Patrick Beverley's NBA habits sometimes make him hard to coach, Hapoel's head coach Stefanos Dedas says, but Beverley is receptive and eager to be coached.
Hapoel Shlomo Tel Aviv, with Patrick Beverley at their forefront, are seen as the favorites to win the EuroCup this season and advance to the EuroLeague the following year. Having so many big-name players on the squad comes with an extra caveat.
Patrick Beverley
| Team: |
Hapoel Shlomo Tel Aviv |
| Position: | PG |
| Age: | 36 |
| Height: | 185 cm |
| Weight: | 84 kg |
| Birth place: | Chicago, United States of America |
Beverley, Johnathan Motley, Bruno Caboclo, Marcus Foster, Noam Yaacov, Ish Wainright, Oz Blayzer, and Ben Bentil have all either played in the EuroLeague or have the accolades to play there. The team's head coach, Stefanos Dedas, says that it's sometimes difficult to handle everyone.
"No, [they are] not easy [to coach]," he said in the Podium House's Shoot podcast with Shai Hausman and Jova Gros. "Beverley is not easy to coach because he has some habits from the NBA. We talk every day with him. He says, 'Coach me, coach me, curse me out!' I say, 'Don't give me this [opportunity], it's what I love.'"
"I had to change Patrick's mentality about the preseason. It doesn't count in the NBA, but here, it counts. You need to win, you need to collect the credit that the play is good and the roster is good," he explained. "The result matters only during the night of the game, but you have a good feeling because you played well."
The podcast featured a lengthy discussion about who's team it really is, with Dedas saying he might change his ways depending on the way each game goes.
"Nobody says he's a one-man show player because he was never like this," Dedas said about Beverley. "He has the mentality of a high-level role player, guarding the opponent's best player, drive-kick, pass to the shooter. He knows the job very well."
Hapoel's budget more than doubled compared to the previous season. Nevertheless, Dedas says that the plan to bring in high-profile players and revamp the roster was there all along, regardless of how the season ends.
"Even if we had won the championship last year, there would've been celebrations, history [would've been made], but we still would have a better roster today, and we'd discuss the same thing: how to control the roster, how to go to the EuroLeague. It's never enough. It doesn't change the club's plan for this season. Even if we win the trophy, we won't play in the EuroLeague, we'll play in the EuroCup. We would have the same roster, or similar. Maybe more players would've stayed. But it didn't change the future of the team," Dedas said. "For sure, we wanted to win, but we are here to change it [this season]."
"When I grow [as a coach], I try to convince myself that it's not important to have big names or good offensive players. You need to have soldiers. All the good periods that I've had with my teams were with good soldiers, good chemistry," he explained.
Hapoel's first official game of the new season comes against Joventut Badalona on September 24th in the EuroCup in Spain.
Full 'Shoot' podcast with Stefanos Dedas:
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