After years of individual success, Shved is aiming for team trophies / News - Basketnews.com

Alexey Shved knows what it means to become a EuroLeague champion. He also knows how it feels to lose 17 games in a row. Yes, seventeen, that’s not a typo.

Alexey Shved

Team:CSKA MoscowPosition:SGAge:32Height:198 cmWeight:84 kgBirth place:Russian FederationProfileNewsStatistics

And to no one's surprise, he likes that feeling of winning much more than the losing.

So after suffering through the entire last season, he knew something had to change. Once the opportunity of transferring to a winning club came, he wanted it as badly as anyone.

"I talked to my agent and said that one team I want to be is CSKA," Shved said in an interview with BasketNews. "And I didn’t want to talk to other teams. I know I had offers from other teams, but I told my agent I don’t want to go anywhere, I want to be here."

He knew CSKA all too well. Shved played there from 2006 to 2012 and won EuroLeague in 2008. Yes, he was in and out of the team, being on loan to Dynamo Moscow and Khimki Moscow Region, but he had a solid 2011-12 campaign which opened the NBA doors.

After averaging 10.6 points in 21.6 minutes of action in EuroLeague, Shved signed with the Minnesota Timberwolves and played 77 games (16 starts) in his first season overseas.

He saw a diminished role in his second season, then was traded three times in his third year. The first trade happened in the offseason when he was sent to Philadelphia. Then in December, he was moved to Houston and from there, in February, to New York.

Knicks were losing and (probably) tanking but Shved got the most of it, scoring in double figures in 13 of 15 games played in the Big Apple. He scored a career-high 25 points on March 20th, 2015, but suffered a rib injury couple of days later, which ended his season earlier than expected.

After the season he received an offer from the Knicks to continue his NBA career, but Shved knew that he was done with the NBA.

Credit BasketNews/D.Repečka"When you have three trades in one year, you think ‘oh, come on, man’. Probably I didn’t like this."

"When you sign in Europe for two years, you know you are going to play there for two years. But if you sign there for two years, you can play for 6-7 teams. It’s really hard.

I'm not a guy who wants to sit on the bench and watch other guys play. I want to play."

So he came back to Russia after signing a three-year contract with Khimki for a reported $10.2 million.

Overall in Khimki, Shved played 6 seasons and displayed his offensive talents, which were crowned with two EuroLeague's top scorer (in 2018 and 2021) titles and one in EuroCup (2017).

However, those individual awards were not matched by team success. Last season Khimki won only 4 games out of 34 and at one point they lost 17 straight.

"I don't want to be in the same situation again," Shved admitted.

So he turned his attention to CSKA Moscow. Same country, same city, but completely different environment.

CSKA played in 9 straight EuroLeague final fours and won it all in 2016 and 2019.

Their coach, Dimitris Itoudis, is the all-time winningest Euroleague coach (76.4%).

"We talked three times before I signed the contract," Shved said about a multi-year deal. "He told me what he wants from me. I know he is a great coach, he knows basketball. Everybody trusts him. Anytime if you have a question, you can ask him, and he will answer. We know what he wants and how we can help him win EuroLeague or VTB. He is one of the best coaches in Europe and he knows his job, we just have to listen to him and help him."

You could not find more opposite situation to what it was in Khimki.

Shved was shooting over 9 three-pointers per game while playing for Khimki but now he will have to adapt to a different environment.

"Now it’s a different team, we play smarter here, try to find an open man to shoot or make a layup. I’m ready for everything here. I just want to win."

"For me, it’s much better. Because I know that guys are good players, they can take a ball and score one on one, pass the ball. It’s much easier to play when you have five guys on the court who think the same. Mentally for me, it’s not hard. I know where I go, what coach wants, what I want."

In the end, it's all about the thing that Shved missed the most during the last 6 years. It's all about winning.

"I know that CSKA always want to take the first place. This works for me, too."

Check out full interview with Shved:

Audio:

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