is verging on obsessive compulsion with his memory and knowledge of players, plays etc. as such he demands dedication and discipline from his players.in terms of offence he is extremely flexible about what his teams run and will make an offence work with the players he's been given, he's built his teams around first Dejan Bodiroga and second Dimitris Diamantidis. He's a great player developer just look at Nick Calathes,who has just won the MVP of the Eurocup competition, he played two years under Zeljko and now looks like one of the premier guards in Europe, if you look at the video in the FIBA coaching archives of him doing a seminar on Pick and Roll offence and he specifically mentions how he tailored his offence to get the best out of Calathes when he was a ball handler in the PNR. I think the best comparison for Obradovic is Sir Alex Ferguson (Manchester United football coach) in that both have fiery tempers, do. It tolerate insubordination from their players and are extremely flexible in integrating players into their teams. Furthermore I think there is almost 0% chance of Dimitris Diamantidis leaving Panathinaikos, he's the type of guy who takes his holidays back to his hometown and gets homesick on away trips. On the other hand, Antonis Fotsis, who is also a FA this summer I could see coming over to play for Zeljko.

The problems I see him encountering are two fold and kind of linked together, the first of which is that it doesn't seem that Detroit has the sharpest set of knives in the box in terms of player intelligence outside of maybe Calderon and Monroe and the second is that here in Europe teams train every day, sometimes for 5-6 hours at a time, and the NBA seems to train a lot less, which could lead to players not being able to get his systems quickly enough.

As for those of you saying his English isn't good enough, he speaks with a pretty thick Serbian accent which is probably swaying your judgement, he's fluent in English and has coached a lot of Americans with PAO, in addition Dimitris Itoudis (his Assisstant) speaks pretty much perfect English, he even writes a regular column in English on Euroleague.net.


So yeah apologies for this being a little bit of an essay, if you want to ask me anything about it I'll do my best to answer.

[Joe Berry]

sign me up, why settle for a mediocre US coach, when you can get a coach like this caliber, its worth a shot.

It sure would create some excitement, how his coaching philosophy would fit with the NBA style and roster.

Again i doubt Dumars will take that risk, but it could be worth it.

[DetroitSho]

As someone who watches Euroleague week in week out I feel I'm fairly well qualified to weigh in here.

The main thing you should know about Zeljko is that his basketball knowledge is probably unrivalled by anyone, he is verging on obsessive compulsion with his memory and knowledge of players, plays etc. as such he demands dedication and discipline from his players.in terms of offence he is extremely flexible about what his teams run and will make an offence work with the players he's been given, he's built his teams around first Dejan Bodiroga and second Dimitris Diamantidis. He's a great player developer just look at Nick Calathes,who has just won the MVP of the Eurocup competition, he played two years under Zeljko and now looks like one of the premier guards in Europe, if you look at the video in the FIBA coaching archives of him doing a seminar on Pick and Roll offence and he specifically mentions how he tailored his offence to get the best out of Calathes when he was a ball handler in the PNR. I think the best comparison for Obradovic is Sir Alex Ferguson (Manchester United football coach) in that both have fiery tempers, do. It tolerate insubordination from their players and are extremely flexible in integrating players into their teams. Furthermore I think there is almost 0% chance of Dimitris Diamantidis leaving Panathinaikos, he's the type of guy who takes his holidays back to his hometown and gets homesick on away trips. On the other hand, Antonis Fotsis, who is also a FA this summer I could see coming over to play for Zeljko.

The problems I see him encountering are two fold and kind of linked together, the first of which is that it doesn't seem that Detroit has the sharpest set of knives in the box in terms of player intelligence outside of maybe Calderon and Monroe and the second is that here in Europe teams train every day, sometimes for 5-6 hours at a time, and the NBA seems to train a lot less, which could lead to players not being able to get his systems quickly enough.

As for those of you saying his English isn't good enough, he speaks with a pretty thick Serbian accent which is probably swaying your judgement, he's fluent in English and has coached a lot of Americans with PAO, in addition Dimitris Itoudis (his Assisstant) speaks pretty much perfect English, he even writes a regular column in English on Euroleague.net.


So yeah apologies for this being a little bit of an essay, if you want to ask me anything about it I'll do my best to answer.

My man this is some good information. No need to apologize.

[BadMofoPimp]

At this point, you just go for broke. Because, this team has nothing to lose after all they have gone thru the past few years.

[Cowology]

Hmm. Is Joe interested because he thinks Obradovic is great...

or is Joe interested because no US coach worth a damn wants to work for Joe?

Yes.

[BadMofoPimp]

Hmm. Is Joe interested because he thinks Obradovic is great...

or is Joe interested because no US coach worth a damn wants to work for Joe?

Yes.

LOL. Both!

[cloudXXI]

This guy sounds much more like Sloan

Agree 100%

And for the people worrying about english, the last 13 years of his carreer, he has coached in english. He doesn´t speak greek and he spoke in english with his players. And they won 4 euroleagues, so I guess they understood something.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jKA0lgFhqY[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgwFGY-nuuE[/youtube]

[JWFan]

This guy sounds much more like Sloan

Agree 100%

And for the people worrying about english, the last 13 years of his carreer, he has coached in english. He doesn´t speak greek and he spoke in english with his players. And they won 4 euroleagues, so I guess they understand something.

I'm all for hiring Obradovic, but honestly I had a hard time understanding half of what he was saying in those videos.