Krunoslav Simon shared an incredible anecdote in “O svemu i ni o cemu s Kresom i Krunom” related to the head coach of Milano, Ettore Messina, as well as one concerning Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Krunoslav Simon, the legendary guard of Anadolu Efes, touched upon a specific situation regarding the FIBA Olympic qualification tournament for the 2016 Rio Olympics. Croatia triumphed over Tunis, Italy and Greece in that tournament. These were teams loaded with talent from NBA and EuroLeague players, yet Aleksandar “Aco” Petrovic’s squad managed to qualify for the Olympics. Simon shared an incredible anecdote before the game against Italy.
“At the time, I was playing for Milano. Our assistant at the club was an assistant to Ettore Messina (who was the head coach of Italy at the time), and they were under tremendous pressure. It was a stressful situation because they had to win, everything was organized to ensure they advanced.”
Petrovic simply put them in the drawer
“Our assistant encountered me in the hallway with a stack of scouting papers, but due to the stress, he left without them. I picked them up and saw plans for players like Roko Leni Ukic going right, throwing flouters, driving inside, avoiding certain plays, and so on. Simon’s style, instructions for all players, Bojan Bogdanovic’s strategies—all outlined. Messina left them there, so I took them and brought them to Petrovic, but he simply put them in the drawer.
I thought he would study them, but he didn’t. As we entered the locker room, with the game starting in 35 minutes, Petrovic took the board and said, ‘Now it’s September fifth, we gather on the 20th in Sveti Martin, the flight is on the 26th, and we’re at the Olympics on August 1st. Anyone who comes with an extra weight is out of the team.’ Nobody mentioned scouting.”
Tactics that Petrovic devised to contain Giannis Antetokounmpo
The guest on the show was Roko Leni Ukic, a longtime teammate of Simon in the national team and a former player of Fenerbahce, Toronto Raptors, and Milwaukee Bucks. He also reflected on that situation.
“That year, Petrovic played that prediction card five or six times, and he got everything right except against Serbia. We lost against Serbia, but we knew who we were up against, and it’s not like we weren’t prepared. He did it before against Italy, but we had already played that tournament.”
In the following segment, the legendary Croatian basketball duo also commented on the tactics that late Drazen Petrovic’s brother devised to contain Giannis Antetokounmpo.
“Before the game against Greece, Petrovic decided on a tactic where Dario Saric would guard Giannis and let him shoot threes. If he scored one, the plan was for Saric to step back even further, making Giannis think he could keep shooting. We won, and Giannis ended the game with only nine points” Krunoslav Simon told.
Antetokounmpo indeed finished the game with only nine points and a 0-7 shooting record from three-point range, while Croatia triumphed by 66:61, thus qualifying for the Olympic Games.
“You didn’t do anything today except for that block”
If you thought the anecdotes ended there, you were mistaken. In the first game of the Olympic tournament, Croatia surprisingly defeated Spain with a block by Dario Saric on Pau Gasol in the last second, and Krunoslav Simon decided to tease Saric at that moment.
“Saric was in the highest euphoria of all of us, and Simon, who was his roommate at the time, jokingly told him in the locker room, “You didn’t do anything today except for that block.” Saric is generally very sensitive to such remarks, especially back then when he was younger, and he asked Simon if he was serious. Simon replied that he was serious, which deeply affected Saric.
He then brought a mattress out onto the balcony and slept there for the remainder of the tournament with a sleep mask on. Saric wasn’t angry, rather, as a demonstration, in response to that comment, he decided to sleep on the balcony. We were superstitious, so we joked that Saric had to sleep on the balcony for the rest of the tournament as long as we were winning” said Ukic.
Croatia eventually got eliminated in the quarterfinals by Serbia.