CSKA head coach Emile Raikovitch said that in the last VTB United League season he tried to take only the best qualities of Russian players for the team.
Over the past season, basketball players CSKA won bronze medals in the VTB United League, beating Zenit St. Petersburg 4-1 in the series.
— You said you would use Russian players more. Did you manage to find a balance?
– I think Ruzhentsev had a great chance. He had a lot of time, moments and important points. A young player who is not afraid and acts responsibly is very brave. In the semi-finals he showed one of the best games in his performance. In the series with Zenit he was in the starting five and got 20 minutes of playing time. For me personally he is one of the best. We don’t just have a young player, but a growing player. As for the rest of the Russians, Shved is the team leader, Antonov was injured. Komolov helped a lot after Shved’s injury. Astapkovich did a good job and became the leader after the series with Nizhny Novgorod. It’s not easy to play 20 minutes with his statistics. It will be even better next year. Karpenko trained a lot with us and served his time in the league. We took Gafurov only at the end. I really tried to take only the best Russian players, more than last season.
– There is an opinion that CSKA with Alexei Shved is better than without him.
– It’s an opinion, but whose? If people want us to hear such opinions, we need to know who is expressing them. Fans are fans.
The Swede has good stats, but it’s very difficult to compare anything. I will say this, we try to do our best with him in the line-up and without him. For most of the season, we didn’t have any players in the clip. We can’t just hit the power button and play.
The question is very difficult and I probably cannot answer it. If we hadn’t had Swedes, would we have gotten first place, records and results? No, – the correspondent of “” reports Raikovich’s words.
Live broadcasts of VTB United League matches were broadcast by and other holding channels, as well as sportbox.ru and matchtv.ru websites.
Source : MatchTV
My name is Adam Jackson and I am an author. I have been writing about Basketball games for over a decade now and am excited to share my knowledge with you all. Additionally, I am also interested in other sports and enjoy discussing them with others. Contact me if you want to discuss any Basketball-related topics!
