The Case for Xavi Pascual as the Best Coach in Europe
By Rafael Uehara
It has been an unusual start to the Spanish league season for Real FC Barcelona. The Catalan powerhouse lost a grant total of eight games in the regular-season last year. They have already lost seven in their first 15 games of this campaign. But as they handed Real Madrid its first loss in domestic play, 96-89 on Sunday – December, the 30th, Barcelona has assured its fans there is no cause for serious concern, especially considering the team’s 10-1 start in the Euroleague.
It was an odd year for Barcelona last season. It sure as hell felt like the end of a run when the club struggled mightily to attack Olympiacos in the Euroleague final four and, based on their regular-season and King’s Cup meetings, appeared on pace to be dethroned by Real Madrid in the domestic league. Yet, Barcelona outlasted its arch-rivals in five games and Erazem Lorbek, thought to be as good as gone to the San Antonio Spurs, re-signed in the offseason, for the richest deal in the continent.
Expectations still were that we were likely to see significant change at Palau Blaugrana. Barcelona’s summer acquisitions indicated the front-office understood that their codependency of Lorbek and Juan Carlos Navarro held them back, bringing in Saras Jasikevicius, Ante Tomic and Nathan Jawai to add creativity on offense. Projections were Barcelona would be giving up defensive pedigree, as Boniface N’Dong, Fran Vázquez and Kosta Perovic, cornerstones to the team’s successful defensive scheme, departed as their contracts expired.
Some, like me, saw the front-office’s willingness to trade-off defense for offense as a vote of confidence in head-coach Xavi Pascual’s capabilities to keep Barça a force in prevention. And Pascual has sure as hell come through for them. Barcelona leads the Euroleague in defensive efficiency, allowing an average of only 86.7 points per 100 possessions and holding opponents to 45.9% effective shooting, according to gigabasket.org. It’s important to mention Barça has faced five of the eight worst offenses in the continental competition but the numbers they have posted are impressive regardless of the level of competition. In the Spanish league, they have slipped a little as Unicaja dropped 71 and Real Madrid 89 on them the last couple of games, and currently rank second in points allowed, at 70.87 a game.
A healthy Pete Mickeal, a full year removed from knee and pulmonary issues, has been huge and it’s tough to imagine this team without Victor Sada (which threatened to be the case for a while there in the summer), but Pascual gets most of the credit here. Despite having half of his rotation composed of Marcelinho Huertas, Navarro, Jasikevicius, Tomic and Jawai, Pascual has built Barcelona back into the most dominant defense in the continent.
He is the one that has taken the most out of Tomic, and while the underachieving Croatian center still isn’t Tyson Chandler guarding the pick-and-roll, it’s undeniable how much he has improved; mostly providing help in the right occasions, making opponents respect his 255-pound frame in the post, and finally rebounding and challenging shots like somebody of seven-foot-three stature. With Tomic on the floor, Barcelona is allowing just 81.5 points per 100 possessions in the Euroleague, according to in-the-game.org, and defends 17.5 points per 100 possessions better than with him on the bench. He ranks second in the Spanish league in rebounding, according to ACB.com, which is crazy if you saw him play for Real Madrid last year.
But while he has done magnificent work coaching Barcelona’s defense up to last season’s historic status with lesser personnel, it’s perhaps his coaching of the offense that has been more impressive. With their moves in the offseason, the front office signaled it understood the team could no longer only depend on its two best players to generate offense against some of these great defenses in the continent. However, it was still on Pascual to make the adjustments and modernize the attack. And he has come through on that front too.
In his first season out of Victoria, Huertas was limited within the offense. He was still a better fit than Ricky Rubio because of his ability to hit the outside shot but nowhere close to the player who many judged the best point-guard in Europe with Caja Laboral Baskonia. Huertas is still not running pick-and-roll after pick-and-roll but he has been a lot more involved in the attack this season. According to gigabasket.org, Huertas’ usage-rate has increased from 18.3% last season to 24.3% this season in Euroleague play. According to in-the-game.org, with Huertas on the floor, Barcelona is averaging 116 points per 100 possessions, a rating that would rank them first in offensive efficiency.
With Huertas a bigger part of the attack, Barcelona has scored at a higher rate, through easier looks. Huertas has good chemistry with both Tomic and Jawai in the pick-and-roll, and as a result Barça has led the Euroleague in scoring in the lane and ranks second in the Spanish league in dunks. They currently rank sixth in the continental competition in offensive efficiency, the same position they held last season, but they are averaging over three points per 100 possessions more.
Pascual has been more open minded about lineups featuring just a couple and sometimes only a single above-average defender. At one point in Sunday’s game, when Mickeal picked up his third personal foul early in the second quarter, Pascual threw a three-man backcourt of Sada, Huertas and Navarro out there. It’s hard to picture a scenario in which that would have happened last season.
As he has progressed into a coach a little more willing to experiment outside his old philosophies and provide the talent more freedom, I believe Xavi Pascual is arguably the best head-coach in European basketball at the moment. Context matters, of course. Zeljko Obradovic is sitting this year out, Dusan Ivkovic has retired, Ettore Messina is just now coming back into the fold and Simone Pianigiani still hasn’t had the best to work with at Fenerbahçe. David Blatt is probably just as a qualified a candidate for the title, but I often feel Pascual is underrated. Sergio Scariolo in Milano is the perfect example of how it takes more than just good players to build a machine. Pascual is just an important a part to the puzzle as Navarro or Lorbek or Sada or Mickeal, and as Barcelona has shattered doubts surrounding the team coming into the season because of his coaching, the case for Pascual as the best coach in the continent in the moment is as good as anyone else’s.
Editor's Note: Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com
It has been an unusual start to the Spanish league season for Real FC Barcelona. The Catalan powerhouse lost a grant total of eight games in the regular-season last year. They have already lost seven in their first 15 games of this campaign. But as they handed Real Madrid its first loss in domestic play, 96-89 on Sunday – December, the 30th, Barcelona has assured its fans there is no cause for serious concern, especially considering the team’s 10-1 start in the Euroleague.
It was an odd year for Barcelona last season. It sure as hell felt like the end of a run when the club struggled mightily to attack Olympiacos in the Euroleague final four and, based on their regular-season and King’s Cup meetings, appeared on pace to be dethroned by Real Madrid in the domestic league. Yet, Barcelona outlasted its arch-rivals in five games and Erazem Lorbek, thought to be as good as gone to the San Antonio Spurs, re-signed in the offseason, for the richest deal in the continent.
Expectations still were that we were likely to see significant change at Palau Blaugrana. Barcelona’s summer acquisitions indicated the front-office understood that their codependency of Lorbek and Juan Carlos Navarro held them back, bringing in Saras Jasikevicius, Ante Tomic and Nathan Jawai to add creativity on offense. Projections were Barcelona would be giving up defensive pedigree, as Boniface N’Dong, Fran Vázquez and Kosta Perovic, cornerstones to the team’s successful defensive scheme, departed as their contracts expired.
Some, like me, saw the front-office’s willingness to trade-off defense for offense as a vote of confidence in head-coach Xavi Pascual’s capabilities to keep Barça a force in prevention. And Pascual has sure as hell come through for them. Barcelona leads the Euroleague in defensive efficiency, allowing an average of only 86.7 points per 100 possessions and holding opponents to 45.9% effective shooting, according to gigabasket.org. It’s important to mention Barça has faced five of the eight worst offenses in the continental competition but the numbers they have posted are impressive regardless of the level of competition. In the Spanish league, they have slipped a little as Unicaja dropped 71 and Real Madrid 89 on them the last couple of games, and currently rank second in points allowed, at 70.87 a game.
A healthy Pete Mickeal, a full year removed from knee and pulmonary issues, has been huge and it’s tough to imagine this team without Victor Sada (which threatened to be the case for a while there in the summer), but Pascual gets most of the credit here. Despite having half of his rotation composed of Marcelinho Huertas, Navarro, Jasikevicius, Tomic and Jawai, Pascual has built Barcelona back into the most dominant defense in the continent.
He is the one that has taken the most out of Tomic, and while the underachieving Croatian center still isn’t Tyson Chandler guarding the pick-and-roll, it’s undeniable how much he has improved; mostly providing help in the right occasions, making opponents respect his 255-pound frame in the post, and finally rebounding and challenging shots like somebody of seven-foot-three stature. With Tomic on the floor, Barcelona is allowing just 81.5 points per 100 possessions in the Euroleague, according to in-the-game.org, and defends 17.5 points per 100 possessions better than with him on the bench. He ranks second in the Spanish league in rebounding, according to ACB.com, which is crazy if you saw him play for Real Madrid last year.
But while he has done magnificent work coaching Barcelona’s defense up to last season’s historic status with lesser personnel, it’s perhaps his coaching of the offense that has been more impressive. With their moves in the offseason, the front office signaled it understood the team could no longer only depend on its two best players to generate offense against some of these great defenses in the continent. However, it was still on Pascual to make the adjustments and modernize the attack. And he has come through on that front too.
In his first season out of Victoria, Huertas was limited within the offense. He was still a better fit than Ricky Rubio because of his ability to hit the outside shot but nowhere close to the player who many judged the best point-guard in Europe with Caja Laboral Baskonia. Huertas is still not running pick-and-roll after pick-and-roll but he has been a lot more involved in the attack this season. According to gigabasket.org, Huertas’ usage-rate has increased from 18.3% last season to 24.3% this season in Euroleague play. According to in-the-game.org, with Huertas on the floor, Barcelona is averaging 116 points per 100 possessions, a rating that would rank them first in offensive efficiency.
With Huertas a bigger part of the attack, Barcelona has scored at a higher rate, through easier looks. Huertas has good chemistry with both Tomic and Jawai in the pick-and-roll, and as a result Barça has led the Euroleague in scoring in the lane and ranks second in the Spanish league in dunks. They currently rank sixth in the continental competition in offensive efficiency, the same position they held last season, but they are averaging over three points per 100 possessions more.
Pascual has been more open minded about lineups featuring just a couple and sometimes only a single above-average defender. At one point in Sunday’s game, when Mickeal picked up his third personal foul early in the second quarter, Pascual threw a three-man backcourt of Sada, Huertas and Navarro out there. It’s hard to picture a scenario in which that would have happened last season.
As he has progressed into a coach a little more willing to experiment outside his old philosophies and provide the talent more freedom, I believe Xavi Pascual is arguably the best head-coach in European basketball at the moment. Context matters, of course. Zeljko Obradovic is sitting this year out, Dusan Ivkovic has retired, Ettore Messina is just now coming back into the fold and Simone Pianigiani still hasn’t had the best to work with at Fenerbahçe. David Blatt is probably just as a qualified a candidate for the title, but I often feel Pascual is underrated. Sergio Scariolo in Milano is the perfect example of how it takes more than just good players to build a machine. Pascual is just an important a part to the puzzle as Navarro or Lorbek or Sada or Mickeal, and as Barcelona has shattered doubts surrounding the team coming into the season because of his coaching, the case for Pascual as the best coach in the continent in the moment is as good as anyone else’s.
Editor's Note: Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com
Posted by Rafael Uehara at Tuesday, January 01, 2013 12:46:38 PM 
Categories: Euroleague, Spanish league
Tags: Rafael Uehara
Categories: Euroleague, Spanish league
Tags: Rafael Uehara
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