A DEVOTED JOURNEYMAN

May 24, 2012

Jeff Nordgaard

DE-VO-TION! DE-VO-TION, AHHHH....!!! I don't know about anyone else, but that song gets me pumped up. Okay, so it's a bit overplayed in the Euroleague arenas, but it's better than having to listen to "Who Let the Dogs Out" or "YMCA" over and over again. Actually, it may be the cheerleaders dancing to "Devotion" that really gets me excited - I don't know - but I like it.

I play for Prokom Trefl Sopot - the Polish League representative in the Euroleague. Having played for thirteen teams in eleven professional seasons, I can accurately say that I am a career journeyman. I have played for teams in France, Spain, Italy, Greece, and America but have found a second home here in Poland. I have spent most of the last five seasons in the land of kielbasa and vodka and look forward to my second Euroleague season here in Sopot. I'm a Minnesota-raised American, but I also have a Polish passport, which enabled me to play for the Polish national team this past summer. I will talk more about my experiences in basketball as the season progresses, but for the most part i will just talk about whatever is on my mind: American football, Italian cuisine, Belgian beer (Hoegaarden is the best), Polish girls in white pants...stuff like that. But I should probably talk about basketball this week.

As I was sitting on the bench watching our Polish League game on Sunday afternoon (I played some too) I was thinking aboutwhat I was going to write about. I was asked to focus on what goes through a player's head as the Euroleague season starts. In between cheers and moans (we won a very close game on the road against another 2-0 team that we should have beaten by double-figures) I realized that the Euroleague brings about different expectations and different pressures for different teams. There are those perennial powers like Maccabi, CSKA, Panathinaikos, Benetton and others whose seasons are nearly considered a failure if they don't bring home the trophy - or, at the very least, make a trip to the Final Four. That means a lot of pressure on their high-priced rosters and coaches. Many of the Euroleague teams play in domestic leagues (such as Spain or Italy) which are so loaded with good teams that they are tested every weekend. All four of the Italian Euroleague teams are 2-2, while Barcelona and Unicaja are 2-3 and 1-4, respectively. That puts a lot of pressure on these teams as they prepare for mid-week games with the best teams from the rest of Europe.

Then you take a team like ours here in Poland. We play in a league in which we are heavily favored each week, and I don't like to be arrogant, but to be perfectly honest, at least half of the teams in our league have less than a five-percent chance of beating us. It is not necessarily because we are the '86 Celtics (I prefer the Larry Legend-led Boston team to the '96 Bulls as the best team ever), but rather because our league is not as deep as some others around Europe. This brings a certain amount of pressure because anything less than a domestic gold is nearly a catastrophe. At the same time, it allows us more opportunity to prepare for the ultra-challenging mid-week Euroleague battle. As we get ready for the first Euroleague game of the 2006-2007 season we have to be excited, as players, to know that our season, essentially, will be judged based on our level of success in this competition. It may not be accurate to say our expectations are the same as CSKA, but it could definitely be argued that the pressure is the same. And for the 73rd time in the past few years we will be matched up with Efes. Maybe this year Prkacin and the boys will be kinder hosts - we could use a road win to start this season off.

POSTED BY

Jeff Nordgaard - Sopot, Poland

DATE:

Tuesday, October 24, 2006