Angelou: “Osman is an amazing character with an admirable career – a good teammate and emotionally attached”

Panathinaikos AKTOR impressively closed his roster, as he added to it Chedi Osmannow having a very strong team to defend its title in Greece and Europe.

THE Vangelis Angelouwho worked with the Turkish forward both as a first coach and as an assistant at Anatolou Efestalked about him at EEC Web Radio and emphasized the characteristics that make him a very good transfer for the “clover”.

What he said in detail:

On the pros and cons of Cedi Osman at that time: “I can’t talk about his pros and cons, because he was at the beginning of his professional career and he made the step from the second team of Efes to the first. The team wanted to promote him and he was part of the next two-year program. I was lucky enough to work with him at the beginning of his professional career.”

On the characteristics he had distinguished from the player: “It was in the team program, so the team directs and the coaching team executes. He tried and succeeded in the second team to play as a playmaker, but, because he was also tall, in the men’s team he played as a forward. Under certain conditions, for a very short time he also competed in position “4”. His development was around “4” and in the NBA he was a spot-up player, who could shoot in the half court, attack with a close-out attack. Due to the talent he had when he started playing as a point guard, he had very good peripheral vision and could pass well and very easily find the player far or near the basket. The main characteristic he had and still has is that he is an amazing character, very adaptable to the “team” theme and very emotionally “tied”. It’s a pretty good transfer for Panathinaikos.”

For his will to work and improve: “He was working a lot, that’s why at the beginning of his career, before he played in Eurobasket U20, he had a tendinitis and we had to “pull” him out of the team’s preparation to recover and he came out the best player of the tournament. His excessive will led him to a lot of training. He had ambition from a young age, which, from what we have seen from his development, he succeeded”.

On how much has changed now compared to those years: “Based on what I saw in the NBA and the Turkish national team, he is the same. His character does not change, he is happy, he likes the game, he has stability during the match, he does not have emotional transitions, he takes the burden of responsibility, he communicates with his teammates, he does not have extremes during the game in terms of behavior. At the same time, it is very high quality. His career is admirable.”

How much this addition will help Panathinaikos: “Panathinaikos has a basic core of players. Slukas, Nunn and Lessor showed us last year that they were a “trunk” that carried him to the big games. In this “trunk” there was also Grant. From there, the rest made up for some bad days or injuries. Both Osman and Yurtseven are players who came to strengthen the “trunk” of Panathinaikos. Because Turkey didn’t have one, the national team didn’t stand out that much. However, because Panathinaikos has a “body”, philosophy, structure and hierarchy, these two players will strengthen it a lot”.

For Olympiakos: “He has a style of play that he plays for years, he relies on circulation, on the three-pointer. He currently has the problem of Fal being a “trunk” player. He’s trying to make up for it as, from where Milutinov was sharing time, he’ll have to come forward. I think he tried to strengthen the “1” position with a player more aggressive and more vertically attacking and tried to complement the excellent presence of Papanikolaou, who is at such an age that he cannot carry such a big load. “Both of our teams have their logic and it will be very interesting to see how that logic plays out on the court, with the chemistry of much fewer possessions than in the NBA.”

For the fact that both “eternal” players were greatly strengthened by the NBA: “Our two teams have strengthened a lot, they have brought players from the NBA. The NBA is completely different compared to Europe. There is an issue of possessions. Last year’s Euroleague final was 72 possessions per team and the 5th Basket League final had 67 possessions per team. All these players of all these abilities who have excelled, to make championships they must first accept their role and second develop relationships with the coaching team and their teammates. The question is not the indisputable ability they have, but how their character will “stick” with the rest, in relation to their career, results and pressure. Everything will be seen on the field. The coaches who work with these players have a lot of work to do to fit them into the role they want.”

For the evening dedicated to George Printezis: “I was there. It was a great night. In fact, he asked me to say some things. When you want to talk and the moments and the presence of an athlete in basketball are so intense, it is very difficult to express what you feel in a short time. George is a child who speaks little, he did so much for his team, he feels and perceives emotionally much more and he worked in the red, more than he should have. These parameters were his characteristic in a few words, because he was also very humble.”