-This question is one of the issues I am curious about. Do you think your frontcourt rotation is enough for the season? Do you plan to add to that rotation during the season?
“Critics my think that Fenerbahce does not have a deep squad to compete for titles both in EuroLeague and Turkish League. I don’t agree with that. This is my second year here. I have analyzed everything regarding the club. We have a development team that has important players. My priority is improving their games. If I can manage this and bring them our team that would make me very happy. We currently have nine players and 12-13 players in our development team. Mostly Turkish. We might have another foreign player that would play in the lower league but practice with us.”
“I want to identify the ones who could play with us in the top tier and give them a chance. This is very important for me because I don’t think this happened in Fenerbahce’s history before. But we are at a different stage now and this is why Fenerbahce brought Victor Lapena here. I am very close with our general manager. We have a new idea; to work hard for both Fenerbahce and Turkish basketball. I am not only focusing on the team. My priority is to help Turkish Basketball, especially Fenerbahce, and win. I will be very happy if I can help some of the young players to play with our team.”
-Last season, Fenerbahçe preferred a high-paced and aggressive game both in defense and offense. In particular, we watched a more resistant team in defense compared to previous seasons. As a matter of fact, defense capacity was one of the biggest problems of the team in the past seasons. In this context, how would you explain your own basketball philosophy?
“This is great because I love being a high scoring team. Scoring 80, 85 or even 90 points in a game. But I need the ball in my hands first to be able to score that much. So we have to make the opponent give the ball to us or we have to steal it. And we need to press the opponent to do this. Simply, we could score if we have the ball. My philosophy is that simple. I am not a defense coach or a coach with a defensive mentality. I love to play intense, smart, and pressing defense of course to push the opponent out of their comfort zone. But what I want the most is to have the ball. Because it’s not hard to score when you have players like Zandalasini, Tugce, Olcay, and McBride.”
“You have to play smart and simple basketball and open up spaces for them. They are great players. Is Olcay a better penetrator from the right side? Then use that side. Is Tugce better at low post? Then give her the ball at the low post. This is my philosophy. My teams never had an aggressive defensive strategy. Maybe only my players know me well. Maybe anyone watching our games might say: “This coach’s team is playing aggressive on defensive end. He is such a defense-oriented coach.”. But that’s not true. All we want is to have the ball in our hands. Because only then we can score.”
-What is the most important thing for you in your basketball philosophy? Aggressive defense, tempo on both sides of the game or mobile, and mobility in a team? What is the absolute factor for Victor Lapena?
“All of them. Let me elaborate on something. It makes me happy to see other coaches enjoy watching our games. We have some rules. For every part of the game. Rebaund, offense, defense… We have a rule for every scenario and we have to obey these rules. We know that we can set the tempo of the game ourselves if we obey these rules. Break the spacing of the opponent team and play your strong side against their weak sides. That’s pretty much it.”