By Manos Firogenis/ info@eurohoops.net
AEK Athens is entering the battle in the Basketball Champions League, a competition the club knows well and in which it has distinguished itself in the past, winning the trophy in 2018.
Mindaugas Kuzminskas, who had an inspired game in Peace and Friendship Stadium against Olympiacos over the weekend, talked just after the final buzzer to Eurohoops about the expectations in the new BCL season.
As he said: “I don’t want to say a lot and have big words coming out of my mouth. Looking at the way we play and how we are at the moment, I won’t say the cliché that we have to go game by game but season by season. And in the end, we will see what we have achieved”.
“The important thing is not to fall into the same mistakes and to take a step forward in every match. We are a new team, we need time but no one will wait for us or feel sorry for us. We have to show our best face immediately. Sometimes we will lose, but we played well and in every match, we have to give everything we have,” Kuzminskas explained as AEK is building a long-term project that includes a lot of marquee names including Ben McLemore, Mfiondu Kabengele, and Jordan McRae
Plus the experienced Lithuanian forward came to AEK to work again with coach Joan Plaza, with whom he collaborated in Unicaja previously.
And he is familiar with his methods: “It’s a lot of work. I don’t know how much I need to add to describe it in words. He is addicted to his work, he lives and breathes for basketball. On the one hand, it’s good because it prepares us properly, but on the other hand… He kills us in training. We as players suffer every day in training and the gym (laughs). But from my experience, hard work and effort bring results”.
And Kuzminskas wants AEK to start delivering as soon as possible because, after all, he likes the coach!
“The point is that they need to come soon and this is the way. But first of all, our coach is a very nice guy. We usually judge people not by their profession but by who they are. This is the most important thing,” Kuzminskas concluded.