Drew Nicholas on handling stress at PAO, Obradovic's uniqueness, relationship with Saras / News - Basketnews.com

Drew Nicholas recounts to BasketNews certain episodes that defined his three-year stint with Panathinaikos, which was accompanied by stress, Zeljko Obradovic's genius, great teammates, and many titles. He also explores his relationship with Sarunas Jasikevicius and Vassilis Spanoulis, Campazzo's inability to stay in the NBA, and the reasons his own career didn't last long.

Credit: Ales Fevzer/Euroleague Basketball via Getty Images Credit Ales Fevzer/Euroleague Basketball via Getty Images

On his first visit to OAKA after roughly eleven months, Drew Nicholas came across a familiar situation. The retired player, who used to wreak havoc on opposing defenses in the 2000s, watched Panathinaikos Athens take on their main rivals Olympiacos Piraeus last Sunday.

Free throws this season

74%15,8Points made:15,8Accuracy:74,4%Place in standings:4Record max:26Record min:5Most made FTs:Dwayne BaconTeamEuroLeagueStatisticsSchedule

But it wasn't just the setting, the atmosphere, or even some faces that rang a bell for the EuroLeague's top scorer in 2006. It was also Arturas Gudaitis struggling from the free-throw line. PAO's big man hit four of his seven attempts as a crowd of 8.000 was cheering him on.

And even though Gudaitis has managed to improve his effectiveness when executing alone, having converted 11 of his last 13 free throws in the EuroLeague, his percentages hardly resemble his old glory.

The Klaipeda-born center used to be a fairly reliable shooter from the stripe for at least five straight seasons (2016-21) while he was playing with Rytas Vilnius in the EuroCup and then with Olimpia Milano and Zenit Saint Peterburg in the EuroLeague.

However, his accuracy plummeted to 50% last year.

"Sometimes, it's more of a psychological thing, not whether you're a good shooter or not. I had some seasons with 80%, and I think nothing's changed since then. I just need to be, I don't know, psychologically strong," Gudaitis told BasketNews a couple of months ago.

Drew Nicholas' case was even more peculiar. Holding a career average of 39.1% from behind the 3-point arc, he didn't surpass 67% from the 4.5-meter distance in any of his last five seasons, including the three with PAO.

It seemed that the New York-born guard, a perennial threat when it came to long-distance shooting, never managed to grow into an equally great free-throw executer. It's a rare case, but it happens.

Nicholas confirms that the whole situation looks funny, albeit not inexplicable.

Panathinaikos Athens / Schedule

LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne Panathinaikos Athens82-86 Panathinaikos Athens FC BarcelonaThu18:30 Panathinaikos Athens FC Bayern Munich03-2817:30

"If you go back and look at my career, I was a really good free-throw shooter in college, up until my year in Treviso (2005-06)," the prolific scorer reflected in discussion with BasketNews that took place the following day of the Greek derby.

"After that, I couldn't get comfortable at the free-throw line. It was weird. It kind of became like a mental block for me because I'd put way too much pressure every time I stepped up to the line."

Credit Rodolfo Molina/Euroleague Basketball via Getty Images

Nicholas knew everyone thought of him as a great shooter. Hence, people expected him to make free throws. Not the best recipe for someone who would often second-guess himself whenever sent to the foul line.

"Honestly, it was something I struggled with for the rest of my career," he admitted.

"Before that, I was an 80-85% shooter, and then I went down to like 60%. On the outside, it doesn't make much sense. But it's one of those mental things that, unless you've been through it, you can't understand. It can be really difficult."

Nicholas, now 41, almost got to the point of hoping opponents wouldn't foul him.

"There used to be a time when I'd have a bad shooting game, and I'd think, 'Let me go to the free-throw line, so I can see the ball going in the basket.' After that, I was like, 'Do I really want to go to the free-throw line at this point?'

It's real. I think I could shoot the ball as well as anybody, but if you let it become a mind game, it gets very tricky," he argued.

Handling stress has been a big issue at Panathinaikos, dating back to the club's glory days when Pavlos and Thanasis Giannakopoulos were in charge. A night out - especially after a painful loss - could cause major turmoil in the ranks of a EuroLeague title contender.

The summer of 2008 was pretty busy for both Olympiacos and Panathinaikos, who signed the likes of Josh Childress, Nikola Vujcic, Theo Papaloukas, Drew Nicholas, Antonis Fotsis, and Nikola Pekovic, to name just a few.

It was an era when papers and websites could spread rumors about Kobe Bryant or LeBron James, considering Europe as an option, and people would think there was indeed something going on.

Recently,Sarunas Jasikevicius made headlines in Greece and Spain when video and photo material of him having a night out in Athens with his wife and friends after Barcelona's loss to Olympiacos leaked on social media. Saras is a coach now, however, his public life wasn't less scrutinized when he was still playing.

Nicholas can't forget about how life off the court looked like when they were both in the Greek capital.

"It was something. Honestly speaking, we found the right balance. When you play for a club like PAO, it's stressful. At certain times, like after a big win, you might want to go out to release some of that stress. But I thought we always handled it in a professional way, and it never let us interrupt what we had to do on the court," the NCAA (2002) and two-time EuroLeague champ (2009, 2011) reflected.

It's always a delicate balance because fans and the media expect players to behave in a standard, prescribed way. A Panathinaikos player can't go unnoticed almost anywhere in Athens, whether it's the central part of the city or the suburbs.

Credit Wojciech Figurski/Euroleague Basketball via Getty Images

Nicholas thinks all the controversy surrounding his former teammate (2008-10) is completely unfair.

"Saras decided to go out with his wife and enjoy himself for one night. Now, there are rumors and speculations. He's a regular person like everybody else, and there's no need for that type of microscope," he pointed out.

"Like 'I saw Drew Nicholas the other day, and he was drunk.' There were times and places in which we could do those things, but there were times when we had to be at our utmost serious fashion and ready to win championships.

I don't think there's anything wrong with having a night out, as long as you're professional and you're ready to do your job to the best of your ability. You should be able to have a balance," he continued.

In the Zeljko Obradovic era at Panathinaikos (1999-2012), the Serbian coach was usually the first to know if one of his players had violated the club's internal regulations. The winningest tactician in EuroLeague history knew every single detail about where somebody had been the other night and what they had been doing.

To this day, Nicholas recalls spending three seasons with the Greens. It was all about surviving the first one.

"My first season was really tough, adjusting to Panathinaikos and coach Obradovic. In the beginning, I was trying to find a place on the team. We had so many different big players. It was a lot of moving pieces that all had to fit together as one.

At one point, I thought they were going to end up deciding to cut my contract and that I was going someplace else," the American ex-player and current Director of Scouting for the Denver Nuggets confided.

"I remember after one game, I played very badly, and then I decided to go out to handle my stress. Somebody - Obradovic - found out that I went out, and the next day in practice was very difficult."

Credit Wojciech Figurski/Euroleague Basketball via Getty Images

One would expect Nicholas to go through an ordeal, but that wasn't the case.

"The way he came at me in the video film was one to which I wanted to react. I had one of my best practices that day - not offensively, but defensively. And that was the turning point in the season. After that, I started to play much better."

The game-changing night for Nicholas was in Malaga against hosts Unicaja in a TOP 16 game in February 2009. Up until then, he only had one double-digit game out of 11 PAO's EuroLeague outings, whereas from that point on, he got to score at least 11 points in 8 of the 11 games left.

Of course, he remembers that game to this day.

"For sure, that was the decisive game for me. I remember me having a very good TOP 16 after that. It was very clear what my role and responsibility were. The trust that Obradovic had in me started to grow, and all was very easy."

Even though it did cross his mind that PAO could release him after a string of bad games, Nicholas never thought that Obradovic or Dimitris Itoudis questioned his talent. What's more, the in-team competition served him well.

"I had too much success before being a top scorer in the EuroLeague with Efes. I never thought I wasn't good enough, but every practice was always a fight, considering the guards that we had: me, [Vassilis] Spanoulis, Saras, and [Dimitris] Diamantidis. You can just imagine how it is to play with them every day."

However, an illustrious PAO stint that included three Greek championship titles, one Greek Cup trophy, and two EuroLeagues might have never come to being had Nicholas accepted one of the offers thrown at him after Efes decided to let him go in the spring of 2008.

His choice not to follow the team to the game against Partizan in Belgrade, in compliance with the US government's decision, made the prominent guard a free agent.

He briefly negotiated with Maccabi Tel Aviv on a three-year contract offer, but the two sides didn't reach an agreement.

"It came down to choosing between Maccabi and Barcelona, who wanted to sign me only for the rest of that year," Nicholas remembered 15 years later.

"It was a more lucrative contract for that season, while Maccabi wanted me for a longer period of time. The money was good, but at the time, I was having a small problem with my knee, and I wasn't 100% ready.

After coming off that situation with Efes, I didn't want to go to a big club and risk it. So, I decided to stay in the States, make sure I get my knee back right and hope to find a good club for the following season."

Nicholas did just that, and it proved to be a wonderful and mutually beneficial match. What happened after, and Nicholas drew the curtain on his career at 32 is another chapter that the Maryland graduate recounted - among other stories and issues- in the lines you're about to read below.

What's your schedule like while in Europe?For the most part, just traveling around, going from country to country to watch different players and games. Obviously, this is a unique situation because I had the chance to see the derby game and also watch PAO against Barcelona, where I'll meet Saras, who's one of my good friends. It fits with my schedule.

On Wednesday, I'm going to Patras to watch our draft pick [Ismael] Kamagate. He's had a very good year. He's one of the top players in the French league. We're extremely pleased with the progress he's showing this year. In him, we see a player that can help us in the upcoming years.

Obviously, Wembanyama is getting a lot of hype and credit, which he fully deserves.

Which players currently in Europe could draw NBA looks?Dwayne Bacon is physically talented enough in order to play at the NBA level. He's done it for a couple of years.

At this point, there are guys you want to continue to watch and check whether they've made the next step in their game or not. It's one of those things where you have an eye for, and you know.

What people don't understand is that the top 20-25 players in the world, like Luka Doncic or Lebron James, are going to be the same regardless of the system. I was a different player at Benetton Treviso than when I was at Panathinaikos. You have to be able to fit in and find your place in the system.

Speaking about Brandon Jenning's case back in 2011, you said: "You can always go back to school. You don't always have the opportunity to go and make hundreds of thousands, or in his case millions of dollars, playing the game of basketball."

How likely is it for certain players to skip college and go pro, just like Scoot Henderson did?I think it's another avenue in which guys can make a decision for themselves. For a long period of time, that was the only way, and now kids can come overseas, go to Australia, and the G League, where they have the chance to make money.

Everybody likes to question that, but I always sit back and say, 'Hey, if an 18-year-old kid has the ability to decide if he wants to join the military, why are you going to tell somebody that they can't try to make money playing basketball?'

Last August, you were appointed director of scouting for the Denver Nuggets. Other than GM Calvin Booth's expressed desire/goal for the team to go tall, what do you think got Facundo Campazzo waved by the franchise?

Having been a EuroLeague guard yourself, what are NBA teams looking for in Europe nowadays, and is it so hard - especially for guards - to stick around in the NBA?I know that one of the things that our organization wants to do is become more of a defensive-minded team, also with size. We want to complement our main guys. Obviously, Facu is a great competitor and leader in many different ways.

But from an organizational standpoint, we're looking for a different archetype of what our guards should be and how we should play. I think that was probably the main reason he got waved.

Had he been a bit taller, he would have stayed in the league for sure. His talent and playing ability are undeniable.

But once you start to get towards the playoffs in the NBA, it becomes target basketball. No matter how tough you are, you'll always have to figure out ways to be effective at that size. So, you look at guys like him as a target.

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Who's the active player that reminds you of yourself the most? Who do you see as the most gifted scorer?It would have to be more of a shooter. I didn't have the talent and the ball skills of a guy like Mike James. We're different players. He's very much more creative than I was. I liked to move, come off screens, and shoot.

Over the course of a couple of years, you went from being the top scorer in the Italian second division with Fabriano (2004) to the EuroLeague's top gunner with Benetton Treviso (2006). How did you do that?It was simple. For me, the main factor was proving to everybody that I could have been an NBA player. And all of a sudden, I had to go to Italy, and I couldn't even start in the first division.

My salary was very low at the time. Selfishly speaking, if I ever heard of another American player that I was going to play against making more than me, all I wanted to do was go out and 'kill' him to prove my worth.

People always thought, 'He's too small to play in the first division.' The next year was like, 'He can't do it at a big club like Benetton that's playing at the EuroLeague level.' So, there was always something for me to prove back then.

What led you to Milan in 2011 while you had one more year on your contract with PAO?For sure, it was cutbacks. I and [Antonis] Fotsis had to leave. Our salaries were big at the time, and the budget had started to drop. I'm sure Obradovic and Itoudis saw the situation with my ankle that whole year, and that played a big part.

After you left PAO in 2011, you only played 18 EuroLeague games over the two seasons with Olimpia Milano and CSKA Moscow. At the same time, your numbers dropped significantly until you quit. How's that to explain?What people don't remember from my last year with PAO was that I sprained my ankle really bad early in the season against Olimpija Ljubljana in Slovenia. The coach and the staff knew that I was trying to play through it all the way until the end of the season. It just bothered me, and it never got right.

Even going into the next year in Milan, I struggled with it. The major turning point and what started the end of my career was that I got to a point after I left PAO where I felt I didn't have anything else to prove. I looked back at my career, and I said, 'Two EuroLeagues, one scoring title, everybody regarding me as one of the best shooting guards in Europe...'

After that, you can say that my desire started to wane a bit. I don't think people talk about it enough, but after you get 8-9 years of being away from your family for 10 months, all those different thoughts start to enter your mind.

Now, all of a sudden, you start to think about the end as opposed to being in the present. Once you start thinking about the end, it doesn't go well.

How was life and basketball in Milan and Moscow?It was difficult because I wasn't playing well. We weren't having as much success as when I was in PAO. Even though I got to play for two highly respected coaches in [Sergio] Scariolo and [Ettore] Messina, in my opinion, they still weren't Obradovic and Itoudis.

It was just a different level of preparation and trust. I played in Panathinaikos for that many years, and I adapted into my role. And when I came to Milan, it was almost like they wanted me to become the person I was before PAO - a scorer, a machine, and not necessarily within a system. I didn't think I could go ahead and adjust to that.

In which way did David Blatt, Zeljko Obradovic, Sergio Scariolo, and Ettore Messina try to get the best out of you?In different ways. I got to give David Blatt a lot of credit for giving me total freedom when I was at Benetton. Even in my year with Efes, he had a free-flowing style of play. He trusted me, and I could have the ball in my hands.

Zeljko was very different. Our roles were much more defined, and he wanted the game to be played in a certain way. But once he trusted you to do that, then he gave you freedom.

What kind of impression did Obradovic leave you with when you went to Belgrade last year? How do you think he manages to stay up-to-date and always be relevant?He's a basketball junkie. When he's not coaching, he's staying up until 3-4 o'clock in the morning, especially when NBA playoffs come on.

I'm sure that a guy with his basketball mind and expertise is constantly watching things, taking a little something from here and there, and analyzing situations. It's like a never-ending pursuit with him in regard to learning about the game and teaching it.

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He has almost ruled out that possibility, but would he have been able to coach in the NBA?It's so different over there. I'm not sure he would enjoy it as much. Now that I'm working there, I've got the chance to see how the NBA schedules are. There are so many games and almost no time to practice. I know that's one of the things he enjoys as opposed to just going from game to game.

The biggest thing about him is that I always trusted that he'd find the solution once we got to the playoffs or the Final Four. He had the time to analyze, make adjustments, and use different techniques based on our opponents. He always had an answer, like 'If they're playing drop or side, we're going to play like this.'

That was where he was head and shoulders above the rest.

Two of your former PAO teammates, Vassilis Spanoulis and Sarunas Jasikevicius, have become head coaches in Europe. Did you see the coach in them back then, where you were playing together?More so in Saras, not necessarily in Billy. I wasn't surprised at Billy because I know the type of competitor that he is. But I didn't have the feeling or the impression that he was going to become a coach.

Saras was a lot more tactical. He was crazy as a player, but Billy was driven at the time to be the best that he could be. I know Billy. Whatever he puts his mind to in life, he's as straight as an arrow.

Credit Vangelis Stolis

How did you and Saras come close?I just saw him last Friday because I was in Barcelona for the game against Red Star. He's a really good friend of mine, although we don't get the chance to see each other and speak as much as we did.

But one of the good things about true friendship is that I can go 4-5 years without seeing him or speaking to him, and if we sit down for a coffee or dinner, it's like we were together yesterday. Nothing ever changes.

Will you get to meet Spanoulis, too, while in Greece?Spanoulis and I haven't kept in touch that much ever since he left Panathinaikos and went to Olympiacos. That created some sort of divide.

I always had the utmost respect for Billy. I've said it many times: to me, he was the hardest worker I ever played with, bar none. Everything that he accomplished in his career, I saw with my own two eyes. It was nothing but hard work and dedication on a day-to-day basis, which was at a different level than everybody else's.

What do you think Panathinaikos have been lacking over the last years?A lot of things have changed. I can nominate some of them, but the team's budget comes first. Almost every year, the teams that make the Final Four, outside of one outlier every couple of years, were the top 5-6 budgets in Europe.

Those who can put together a solid, deep roster with an experienced head coach, have continuity and chemistry, build the system together piece by piece can be successful. That's something that Panathinaikos are still searching for right now.

I don't know how many coaches and front office people have been changed over the last X amount of years. When you're continuously searching, it isn't easy to have that sustained ability of success.

Credit Wojciech Figurski/Euroleague Basketball via Getty Images

Who would be the ideal coach for PAO?It's an interesting question. I'm not going to name anyone. But I know there are some people, who are coaches now out there, and also very willing to come back and try to help the club regain some of its prestige, as they did in the past.

Have you discussed the issue with Mike Batiste?Possibly. We'll never know (smiles).

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