2024-25 Fenerbahce Istanbul
058 · 2025-05-26 · medium
"It's heavy." I always think about that December 2022 meeting at the Nikolić Hall press room in Belgrade, handing a grumpy then-Barcelona head coach Šarūnas Jasikevičius a hardcover copy of Zero Season. Every time I see him doing one of those mandatory in-game sideline interviews on EuroLeague TV, I say to myself: It's not just me.
"Jazzy Cabbages" has no time or patience for journalists of any kind; he'd rather be anywhere else, preferably doing what he does better than just about anybody on the planet: coach basketball. If he read the book, which I doubt, he'd find himself as one of its main interconnected protagonists and playable characters – the source of most of the 2004 U.S. Olympic "Nightmare Team"'s nightmares; the first international star to spurn NBA interest (at least initially); and a key reserve for 2003-04 continental champions Maccabi Tel Aviv. Now, 21 years later, Jasikevičius is not only the EuroLeague's COY in his ninth attempt, he's the first to win the championship as both a player and coach. In a grand final victory in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, Fenerbahce's top-ranked offense was completely shut down by AS Monaco for the entire first half, before two-for-one-ing its way to a 10-point lead after three quarters. Then came the last-mile title yips, which devolved into a complete team meltdown: empty possessions, technical fouls, a player ejection. But the coach, who took multiple warnings for stepping on the court as he ran alongside his team on fast breaks, kept Fener's collective head together. There are YouTube supercuts of his brilliant X-and-O work during timeouts (ELTV doesn't mute the audio, even though he always says "fuck" at least twice), his attention to both individual and team psychology is unparalleled, and he'll burn challenges on obvious calls just to rattle the other side. And it works! When it was all over, the European club cup secured, he did an on-court finger-dance to "Freed From Desire". I have my own strong beliefs. One is that the primary reason for this recent NBA pandemic of blown 20-point leads is this: most current NBA head coaches are ass-garbage at their jobs. Šarūnas Jasikevičius, on the other hand, just might be the best in the world.
