The Life and Lies of the Polish Basketball League – My experience working professional basketball overseas.

I am currently working in Polish Basketball, one of the European leagues that has player from across the world including ex-NBA players, NBA prospects, national team members of many countries, and coaches with vast amounts of experience. I am pleased to be a part of this vast organization and exposed to the media, games, and experiences that come with it.

People say the referee’s here are some of the hardest to play with. Making speculative calls, having obvious calls overturned, not called, or invented during the progress of the game. You can always blame a game on a referee, but in the end it falls upon the team, not individual players, to win the game. You can always try and take the game out of the referees hands and play your hardest regardless of how fair or unfair the game may be called. In Poland the referee’s have a very difficult job, always scrutinized and investigated, and even have had bottles and other items thrown at them by the extremely proud fan base that each team has.

But when a coach blames a whole game or series on the referees its not always easy for players and staff to understand.

I am not one to speak ill of others but I am going to attempt to explain what has happened in the past 24 hours.

Asseco Prokom has already advanced to the finals of PLK basketball and are awaiting the result of PGE Turow Zgorzelec and Trefl Sopot as the series is now at 1-2 (Trefl leading).

The head coach is a very talented coach, and has many accolades to demonstrate this as well as being the head coach for the national women’s basketball team of Poland. Our coach signed a contract with the 2nd highest women’s team in Poland yesterday. In the middle of the series. The contract is tentative if we make it to the finals. This means if we lose 1 more game during this series he is leaving this club for another team.
His contract at his current club (Turow) is tentative as well, he gets a contract extension for next season if we make it to the finals.
His actions are shocking. It shows that he has no faith in the staff, players, coaches, to win this semi finals and move on. Thats why he ALREADY signed the contract and disrespected all of us by doing it.
Normally after practice or shoot around they watch game tape and talk about some stuff about the opposing team. Today there wasn’t one because possibly he didn’t want to look the players in the eye. This is an vile gesture by the head coach of our team. We have been receiving phone calls and texts from other players, coaches, and cheerleaders expressing there deepest concern for our current situation.

I believe in this team. Last year we upset teams while being down in a series. We reached the finals to only losing in a close game 7 battle with Asseco Prokom. I just want to express the surprising actions that have occurred over the past 24hrs. Please leave your thoughts and comments below.

This post is going to be edited shortly, but a few words must be said quickly and briefly before I develop this post and story through the next few days.