ESP – Losing is no fun for Spain’s Juan Carlos Navarro

MEMPHIS (Olympics) - Juan Carlos Navarro isn’t sitting on the bench, but he’s not winning any games, either.

The Memphis Grizzlies, the team he left European powerhouse Barcelona for last summer, have won just 14 games all season while losing 45.

And that is bothering Navarro, just as it did his close friend and fellow Spain international Pau Gasol for so many years before the latter’s recent trade to the Los Angeles Lakers.

Navarro, who sacrificed a lot of money to leave the ACB and Euroleague in order to join the handful of Spanish players in the NBA, doesn’t regret the move.

But losing, something the Grizzlies do most of the time, is not sitting well with him.

"There are difficult times," Navarro said in the El Pais newspaper.

"No-one can get accustomed to losing so much. We start the games well, but as the minutes go by, we get struck and we end up losing one game after another.

"Our rival teams see that and they take advantage and the referees also and they don't respect us. We don't follow a path and we're not going anywhere."

Navarro, just like Gasol, is no ordinary player. Both are world champions.

Their gold medal achievement at the 2006 FIBA World Championship sets them apart. Both will play this summer when Spain go for Olympic gold as well.

Worse than losing for Navarro, perhaps, and this is something that other European stars like Sarunas Jasikevicius have mentioned, is the mentality that he has noticed in some players.

"I don't see that my team-mates get too angry about it," Navarro said. "The philosophy of the tournament is, at the end of the day, `there's another game to play’.

"But I'm not like that and you can see that I get angrier."

Navarro, who had immense respect in Europe after a spending a decade with Barcelona, isn’t treated the same way in America.

"I am here, I'm just one other player and it's clear that I'm not very important for the team," he said.

"But I knew what I was getting into. I am a rookie for my team-mates, and for the referees."

And Navarro isn’t sure where he will be playing next season, either.

"The Grizzlies haven't told me anything regarding my future but they have told me they are happy with me," he said.

In Tuesday’s Memphis Commercial Appeal, Navarro spoke about his future.

He said: "I want to earn more money and I hope to get a better contract," he said. "My aim is to have a good season in order to achieve a longer and improved contract.

"I want to continue in the NBA and that everyone can see that I am playing in the NBA for a longer period of time."

FIBA