The “Pitino effect” is gone!
After the first week of glory due to the new coach, Panathainaikos came back where their place is. I will explain again why Panathinaikos has no chance to win many games against tough opponents in this formula of the team:
- They traded this summer 7 good American players for 5 weak or old players. So, the roster is now much weaker than the last season, but PAO wants better results. It’s a paradox, isn’t it?
- The entire roster of the Greek team is composed by fellows good enough to come from the bench to support the 5 starters. But there is no quality player who can be a five starter! No one! All of them weak for a starter position and just a decent bench player! That’s why PAO cannot win because they have 12 bench players, instead of 5 strong straters and 7 bench players!
- The “pillars” of the squad like Nick Calathes or James Gist scored till the 4th quarter just 2 points each. I don’t care that Calathes scored 11 points in the last quarter when the game was already decided! Their “best” players are pathetic and against who? An Olympiacos without Janis Timma and with scoreless Mantzaris, Bogris and LeDay.
- Because PAO has almost NO centers, the giant Nikola Milutinov had an amazing night with 41 index rate, with 18 points, 18 rebounds, 11 fouls received and none made! There was no need for him to foul PAO’s players, too scared by his presence. Imagine that he had 41 at efficiency rate and the whole Panathinaikos team 58.
No coach can do miracles with such a weak roster. I am wondering how somebody could buy all this players and hope in the same time for big results.
Gratian Cormos, info@brainbasketball.net
