From Gyrologos

17/10/2011 (20:06)

B.C. ZALGIRIS KAUNAS
 

Coach: Ilias Zouros (since January of 2011)
 

Arrived: Javtokas (Center, 9 p, 5 reb, Valencia), Weems (Guard, 9 p, 3
reb, Toronto), Rakovic (Center, 8 p, 3 reb, Siena), Lawson (PG, 10 p, 3 ass, Denver –
as long s NBA lock outis in effect), Popovic (PG, 12 p, 4 ass, Unics).
 

Left: Watson (Center, 6 p, 4 reb), Plaisted
(center, 6 π, 4 ρ), Marjanovic (Center, 6 p, 4 reb, N.Novgorod
– RUS-PBL), Pocius  (Forward, 11 p,
3 reb, Real), Capin (PG, 4 p, 1 as, Olympia), Salenga (Guard, 5 p,
2 reb, (Rudupis – LTU-LK), Brown (PG, 7 p, 2 ass, retired).

Starting Five: Lawson (Collins), Kalnietis (Popovic – Delininkaitis), Weems, Jankunas (Rakovic – Klimavicius), Javtokas (Samhan).

Zalgiris Kaunas opens up the Euroleague
season in the “Kaunas Arena”
looking for a good performance throughout the year. With Ilias Zouros at the bench having a little uncertainty due to a slow
start! Zouros signed last January to Zalgiris and won everything! But the start wasn’t what he expected as the defeat from Astana, in VTB League, started a controversy and the eccentric
and rich president of the team, Romanov is thinking changes!

Zouros is expecting more time to get the team on the right track as Zalgiris has a good
and expensive roster but they also have issues… Team chemistry is one. It’s common knowledge that Zouros missed the start of the season as he was the coach of team Greece in Eurobasket and that was a problem.
Zalgiris acquired good players from the NBA, such as Lawson and Weems, and
have a bit of an overload in the
perimeter, as they had Collins as well as the bomber Popovic and
the Lithuanian National Kalnietis.

For that reason they are forced to play
with low height line ups to fit everyone and they also have…a bit of nagging!
a problem occurs in the center position also as behind Javtokas they don’t
have a good sub (they
play Rakovic) and don’t have power forwards who
can shoot.

Consequently,
they have little
inefficiencies in the roster and might have problems.
but with the home court advantage and the great perimeter players, they will be very dangerous as a
team and be able to turn things around in many games. On Friday they did get a marginal
victory against Krilya with 84-82 in VTB and its pretty sure that Rakovic will
play.

CSKA MOSCOW

Coach: Jonas
Kazlauskas (since 2010).

Arrived: Mejia (Forward, Cholet), Krstic (Center, Boston),
Voronov (Guard, 4 p, 3 as, Dynamo), Teodosic ( PG, 10 p,
5 as, Olympiakos), Lavrinovic (Center, 10 p, 6 reb, Fener), Ponkrashov
(Guard, 11 p, 4 reb, Sartak SP), Kirilenko
(Forward, 12 p, 5 reb, Utah Jazz).

Left: Langdon (G, 10 p, 2 as), Holden (PG, 9 p, 4 as), Becirovic (G,
2 p, 1 reb, Benetton), Smodis (Forward,
10 p, 4 reb, Cedevita – CRO-A1), Bykov (G, 5 p, 2 as, (Lokomotiv –
RUS-PB),Zabelin(Center,5p,3reb.Lokomotiv
– RUS-PBL)
 

Starting Five: Teodosic (Ponkrashov-Voronov), Gordon (Shved), Siskauskas (Mejia), Kirilenko (Khryapa- Vorontsevich),
Krstic (Lavrinovic-Kaun-Sokolov).

The “great bear” is ready for the big comeback!
CSKA bounces back from a very bad season last year, where they were eliminated from the
first round (!) with a
poor record of 3-7. But they reacted quickly in th etranser market to rebuild the team, as the old one reach the end!
With Kazlauskas at the bench, always an enigma, who is an offensive coach, as we were used from the Messina era, and beside him the Greek coach Giannis Sfairopoulos.

The new era for CSKA is marked with the departure of Holden and Langdon who retired, and also Smodis who went to Croatia.
But they made big moves acquiring the ex-NBAer Serbian internatioanal. CSKA got the Serbian former NBA player Krstic at the center position, who makes a difference in Europe and dispate the end of the lockout.
They gotten also Milos Teodosic from Olympiakos!

At last the biggest move
was the acquisition of the Russian basketball totem the NBAer Kirilenko, who may stay despite the period of the
lockout also (!) and with Krstic they
are the best duo of big men in Europe!
 

CSKA is a vey tall team, as they have also Lavrinovic at the center also from Fener and the gigantic Kaun and Sokolov and Khryapa at power forward! This is nota team but the “Chinese Wall”, and all the Russian National
Team!
That’s why they play Kirilenko at
the small forward position sometimes, as they did in the Russian National Team so he can fit everyone.

In this case they
have a very tall line up with sometimes Siskauskas
in the shooting guard position!

CSKA besides the forcefull front line, they have lots of Russian players and they can
have excellent team chemistry and a very deep bench. They goal is non other than the title in the Euroleague. They only have to make good use of their roster
and Kazlauskas to manage the rotation
and the temper of Teodosic in the point guard position.