lasha23
Crazy Member
ჯგუფი: Registered
წერილები: 1991
წევრი No.: 31270
რეგისტრ.: 12-March 07
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#8004208 · 5 Jan 2008, 23:46 · · პროფილი · პირადი მიმოწერა · ჩატი
ira rava xar
ზაზას საიტზე დევს მისი პირადი მწვრთნელის ინტერვიუ
ძალიან საინტერესო ინტერვიუა
აი ისიც:
Interview With Fatmir Cuka:
Zaza Pachulia’s path to the NBA was very different from most American players, but similar to how many Europeans have made it to the League from overseas. Though he is a native Georgian, Zaza started his professional career in Turkey at the young age of 14, spending several years playing in the Turkish professional system before making it to the NBA in 2003 as a draft pick of the Orlando Magic.
Many people were there to help him along the way, but one person in particular has had a profound impact on his basketball career: Fatmir Cuka, Zaza’s coach when he first started in Turkey as a teenager. Cuka is like a father to Pachulia, and has overseen his training and development over the years. Even today, Cuka works with Zaza nearly daily to help him continue to improve his game.
We caught up to Cuka as he prepared to put Zaza through his extra paces one day in December to talk more about their special relationship and Pachulia’s development as a professional.
Zazapachulia.com: How did you first meet Zaza?
Fatmir Cuka: I first met Zaza in around 1997 – I was coaching in Turkey. I am originally from Albania, but in 1990 I transferred over to Turkey to coach in Ankara. From there, after 1996-97, I went to Istanbul to coach at Ulker, which is where Zaza came to play.
At this time I was the technical director and coach of Ulker’s junior team. We recruited players for the junior team, and at the time we had heard about this really tall, long guy in Tblisi, Georgia, with a lot of ability, so we brought him over. Zaza was really tall – he was like Shaq compared to the other kids his age. There are rules for competition for kids where you have to play with your age group, and Zaza was just so much taller than anyone else his age.
When I first saw Zaza play, I was like, wow, we need to work with this kid, he has a lot of potential. After only his first week of playing, we had a meeting at our club – me, the head coach of the Ulker professional team, and the GM, and we agreed we needed to push Zaza because we knew we would need him for the top team.
I remember that day I wrote that if Zaza continued to develop, he had a chance to make the NBA. You never know, of course, how things will play out, but he had that kind of potential.
After Zaza played only one year in the junior league, we pulled him up to the top development team and put him in the starting lineup.
This was a big deal for us. If we wanted to win the game, we would play the more experienced players – and most of the team was guys who were three or four years older than him. But if we looked at who is really going to be a good player down the road, then we had to play Zaza.
Over this time Zaza became like a son to me. It was a really tough time for him. He was only 14 years old at the time, living in a foreign country, and his dad had just died. Can you imagine trying to deal with all of that? I am a father. My son is only a couple years younger than Zaza, so I know how hard it was for him.
But Zaza was a great kid. He was a hard-worker, and he was a great student as well. He practiced very hard, and was always trying to improve his game. He never tired. And this went on for two years, at which point I left to come to America, and Zaza got promoted to the top Ulker team where he performed well right away. Ever since, we’ve been in contact just about every day, because he is like a son.
We would talk about his game, how he could improve, how things were going with his team, everything about basketball. Then one day he called, I was in the middle of practice, and he told me the NBA had invited him to work out for the draft, and then he got picked by Orlando.
Zaza didn’t get a lot of playing time during his rookie year in Orlando, and he was frustrated. But I would say to him, this is your time to work on your game and fill out the places where you can improve so that you can get on the court more.
And that was a good year for Zaza. Every night after the Magic game, we would go to their practice facility and work. We’d stay until one, two in the morning almost every night, just working on his game, and he never complained. He never wanted to stop, he just always kept going. And when the season ended, it continued. I am telling you, from the time Orlando’s season finished till the time training camp opened the next October, we trained just about every single day.
It was intense. In the early morning, we’d go to the beach near Orlando and run. From 11-1, we’d work on basketball fundamentals, and then in the afternoon we’d do shooting drills or weightlifting. We didn’t know if he was going to be back with the Magic, but it didn’t matter, he just wanted to improve his game.
You could really see his hard work paying off too, as he went later that summer to Italy to play with his National Team, and he just killed. He had like 25 points, 15 rebounds in one game, and was Georgia’s top scorer and rebounder overall.
When the next season came and he went to Milwaukee, we did the same thing – he’d practice with the team, and then we would work more afterwards. Plus, we started getting film of the games from the team and looking at how he played in games and we’d work on improving the things the team wanted him to do.
Break down Zaza’s game right now – where is he at as a player?
Fatmir Cuka: Well, I am tough on Zaza. I always focus on the things he needs to improve on. Zaza is a very sensible person. But if you hurt his feelings, he takes it hard. I think that is his hardest thing to deal with.
I think the biggest thing he needs is just more experience. He still makes mistakes, but he is still young. The more games he plays, the more he will learn from his mistakes, and the better he will get. The thing is, with players coming out of American college, they play so many games, they have plenty of time to learn through playing in competition. But this is not the case in Europe – in Europe you may play 15 games in a season, maybe more if you are on a good team and make one of the European Cups. He just needs to play more, and he will continue to improve.
When you and Zaza work together, what do you work on the most?
Fatmir Cuka: It depends on the situation. I don’t consider myself an expert in any area, but I know a lot about several different areas. So if Zaza needs to work on his fundamentals, we’ll work on that. Or, like when he got hurt recently, we worked on helping him rehab. We always work within what the team wants him to do, of course, but it just depends on what he needs to work on the most at a given time.
How often do you get to work out together during the season?
Fatmir Cuka: We don’t work out when the Hawks are on the road, obviously. But when Zaza is in Atlanta, we try to work out as many days as we can. We’ll work out after the Hawks practice in the afternoon, or sometimes at night.
How has Zaza been doing with all the injuries he’s had of late?
Fatmir Cuka: I’ve never seen Zaza in this situation before. He has never been injured like this, and believe me, he is a hustler. He’ll play if he’s bleeding, if he’s bruised - he doesn’t care, he wants to play.
But now it’s totally different. He has to follow the doctor’s orders. It doesn’t matter what we think – if the doctor says he needs to stop, we have to stop. That’s why the concussion was so scary. The doctor said he needed to rest, so we had to stop practicing. But, as he got better, the doctor said he could get back out there some, and so we started practicing again.
He just wants to be out there. He loves it in Atlanta, he loves his coach, and he just wants to be out there and do the right thing. After each game he’ll say to me, “I hope I played that play right” or “I should have gotten this rebound or that rebound”, he just wants to win and to help his team.
This post has been edited by lasha23 on 5 Jan 2008, 23:54
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ზაზა ფაჩულია, ნაწილი III
