Sarunas Jasikevicius on NBA: 'For me, basketball is unbearable there' / News - Basketnews.com

Jasikevicius said that he can't watch the NBA regular season. He thinks the young players are given too much power straight away and coaches should have more influence than they have now.

Credit: Tolga Adanali/Euroleague Basketball via Getty Images Credit Tolga Adanali/Euroleague Basketball via Getty Images

Sarunas Jasikevicius is known to be one of the European coaching stars. He's notorious for his pre-game preparation and tactics both before and during the game. Talking about the other side of the Atlantic, the Lithuanian coach doesn't bode well with the game that's being played there.

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In an interview with the Spanish news agency EFE, Jasikevicius revealed that NBA basketball is not pleasant for him to watch, especially during the regular season.

"The NBA is a type of basketball where only the owners should be happy, because the value of the franchises is skyrocketing and money comes from all over the world, especially from China and India. But I'm a basketball person and for me, basketball is unbearable there," he said. "The playoffs are something else but you can't watch the regular season."

"You can't go with the mentality they have. They don't practice, it's a completely different world. It seems they do little to improve. It's a business in its purest form," Saras continued. "There are 22 franchises that always have problems getting into the playoffs, and are constantly improvising. And there are eight who do know what they are doing, who follow a plan and an idea together with the players and coaches."

The Lithuanian coach argued that the idea of drafting a player who's not even 20 years old and centering the entire franchise around him is wrong. According to the current FC Barcelona specialist, coaches should get more power than they have at the moment.

"The environment is very important for any player. Taking all the power away from the coach, who's the person who thinks about the team the most, doesn't make sense. They're giving power to 18- or 19-year-olds," Saras explained. "With Lebron James, you have to take off your hat. He has been able to manage all this and get good results wherever he has gone. But how many cases like this are we talking about?"

"They change coaches and general managers just for the boy to be comfortable, but the first thing is to teach this boy what the path is, how to be a normal person, what the values are, ​​and all this," Jasikevicius said. You cannot give him the key to the city ​​right away at 18, and when you sometimes see this in the NBA, it's very hard to take."

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