Read the first part of Brent Petway’s career recollections as he wrote them himself for Eurohoops.
The happy-go-lucky side of the Moon
I had to fact-check myself because I don’t wanna put out anything false from jumbled memory and this first year was not the year Printezis was injured. I was playing anywhere from 18-24 minutes a game sharing minutes with him, which means I was really stressing hard if I was sharing minutes and still stressing the F… out. One main proponent of my stress, my man, coach Mamarinos.
Long-time Olympiacos guy, I think he meant well by pushing me because he was probably one of the guys who went to bat for me in the signing process. I know this because I met personally with him in a “secret” meeting before the summer, just me, him, and my no-good agent. When I said we had intense assistant coaches, I meant mainly him and Pappas. Seemingly I was Mamarinos’ project though because it didn’t matter where I was on the floor, I would hear “BRENT WTF” from him and that got very old very quick with my mindset already being that no one thinks I’m good enough to be here, so him “blaming” me for anything going wrong on the court was just reinforcing that shit in my head.
Again looking back on it, I think he actually meant well but it just wasn’t helping the way he intended. Me being the way I am, I never shouted back and got disrespectful in any way to him to let him know that shit was bothering me. I just internalized it and kept pushing. NEVER do that it’s bad for your mental health ladies and gentlemen, very bad.
Ok, now my back is getting better but I haven’t even shot one jump shot for a month. I couldn’t run so no cardio, so of course, it’s gonna take me at least 2-3 weeks to get back in shape and feeling normal again. Jamario Moon was signed while I was injured and he was the exact opposite of me personality-wise. He could make a mistake and forget it immediately even with the coaches screaming at him from the bench, and not care at all.
Funny story: Jamario is playing defense, a guy gets a back cut layup on him and he is still standing near the 3pt line. Coaches from the sideline scream “Jamario weak side defense!!!”
Jamario’s response was “I ain’t see him, coach.” I put a towel over my face to hide the fact that I was laughing so hard. Of course, you didn’t see him that’s why he scored, but that was Jamario, then he would come right down and hit a three or dunk on somebody two plays later. Having that level of confidence is something I never had. If you look at my career, years where I had coaches tell me “yo, we are with you, do your thing”, I was one of the most efficient all-around players. That happened in two places after high school. Bryan Gates and his staff in the G-league and Rethymno.
Bartzokas would let me hoop too, but it was the chirping from the assistants that would always make me think twice about shooting or trying to score too much. You see there are many players out there, that can do a lot more than what you see on TV or in the games but they are put in a box so that other players can shine because it’s not “their” team. So when you see a player coming to your team that maybe was averaging 16 or more and they get to your team and all of sudden their play struggles and they seem totally different, many times it’s more than just they are having a bad year or they are not a good player. Is the coach letting them play free, and do they mesh with the locker room politics?