The hype surrounding Amar’e Stoudemire’s signing is now put to bed and the serious business of challenging for honours in the Israeli league and the EuroCup begins for Hapoel Jerusalem. But coach Simone Pianigiani isn’t sweating it and believes that the former NBA All-Star is already showing a strong mentality towards those goals.
Jerusalem open their Winner League campaign on October 8 at home to Beni Herzliya with a road trip to Valencia beginning their EuroCup season eleven days later. The team are well into their pre-season and having got a feel for the team and the chemistry himself, Pianigiani is satisfied with how preparations are going.
But with all eyes understandably focused on Stoudemire, a 90 percent co-owner of the team, a lot of the player-based questions will be on him. But rather than giving short, sharp answers, the Italian has instead revealed that the former Phoenix Suns and New York Knicks forward has shown nothing but dedication since his arrival.
Hapoel Jerusalem are currently competing in a pre-season tournament on the Greek island of Crete and with the domestic season two weeks away, Pianigiani is happy with how his team are looking, especially Stoudemire.
“The mentality of Amar’e is great,” the Italian coach said. “For him this is a different game. He will help us a lot and every day he will improve. He is the first to come in the gym and the last to leave.
“Even in the game against [Anadolu] Efes, after playing catastrophic defence in the first half and with the opponents power forwards killing us, he took it as a challenge to face them in defence and try to stop them.”
But ultimately, it won’t just be the mentality of Stoudemire but indeed the whole team if they want a coveted spot in next season’s 16-team EuroLeague. They open this season’s EuroCup account against Valencia, Union Olimpija Ljubljana, Lokomotiv Kuban and ratiopharm Ulm in Group D. An extremely tough group that features former champions and one of last season’s Final Four combatants.
But to be in the EuroLeague, you need to be playing these teams day in and day out.
“We want to be part of the EuroLeague and I believe that EuroLeague will soon include more teams,” Pianigiani claims. EuroCup is also really competitive this year with teams which played recently in EuroLeague like Khimki, Unicaja, Valencia, Bayern Munich and more.
“Our fans, our owners, the new gym of Jerusalem, the significance of the city all point towards the Euroleague. Still we have to go step by step. We have to be competitive in Eurocup and build this mentality. If we do it, if we compete with teams which are on the level of this tournament, we will be ready.”
