Eye on Lebanese basketball in Qatar’s participation

Lot of remarks was seen in the participation of our basketball N.T in Qatar’s friendly tournament, but the clear and simple one is that Serbian coach, Dragan Raca still have lot of work to finish, on tactical side, or psychological one. As till now, we don’t have clear system, despite we still in preparations stages, but, it was clear, that our players failed to reach a stable performance even in the same quarter sometimes, and it was a direct result for the unacceptable absence that we faced (Fadi, Brian, Vroman), especially all of them are starters.

In addition to these absences, we faced big problems in two positions, 1 and 5. In position 1 our players are not in shape, Rony fahed, is far away from his real level, he made lot of wrong decisions during the games at Qatar, and failed to convince, while Ali Mahmoud, who came back from injuries, was too much better then Rony, but till now he didn’t get back to his real performance (I think he will next few weeks), and the youth playmaker Rodrigue Akl, is so talented, but do not have enough experience to lead his team, meanwhile Omar Krayem (22 years old), is out of judging, since Raca refused –with unknown reasons- to give him “real chance”, and probably he will not be choosen between last 12 players.

On position 5, we will have big issues especially on defense; our team is missing a big guy, who can cover defensively this zone. Ali Kanaan, showed some good skills, but “till now”, he is not the guy who can occupied number 5 as a starter, while the new naturalized player, Vroman, who replaced Joe Vogel, is more good on 4 then 5. But we still have to see Daniel Faris, he has very good statistics with his univesity, New Mexico, and lot of hopes are building on him.

As for the psychological side, we still missing a fighting spirit, and team spirit, especially that we have at least 4 new players (including Matt and Daniel), who even, never been with any Lebanese club, which will be a hard-mission for Raca to accomplish it, with just one month before the launching of Fiba Asia Championship.On other hand, our new team, can be one of the dangerous offensively team in Asia Championship, and one of the fastest also, since we have great shooters and forwards, with high ability to score in very good percentage, which will be a strong point that we missed in our ex-N.T, were the scoring machine was only Fady, with some help from Brian or joe or Rony, but now, beside him, we have Vroman, Matt, and Daniel, supported by a big progression from Brian, without forgetting our high performance from all distance, or positions.

At the end, this team, can give a lot, and can go so far, if we success to reach a stability between the defense and offense, and creating a high chemistry between the players, especially the new ones. So once Raca, who is famous in his European basketball style, can build a strong defense, the Asian title will be closer then we think.