By Antonis Stroggylakis / AStroggylakis@eurohoops.net
One thing that became abundantly clear from the very first moments of my interview with EuroLeague legend Trajan Langdon was that narrating comes as natural to him as his famous shooting that he used to burn defenses to the ground.
Honestly, if I didn’t actually have to ask the questions, I would just sit back, relax and just enjoy him talking. Because this felt like I was listening to an audiobook. That’s how beautifully and eloquently Langdon painted pictures of various stories and anecdote tales from his playing days while reflecting on a career that led to EuroLeague stardom, All-EuroLeague Team selections, several championship titles and a Final Four MVP that was a dream come true.
In a chronicle of important European basketball history, Langdon, now the general manager of the New Orleans Pelicans, looked back at the first taste he got of international competition, joining Ettore Messina at Benetton Treviso, his first Final Four, the glory days and upsets with CSKA Moscow.
He also discussed the lessons that he now uses in his current role as an executive, the opponents that he admired and could’ve been in the NBA and how one of his most prominent teammates “hurt” Team USA and his college coach back in 2006.
Eurohoops: Is there anything that you miss about playing basketball?
Trajan Langdon: It’s funny that you ask. My wife asked me that about three days ago. And my first response was “Not really”. Because first of all, I know my body can’t take it (laughs). I know my body would hurt now.
The thing I miss about is the competition. Testing yourself, challenging yourself game to game. Looking at your opponent. If you think that the opponent is weaker you have to get yourself mentally ready, especially with CSKA. You knew that you’re going to get your opponents’ best game, best focus of the season. If you played against a team that was better than you, you always had CSKA on the jersey so it didn’t really matter that they were more talented.
It was always a target on the back. It was always getting up for the competition of winning on a high level. The challenges. But there was a camaraderie in the locker room with your teammates from day to day. Getting to know people from all around the world from different countries, ethnicities. Those are the things that I miss the most about the game.
The daily work and preparation was enjoyable when I was younger. But the older I got the more difficult ti was so that is definitely something I don’t miss. The work, The treadmill, the weigh room. The court work was easy, it was fun. But the other stuff. The stretching, the yoga.
EH: I was talking with Tyrese Rice – another Final Four MVP. And he told me that one of the basketball-related shocking things he faced when he first came to Europe was the double practices, even before games.
T.L.: The biggest one for me that I had to wrap my mind around was that there’s always that break between the end of the season if you go through the Final Four and then the start of the playoffs. I remember when I was at Benetton. After the Final Four, maybe seven days before the first round and it was like: We are going to play Udine for a practice game. And I’m like: What? It’s May, why are we playing practice?
EH: Allen Iverson has entered the chat room.
T.L.: It was amazing. But that happened several times through my career but you wrap around it, and you say this is what we do. Preseason we play games, eight to ten of them. Hey, that’s just the way it works.
EH: What are the lessons that you got in your playing career and you now carry in your front office career?
T.L.: That’s a really good question. I think preparation is one of the biggest ones. You have to prepare for a long season as an NBA athlete. You have to really take care your body. Understand that if you are not diligent in your preparation and the way you manage your body, it will come back to bite you. Whether it’s through injury, or just little nagging when your body isn’t working properly, or your energy level in a game. When everybody else is turned up and maybe you are 90 percent of what you want to be. You start to understand that because you have to come with it at the highest level. I think that is one thing that I’ve taken to this level. Not only with my job and working with my staff but also when talking to players.
We assume that just because lot of players are incredibly talented, that they are knowledgeable about preparation and the challenges of winning games that need to be won down the line and how to prepare yourself for that. Some of these guys, 21, 22, 23, 24 are professional and extremely talented. But we need to understand what nuggets of wisdom from my experience I can help them with. Because some things I found on my own, or I didn’t found out until I was 27, 28, 29. I was never informed of those things. So if there are any of these things that I can tell them from a younger age that might help them, I’d like to do that.
EH: You first got acquainted with top level international basketball back in the 1998 World Championship, when you joined Team USA as a college player. How did that experience help you?
T.L.: To go back and three years prior, I was in the junior USA team that played in the 1995 World Championship in the same arena and against some of the same players. Obviously, they had grown up, those who were the young players on the national teams in 1995. My first real European experience was in 1995 and then 1998, where I can’t say I played a lot. But I had the ability to watch some of the better players in Europe and understand why these guys are big-time players. Some of these guys can play in the NBA. Obviously, I was watching a ton of NBA while growing up and in college.
And I knew some of those guys… looking at Gregor Fucka, Carlton Myers. Looking at the players on the Yugoslavian team.
EH: That Yugoslavian team was a monster of a team.
T.L: Monster of a team yes. I didn’t know who [Dejan] Bodiroga was and I’m like ‘This guy can play’. That kind of opened my eyes to the strength of the European competition. The Lithuanian team was really good obviously. I played against [Sarunas] Jasikevicius before so I knew that name. I knew Arturas [Karnisovas]. I had watched him in Seton Hall but I hadn’t seen his progression in Europe.
EH: He also took a similar career path with you.
T.L.: And he’s doing a tremendous job in Chicago.
So that opened my eyes a lot. I had already respected it from my experience, three years prior but this was another level. These grown men playing professional basketball on a very high level. I think that helped me with my transition when I came to Italy in 2002. I knew that these were the kind of players I’d go against. And I knew I had to respect the game and the teams, and the coaches and the culture of playing because It wasn’t going to be easy.
EH: Now you gave me the assist to move to the first time you played in Europe. It was in 2002 when you signed with Benetton Treviso and the guy who brought you to the team was the one you would write EuroLeague history with: Ettore Messina.
T.L.: To be honest with you I didn’t have a conversation with Ettore before I signed my contract. It was Maurizio Gherardini (editor’s note: now general manager of Fenerbahce Beko) who I spoke with a couple of times and he presented a contract offer to me. Actually I was at the Summer camp with the Miami Heat. He faxed me a contract and said I have 48 hours to make a decision. Then, they’ll go to another player.
He’s a man of his word, which I’ve always respected Maurizio for that. I gave it about 36 hours and I accepted the offer. I went over with open eyes and the expectations that it wasn’t going to be easy. I was going to have to fight for my position, I was going to have to fight for my minutes, fight to be successful and earning the trust of my teammates. Because I knew I was coming to a very good team. I’ve been informed by my agent. I didn’t know anything about the leagues or the teams. I knew that it was a good game but I didn’t know too much about EuroLeague/domestic leagues and the specifics of the competition. He told me that’s a team that had lost in the Final Four and then won in the Italian Finals against Ettore and then Ettore moved to that team.
I knew I was getting a very coach but I didn’t understand the dynamics and rivalries between Benetton, Virtus, Milano. I soon learned that when I got there. I took every game seriously in terms of preparation. I remember playing Frankfurt, playing some second division teams. I took every game seriously. Not knowing exactly what was going on but knowing that this games will prepare us for what’s coming.
EH: His accomplishments speak for themselves so what makes Ettore Messina special for you?
T.L.: You know, I think I got two versions of Ettore. One when I played with Benetton and then a different one when I played with him at CSKA. At Benetton it was an interesting situation because he was moving from a team with which he had been for a long time. He had grown up as a coach and had a lot of success. And then he was moving to a team that had just beaten him in the Italian Finals. I think he was trying to navigate. “How much can I change the team… I need to assimilate because they had just defeated me”. And he kind of let us play. There was a lot of freedom involved. A lot of preparation.
If you go back and watch those games and the way we played, we were the highest scoring team in EuroLeague. He let Tyus Edney, a special player, push the ball up and down and make plays, he gave him a lot of freedom with the ball in his hand.
The pace of our play was really really on. I had six 3-pointers in one quarter in a game against Fortitudo. He gave a lot of freedom to myself, to Tyus, to Ricardo Pittis, to Jorge Garbajosa. We had a very good team and I think he understood the level of talent that we had.
On the defensive end we were focused and we gave effort and I think that through the regular season until we lost to Barcelona in the Final, we were the best team that season in EuroLeague. How we competed and beat teams.
He was fun to play for. I think it’s his attention to detail. It’s his preparation. It’s the way he explains things. I think he’s fair as long as he knows that you’re working and trying to compete and be the best possible player for your team and that you want to win. If he sees that preparation and that focus from you, he’s going to listen, he’s going to have a dialogue. If there are some things that maybe you disagree with in terms of preparation or schemes, he’s going to adjust but he needs to understand that we’re all at the same page. That we make make adjustments not because it’s easier but because it’s going to make us win. Once he understands that about a player, he really respects that and you can work well together.
EH: Barcelona was the team that shut you down and did that in the biggest game of the year: The championship game.
T.L.: We played them in the season twice. We were down at Barcelona and we beat them comfortably at home. So I thought we are the better team going into the Finals. I knew it would be a difficult game just because of where we were playing. I had the knowledge that Bodiroga had already won several. Obviously Sarunas was a great player.
And they were so big. You had to make shots from outside to beat them. They had Fucka, [Anderson] Varejao, [Patrick] Femerling, [Roberto] Duenas. They didn’t call many fouls back then and you couldn’t go in.
The place that we played is not the easiest place to make shots. Bodigora made some big plays and we probably had one of the worst games if not the worst game of the season scoring the ball.
But you look at their names and look at who coached them… that was a very very good team. It was obviously disappointing but if you look back at it it wasn’t ultimately surprising.
EH: Your reunion with Messina comes with CSKA in 2005. And the 2005-2006 season finale was rather different than the one of 2003…
T.L.: I had lost a Final Four championship in my senior year in college with Duke. My second opportunity was thwarted by Barcelona in 2003. So here was another opportunity.
Obviously there was one very good Maccabi team. Probably 95 percent of Europe thought they’d win the game. They had won two in a row, they replaced Sarunas with Willie Solomon. They had their hiccups with some teams but they beat Baskonia by a lot in the semifinal. And we struggled beating Barcelona so everybody thought it’s over. I remember that they came out and punched us in the mouth when we were down. Crowd was 13.000 yellow jerseys in the stands. We were able to withstand and be able to come back and it didn’t take long to say ‘OK, we are good”
It was a difficult season for us because we started slow in the Group stage. There was a lot of pressure on Ettore coming in after Duda [Dusan Ivkovic]. They had been to three straight Final Fours. They brought Ettore to get over the hump and win a EuroLeague championship. That’s a lot of pressure, a lot of expectation game in and game out. We didn’t play great basketball in the regular season and then we started to play really well in the Top 16. We beat some really good teams and gained confidence.
That game against Barcelona when we came back from so many points and win…. That gave us a lot of confidence. So even when we got punched in the mouth by Maccabi in the beginning, it didn’t really affect us.
I think we had a veteran team, a tough team.
EH: A team that had already experienced its share of EuroLeague upsets.
T.L.: Yep. ]David] Vanterpool was older, I was older. J.R. [Holden] was older and more experienced. [Theo] Papaloukas. I think we were playing our best basketball at the right time. Obviously there was a lot of pressure on Maccabi. They were expected to win and with this kind of pressure it becomes difficult when it gets close in a game and we were able to keep it close.
The emotions at the end of the game was one of the most joyous feelings in relation to basketball and sports. Just an amazing relief and an amazing accomplishment. That’s something that you work hard for, nine months as a group. Like I said: A lot of pressure and a lot of expectations to come up on the top of this mountain. And in the end, no one expected it when that came. It was a tremendous feeling and something that I’ll never forget.
Like I said, one of the most joyous if not the most joyous time of my sports career.
EH: You described it as the most “joyous” moment. So what’s the opposite, the loss that hurt the most ?
T.L.: Barcelona hurt but I was so young in terms of my experience. It was my first Final Four. I didn’t really understand even the importance of the EuroLeague at the start of the season. As time went on I understood that it’s more important than the domestic league. But at the start it didn’t matter if I was playing Alba Berlin or Trieste. A game is a game.
I understood the importance but I didn’t understand the magnitude of how historical is a Final Four. That it is a historical moment.
The next year with Efes we missed out by a game. Gianluca Basile’s crazy shot (editor’s note: a Fortitudo Bologna 76 – 75 win over Efes) knocked us out. We could’ve clinched it in that game. Then you realize that this is difficult and anything can happen. You can be the better team but if they beat you in one game it doesn’t matter. You’ll be forgotten.
Ettore said that at start of the next season. It was a stressful season because not many teams made the repeat.
EH: Maccabi was the only to do it since Jugoplastica.
T.L: Yes, they had the back-to-back and we wanted to do the same thing. And we got to Athens and we played Panathinaikos. I thought we were better than them. Obviously, we knew they were really – really good and they had loaded their team because they knew that the Final Four was going to be in Athens. We got in a lot of foul trouble early. I was in foul trouble, Smodis was in foul trouble. Theo played an incredible game but I thought that if we didn’t get into foul trouble, I just don’t think they could beat us. I remember that in the second quarter they couldn’t score, they got all their points from the free throw line and it was a lot of free throws.
Looking back, that’s one that hurt. Because I just felt we could’ve played a little smarter. We could have not got into foul trouble. That was the case. We could’ve won that game which would’ve given us the back to back.
I could go at Berlin and say that was tough. But they came out and hit us really hard in the first quarter, kudos to them. They made a lot of threes and were up 20 at halftime. You look back and you say we had a chance with Ramunas’ [Siskauskas] shot at the buzzer but we were already down 20. That was a much different game.
The one in Athens was toe-to-toe. And the foul trouble with me at the bench, Smodis at the bench for a lot of minutes. Even thought we fought back we were set back because of the fouls.
That was probably the one that hurt the most, in terms of the three Final losses.
EH: That was when the journey back to the top of EuroLeague began?
Well, that summer, I didn’t take much of a break. I was very disappointed with at the loss. We played a very good Unics team in a very difficult Russian League Finals, even if it was 3-0. It was a fight.
But always on the back of my mind was that loss to Panathinaikos. I knew we were going to be good going into the next season. We had everybody back and my mindset was let’s get it the next season. A lot of people thought that we were the favorites and that’s a lot of pressure. I wanted to be the best and be really-really prepared.
Going in there, I had a very good mindset. I saw the focus from the whole group.
EH: The road to the 2008 Final Four wasn’t without obstacles. You lost to Olympiacos in Game 1 of the playoffs, a result which was quite a shocker. And the quarterfinals were best-out-three then.
T.L.: After that Olympiacos loss I felt the same way. Lynn [Greer] pulled over Nikos [Zisis], it went in and you look at the score was in and we are down 2 and you are like: What just happened? This is crazy. And all of a sudden you realize that we are down and we are going on the road.
I remember saying to our team. I said look: Let’s treat these two games like the Final Four. If we can win the first game, we will win the second game. And that will be our mental preparation for Madrid (where the Final Four was held).
And we went in. We were down a lot of points in the first quarter, I think we were down 15 points. And at the end of the first quarter, they are shooting free throws and one of the players of Olympiacos – I won’t same somebody’s name – they looked at me, kind of looked at me funny and said: “You OK?” And I look him in the eyes because I knew what was coming and I say “Oh yea, I’m good. And I knew right there. Alright. You think it’s over? Watch this.”
And we started coming back and we dominated the game.
The whole team was calm. We were at a good place. But that little challenge sparked something.
EH: You know I love this kind of stories, it’s show how even a minor detail can affect things, even turn the switch completely.
T.L.: It was one of the better games in terms of being back against the wall, down in the first quarter on the road. And one of the games at look back in terms of teams. I’ll never forget that. That place was going crazy. It was crazy in that arena. And I think everybody wanted us to lose around the whole EuroLeague. I knew everybody wanted us to lose that game.
EH: It’s funny you mentioned that. I asked CSKA coach Dimitris Itoudis why does he think CSKA has haters, referring to his now famous quote “Let’s have some haters. No problem” It was something that really fueled his players towards winning the EuroLeague in 2019.
T.L.: No question. It does fuel us. It gives you a chip on your shoulder, something to kind of go against.
EH: You beat Olympiacos in Piraeus and you also win Game 3 and here you are in the Final Four again. What was your mindset entering that edition of the tournament?
T.L.: It’s the dream of every kid right? To be an MVP of the Finals, to hit a big shot, to be the best player of a Final game, a Final Four, a national championship, a World championship, whatever that might be. It was a dream of mine. I was a regional Finals MVP in the NCAA tournament but we couldn’t win the championship.
I think you dream of these things. You think about them because you want them to be a reality. And obviously, if you are the MVP it means your team wins which is even more important.
I just wanted to focus on trying to go out and help my team in the Final against Maccabi. I came out and hit some shots early. I had to focus. I actually didn’t feel good the night before, I think I had come down with a little bit of sickness. But the morning I felt great in terms of my energy level. JR was looking for me, he gave me some great passes and rhythm. I was able to get my shots up quickly. I knew I wanted to get my team off to a quick start. Because our start against Baskonia was a little, slow, we had to come back a little. So I wanted to get us off to a good start. Kind of take our nerves down. This is what I wanted to do and was able to continue making plays to help us win.
Obviously, the biggest thing is to win the championship but then to be voted MVP after having that impact on the game, it was a dream come true. Obviously, something I’ll never forget. I have some trophies in my case and the big one in the middle is the Final Four MVP. Obviously the highlight of my career.
EH: This is something that I wanted to ask you for a long time. Did you warn Mike Krzyzewski (editor’s note: Langdon’s coach in Duke) before the 2006 World Cup semifinal between Team USA and Greece about who “No. 4” on the Greek national team is?
T.L.: Coach K knew. I told him, yes I did. He called me and he asked him and I said that they have a guy named Theo Papaloukas who is my teammate and is a very-very good pick n’ roll player. I told him that probably the best thing you can do against Theo is switch and make him beat you one-on-one because he’s an extremely good pick n’ roll player and passer. He can see over the top.
I tried to explain everything but unless you play against him and see his ability to see the floor…
He and Riccardo Pittis are the two best passers I’ve ever played with. Marcelo Nicola was a very good passing big man, but in terms of ball-handling guards, those are the two best passers. They would hit me with passes… I was lucky I was looking at them but there was no way I was ever expecting the pass. The way Theo could manipulate different plays and see the openings in a play that I would’ve never see was really cool and fun to play with.
EH: But not so fun for you to watch against Team USA right?
T.L.: Passes inside, skip passes for three and then turn to corner for a layup. It was a tremendous game from him but nothing surprising. These were all things that I’ve seen from him for years at that point. (editor’s note: Papaloukas finished with 12 assists in a 101-95 win for the Greek national team)
EH: You played with and faced so many great players throughout your career. Which ones do you think that could’ve made the NBA and been established there?
T.L.: He played there before and I know he had a tryout there but then the rest of his career was in Europe. I think Alphonso Ford could’ve played in the NBA. No question about it. As difficult a guy that I’ve ever guarded. Especially in Europe but even in the NBA. Just tremendous scorer. Able to get to a spot. Powerful. Good IQ. You knew his moves were coming but there was nothing you could do about it. You played good defense and he still scored.
Obviously, Juan Carlos [Navarro] played one year with Memphis to show he could play but he could’ve played in the NBA for as long as he wanted.
EH: Yeah, he was like “Whatever, I can do it but I want to do great things with Barcelona”
T.L: [Dimitris] Diamantidis and Theo are two guys who could’ve easily played for a long time with their abilities, their size, their length. Their basketball IQ was through the roof. And they were both winners, they wanted to win. Competitors. They could play multiple positions on the floor so I definitely think they could’ve played in the NBA for a long time.
Bodiroga obviously. I think Ramunas Siskauskas could’ve played. Because of his ability to shoot the ball, make plays, his intelligence.
Arvydas Macijauskas didn’t make it because I think he was a bit smaller. A lot of it is timing and where you are with the roster and with the coach. Just because Majiauskas didn’t make it in New Orleans, doesn’t mean he couldn’t have made it on another team.
EH: You were one of the hottest offensive players in EuroLeague and when you got your thing going it was really tough to stop you. Which player you think did the best job in guarding you?
T.L.: It was never a player, it was always a system for me. I thought Diamantidis always did a good job against me but it was the system. I could tell that Obradovic had prepared them for how they were supposed to guard me. Because if I came off a hand-off and they went under and I shot it deep behind the hand-off, I could hear him going crazy if I made the shot. And I’m thinking that this was a very difficult shot I just hit. I could tell that’s no something he did want to give up.
I could tell they were prepared in a fashion and that there were certain things and actions they didn’t want to give me.
Individually, Diamantidis was difficult for me. The guys who have the ability to lock in and focus not give me those things. A lot of people were making a mistake and I was just waiting for it, to take advantage of it, to get open, get separation, a window for a shot. And as all shooters know, if you see one or two shots go down, if I get my confidence, I’m going to shoot everything: Off the dribble, off the catch, hand on the face face, it doesn’t matter anymore.
Diamantidis is definitely one of them. Panathinaikos in general was the team that stands out in those big games. I think that Drew Nicholas also did a good job in chasing me in those games.
EH: I think Obradovic really got him [Nicholas] to play defense like that.
T.L.: Obradovic did a nice job of getting guys to guard that usually don’t guard. I don’t think [Antonis] Fotsis was known as a great defender either. He had the size and ability but sometimes not the desire. But for Obradovic he did it at a high level.
Those are probably the guys who stand out defensively. There were some guys that were bigger who would chase but I always found a way to get an opening. And Diamantidis was the DPOY for so many years. It just makes sense to say him. Not surprising.
Photos: Getty Images/EuroLeague Basketball