Anton Ponkrashov: “I didn’t go to the NBA because I didn’t understand much. Now I realize I should have gone the first year.

Basketball player “Bet Nizhny Novgorod » Anton Ponkrachov in an interview with , he said he was about to leave for the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 2008.

In 2007, Ponkrashov won the EuroBasket gold medal with the Russian national team. Throughout his career he played for Khimki, Spartak (St. Petersburg), CSKA, Lokomotiv-Kuban, UNIK and Zenit.

— In 2008, they already started actively courting you in America; in 2010 you went to Summer League. At the same time, you said that the NBA was not your main goal. For what?

– Because I didn’t understand much. Now I realize I should have left the first year when they offered me. For me, everything was banally simple, in the first year of my participation in Eurocamp (NBA training camp – Rating from ) I entered the symbolic top five. There was a lot of interest from a lot of teams, but no one told me I had to go to the United States, train, be visible and then go to the draft. In 2008, I was projected to be the 15th pick in the draft. It seemed to me then that the system worked differently, that I would play in Russia, in the Euroleague, win titles, and that the NBA would not escape me.

We recorded a podcast with Andrei Kirilenko and Sergei Monya and they said their biggest mistake was having to go to the NBA early. But they were written and I didn’t apply because I didn’t understand the situation.

Now I realize I should have gone and trained. I was young, they just needed to find someone to develop. The NBA’s trick is that it needs to take the conditional Luka Doncic as soon as possible and develop him to a cosmic unrealistic level, like in a video game. I had the opposite mindset: I thought I was going to play in Russia, then leave peacefully for the NBA.

Last year, when I was at Eurocamp, I was compared to Carmelo. [Энтони]Lebron [Джеймсом] And [Дуэйном] Wade, this video is even on the Internet. You immediately understand the level when you are compared to the best prospects in the draft. Of course, you objectively lose in many ways, because these three phenomenal players have already entered the NBA as ready-made superstars.

— When were you about to leave for the NBA?

— It was close after Summer League in Phoenix in 2010, but a phenomenal thing happened there. The general manager who called me was fired right before Summer League started. In other words, I showed up, but no one knows why I showed up.

The most realistic chance is, of course, after Eurocamp 2008, to participate in the repechage or go to America for individual trials. It is not a fact that everything would have worked, but this option now seems correct to me. Considering the interest was huge,” Ponkrashov said in an interview with .