It’s been a big week for legendary American basketball coaches in Europe as one was hired and one was fired. The latest episode of the Sports Betting Tips podcast with host Chris Sheridan focuses on the comings and goings of Rick Pitino and Larry Brown at their respective teams. As you might have heard, Pitino, who has collected a pair of NCAA Championships and has coached at the NBA level, has signed with Panathinaikos, a pro team in Greece. Meanwhile, Larry Brown, who had been coaching in Turin, Italy, was fired after his team went winless in the EuroCup. Sheridan is joined by Tony Kalkavouras, who is one of the top sports writers in Greece and has been on top of both stories, to chat about the changes.
“The thing is in Italy, they were waiting on Larry Brown to be the magician,” said Kalkavouras. “He wasn’t hired by one of the top five teams in the Italian league. Given his name, his tradition, his history, his success in the NBA and NCAA, they were waiting for him to guide the team to the top standings.”
Success never came for Brown at Fiat Turin as the Hall of Fame coach and the team decided to part ways on Thursday. Turin wrapped up the EuroCup regular season going 0-10, which was a pretty ugly mark. They were the only team to finish winless in the competition. As for the Italian Series A, Brown’s team placed 12th in the standings with just four wins in 12 games.
As for Pitino, he’ll be taking over a team midseason for the first time in the 41 years he’s been coaching. That won’t be a small feat as Panathinaikos is currently 11th in the EuroLeague standings. While he won’t have much time to get acclimated, his team is gearing up for a pretty big game with perennial powerhouse CSKA Moscow. He arrived in Greece on Wednesday and immediately spent the night watching four separate CSKA Moscow games.
“I asked him a few things at the media session and he said the first thing he has to change is the mentality,” says Kalkavouras, who was at the team’s first practice with Pitino. “He says the team has bad psychology right now after a few straight losses. He said that losing spreads like cancer and we have to start winning to change the mentality.”
It’s always tough to make drastic changes to a team mid-season but that’s what Pitino will be tasked with. He does have talent on his team, though, as Panathinaikos finished 19-11 in EuroLeague and advanced to the playoffs. The top eight teams make the playoffs and Panathinaikos is 6-8, just one win behind four teams who are stuck on seven wins. He’ll also be working with some familiar faces including Georgios Papagiannis, who was a first-round pick with the Sacramento Kings in 2016, Keith Langford, who has played all around the NBA and Thanasis Antetokounmpo, who is the younger brother of Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks, who is the current frontrunner to win the NBA’s MVP award.
To hear the full episode, head over to GetMoreSports to hear Sheridan and Kalkavouras discuss and analyze all of the European changes.
