By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
They worked together at Panathinaikos Athens and won two Greek League championships. Then they parted ways on good terms when Mike James left for Milan.
On many occasions, both “The Natural” and Coach Xavi Pascual have expressed their mutual respect and admiration.
However, they will each attempt to put an end to the other’s EuroLeague season on Friday to stay alive, which makes the Play-In Showdown contest between AS Monaco and FC Barcelona even more interesting.
Their shared time in Athens
Mike James was coming off his breakout EuroLeague season with Baskonia, where he reached the 2016 EuroLeague Final Four. Xavi Pascual was about to coach outside of Spain for the first time.
They met in Athens after signing with Panathinaikos, which proved to be the start of a beautiful friendship. To be exact, Panathinaikos was about to start the season with Greek head coach Argiris Pedoulakis, and James was injured after hitting a glass partition during practice.
Pedoulakis said in a post-game press conference in the Greek League after the incident: “James wasn’t following the game plan during 5-on-5 practice, I subbed him, he was irritated, and he hit the glass with his hand. He was lucky; the cut could have injured him further if the wound had been just a few millimeters deeper. We stand behind him; we have to become a team.”
A few days later, on October 22, Pedoulakis was replaced by Pascual just as the season began, and things changed.
James eventually returned to action. Despite the team missing the EuroLeague Final Four in both 2017 and 2018, they won the Greek League, and James even signed with the Phoenix Suns in the summer of 2017.
In February of 2018, James left the NBA and returned to Panathinaikos, picking up where he left off, leading the team to the Greek League crown again alongside Nick Calathes.
An exchange of compliments
James left for Milan in the summer of 2018, and Pascual was dismissed by Panathinaikos a few months later, in December 2018.
Still, their connection remained.
In 2024, speaking to the podcast “Area 52” Pascual was asked about James, who made history by leading Monaco to the 2023 Final Four.
Pascual didn’t hesitate: “I would build a team around Mike James. He is a very good person. When we worked together, he was still very young, and the necessary balance in his game was not yet there. Since then, he has become a much better player. Mike James is to his generation what Dimitris Diamantidis and Juan Carlos Navarro were.”
Just two months ago, Mike James returned the compliment, speaking to the Euro Insiders podcast: “It was great working with him. I mean, I love Xavi Pascual. We still keep in touch from time to time. I think he taught me a lot about basketball, especially in that sense, because back then, I wasn’t yet the player I wanted to be; I wasn’t at that level. I learned how to complement the main player, but also how to score and help the whole team.”
An unexpected meeting
However, those sentiments will take the backseat, at least for two hours, when James’s Monaco hosts Pascual’s Barcelona on Friday.
The season will end for the losing side, and no scenario allows both sides to be happy.
What will not change even after the tip-off is the mutual respect between a coach and a star who have already made their mark and still want more.