By Semih Tuna – Anıl Can Sedef/ info@eurohoops.net
After averaging 11.5 points in the 2018-19 EuroLeague season, Shane Larkin will lead Anadolu Efes in the Final Four. Interviewed by Eurohoops, the 26-year-old American point guard answered many questions from the Final Four semifinal against Turkish rival Fenerbahce Beko, to his teammates’ ability to play in the NBA, the best-of-five playoffs series versus FC Barcelona Lassa and his future.
On reaching the Final Four: “I feel amazing. As a team we feel amazing. We know we accomplished something that hasn’t been done for a long time. That gives the extra boost of confidence. We hit our stride at the right time. We played very well to end the regular season and then go into the playoffs. We were able to pull it out against a great opponent and finish it at our home court in Game 5. This gives us the ultimate amount of confidence. Hopefully we can continue to play well and do some special things the rest of the way.”
On the turning point of the season, Larkin picked out a crucial regular season contest: “The home game here we had against Barcelona. After that game we felt like we had a very good chance to make it to the Final Four. We were fourth or fifth in the standings and we knew that were probably going to play them. After we played them very well here, we all started believing we can do something special this year.”
On Barca players calling him Michael Jordan before the playoffs series: “I don’t know how to look at it. At one side you can look at it as a compliment. At another side you kind of can look at it almost like smack talking. Me being a competitor is the way I chose to look at it. This guy said I look like Michael Jordan and that we aren’t going to let him do it again. I took that personally and I made sure to look like Michael Jordan in every single game.”
“I want to make them remember”
On his impressive performances versus Barcelona: “There’s never going to be bad blood between me and Barcelona. I actually signed there two years ago before going to Boston. I was looking forward to playing there. It obviously didn’t work out. I ended up playing for the Boston Celtics and that was a phenomenal year for me as well. There’s no bad blood. I have a lot of friends on that team. When you have a history like that, you want them to feel what it could have been. Every time against Barcelona I have an extra motivation, an extra focus. I want to make them remember.”
On his injuries in the start of his 2018-19 campaign: “I missed a lot of the summer. In the NBA playoffs I separated my shoulder. I didn’t get to work out a lot last summer. Also, I had knee issues in the beginning of the season. I wasn’t myself for a long part of the season. I remember a few months ago I was able to dunk the ball at practice for the first time in about five months. I started to feel better, started to feel my legs and everything. I wasn’t going to make excuses in the beginning of the year. I wasn’t healthy, nobody expected me to be, but I was still going out there trying to play my game. I just wasn’t being successful. Credit to the coaches and the training staff here. They stayed with me, they stayed in my program. Once I started feeling more healthy, to jump again, shoot my shots, shoot step-backs, pull-up threes off the dribble, everybody started to see the guy they wanted to see.”
On Micic and the rest of his teammates moving to the NBA: “Vasa has a good chance to go the NBA, if he wants to do that. I think it just depends on what he wants from his career or his situation. In the NBA it will be a much different situation compared to Europe. I have many experiences with that now. In the NBA you’re playing 15 to 20 minutes a night. You have the ball sometimes, but your primary job won’t be shooting a lot, dribbling a lot, using the pick-and-roll, because you have guys like James Harden or Steph Curry, those kind of guys that have the ball all the time. You’re going to have to learn how to play off the ball. He showed this year alone that he has the potential to be a star player in Europe for many years to come. That’s not saying that he won’t have the opportunity to get the ball all the time in the NBA, it’s just a more difficult situation based on how everything works over there. He definitely has the talent, the size and the ability to play in the NBA. Any guy on our team based on our success this year can have a chance provided they get the opportunity.”