NEWCASTLE (Paul Nilsen's Women's Basketball Worldwide) - There’s only one player on the planet capable of overshadowing an entire league season tipping off but yes, you’ve guessed it, in a week when the WNBA swung into action, Diana Taurasi stole the headlines with another megabucks switch in Europe.
 
Having led Sparta&K M.R. Vidnoje to an unprecedented four EuroLeague Women titles in a row, it was last summer when Taurasi made the almost indescribably controversial switch from Fenerbahce to bitter Istanbul rivals Galatasaray Medical Park.
 
It was a story which gripped the imagination of not only the women’s game but indeed far beyond due to rumours of extraordinary salary payments and then a glut of death threats from disgruntled Fenerbahce fanatics on social media sites.
 
Ultimately the project for Galatasaray and Taurasi failed which was not surprising (due to a lack of depth and injury to Alba Torrens) and now she has a new project to spearhead with another heavyweight club and one also familiar with failing to realise their EuroLeague Women dreams.

Russian giants UMMC Ekaterinburg continue to live up to their reputation of being ‘always the bridesmaid and never the bride'. Those unconcerned by manners cruelly label them “Final Four Chokers” with a new moniker of “Final Eight Chokers” also now bestowed upon them.
 
Having seemingly ploughed more resources into winning a title than any other team in the women’s game, the failure of Ekat to finish top of the podium in Istanbul last month did have me questioning their approach. I went on record as saying something really had to give because it wasn’t just a couple of successive failures, blowing their big chance had become a pattern of failure.
 
Signing Taurasi could mean all bets are off and next year’s title will finally be going to Ekaterinburg. After all, you can barely put a price on having Taurasi on board as the biggest difference maker/game changer/game winner in EuroLeague Women and especially in a team with other great players around her.
 
However, as the dust continues to settle, something has been eating away at me about all of this. I think part of me is a little concerned for Ekat that their strategy of ‘spend, spend, spend’ hasn’t proved fruitful. I asked for a change in strategy but wasn’t necessarily thinking of a new strategy which went along the lines of ‘spend even more’.
 
Which brings me to something of an irony since, if Ekat wants to become EuroLeague Women champions, they probably need to consider how Taurasi led their great rivals Sparta&K to such unbelievable success.
 
Primarily under the leadership of the late Shabtai Von Kalmanovich and with the input of people like General Manager Steve Costalas, Sparta&K found the right ingredients. I even wrote about it in a previous column when Costalas revealed his list of 10 things that you need to be successful.
 
I think that Ekat have most of them in place already. They also have an 11th and 12th factor not mentioned by Costalas, namely to have Sue Bird running the point and to also have Taurasi in your team.
 
But, there are no guarantees. If there is one elite level team that knows this, it’s Ekat. They have just about assembled a ‘EuroLeague Women Dream Team’ for 2013 but coaching decisions and of course ‘Lady Luck’ will play her part. And to be fair, they hardly got a big dose of luck this year when Bird broke her nose in the warm-ups for the first crunch game in Istanbul.
 
There will be those who say with a team like this headlined by Taurasi, there should be no room for luck to play a part and ruin the party. But, even the greatest teams do need things to fall into place occasionally when the chips are (unexpectedly) down.
 
On balance though, I am going with the Taurasi factor to finally land them that elusive title. She’s back in Russia, she’s surrounded by class players, on a team with significant depth and next to the irrepressible Bird.
 
There's naturally a question mark over the newly-installed husband and wife coaching duo of Olaf Lange and Sandy Brondello. It was an announcement right out of left field from Ekat GM Maxim Rybakov - or perhaps it was more of a player driven decision?
 
I certainly didn’t see it coming and while Lange has led a team to a EuroLeague Women Final previously, it was a long time ago and reaching one with Ekat will mean nothing without the coveted Trophy itself.
 
Good luck to them both and with Taurasi and on board you couldn't have a more potent ingredient for EuroLeague Women success.

But as always, the proof will be in the pudding and Ekat failing to cook up a storm again next year with that line-up isn't even worth thinking about!
 
Paul Nilsen

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