By Antonis Stroggylakis / [email protected]
ABU DHABI (United Arab Emirates) – Mike James was in the exact same position two years ago, leading Monaco to the Final Four in a semifinal against Olympiacos.
In Kaunas, his team lost to Olympiacos, with the Greek team putting on a show in the third quarter where they overpowered Monaco 27-2. That’s why James doesn’t dwell a lot on that.
As he said, “Every game is a little bit different; they kind of play the same style, and so do we”.
James quietly had one of his most effective individual runs ever in EuroLeague, effectively balancing scoring and playmaking with 15.9 points and 5.8 assists to go with his 2.8 rebounds.
However, his name was never really mentioned on the MVP race, ultimately won by Kendrick Nunn. This doesn’t really mean much for him: “Not really, the media don’t talk about us anyway. I wasn’t paying attention to it, I was just focused on us trying to be healthy and win as many games as possible. Whatever people talk about it they’re going to talk about it”.
It wasn’t the same time Nunn made this proclamation but maybe it sounded funny to James during the Final Four opening press conferene, where he was sitting a few seats near the reigning MVP.
When he was asked by Eurohoops about Nunn saying he should have won the trophy last season, when James was the recipient, Monaco’s superstar didn’t seem to bother: “That’s his opinion. I won it. There are a lot of years I thought I should have won it, and I didn’t. You know, whatever”.
It wasn’t the same time Nunn made this proclamation but maybe it sounded funny to James during the Final Four opening press conference, where he was sitting a few seats near the reigning MVP.
What really counts for James in the Final Four is to win it all. This time he and Monaco will try to do it under the guidance of coach Vassilis Spanoulis.
A three-time EuroLeague champion and three-time EuroLeague Final Four MVP, a legend for Olympiacos and Spanoulis took over Monaco mid-season.
“He’s basically how he was as a player,” James said of Spanoulis, whom he had faced several times when Kill Bill was still hooping. “Tough, but able to adapt. He listens, he’s got his philosophy, but he molds it to the people he has on his team. He makes it comfortable for us”.