Friday Eurovision - Donewald tries to change China

LONDON (Friday Eurovision) - Bob Donewald has been the head coach of China since the end of April.
 
He’s already become the star attraction of the national team.
 
Having coached Shanghai this season in the CBA, the club owned by China’s most famous sportsman, Yao Ming of the Houston Rockets, Donewald made a good impression on the people of the CBA – the decision makers in Chinese basketball.
 
Looking back to one year ago, China hosted the FIBA Asia Championship but did not have Yao and got hammered 70-52 by Iran in the final.
 
It was an embarrassing performance, one that spelled the end for Guo Shiqiang as head coach.
 
The search for a new man began.
 
It ended with Donewald.
 
What Donewald has that his predecessor did not is a very strong personality.
 
Very comfortable in his surroundings wherever he is, Donewald laughs with the reporters in China, who seem to hang on his every word.
 
When he was unveiled to the media as the new coach of China, he was very serious.
 
He didn’t make promises about winning games, but said that China was going through a period of transition because the older players, namely his Shanghai boss Yao, were getting older.
 
In other words, it was time to turn the page.
 
Don’t count on Yao anymore.
 
No one can play forever. Yao, who turns 30 later this year, missed all of last season in the NBA following reconstructive foot surgery.
 
The only promise that Donewald made the day of his unveiling as national team boss was that his players would work so hard that China would be proud.
 
Donewald has since made it very clear to the players that rules have to be followed and those who do not obey them will go.
 
The two faces of Donewald
 
Before a recent practice, Donewald walked onto the court to speak to reporters.
 
It happened to be the opening day of the World Cup in South Africa.
 
A female reporter asked Donewald a question in Chinese.
 
The translator by Donewald’s side said to the coach: “Are you going to watch the World Cup tonight?”
 
Donewald liked the question.
 
Practice could wait a few minutes.
 
He smiled and answered: “I hope so.
 
“I’ve got to make sure my wife … my wife is struggling with the time change a little bit. So she might kick me out of the room to watch it somewhere else. I’ve got to watch practice first. When I’m done with that, I’ll watch it.”
 
Donewald then said, “Who’s on tonight?”
 
After being told it was Mexico taking on hosts South Africa, Donewald, who I thought was from Michigan, sounded like someone who stepped out of a movie filmed in the deep south of America.
 
“Who ya’ll pickin’?” he said.
 
Everyone told him, “Mexico.”
 
He raised his eyebrows and looked surprised.
 
“The game’s in South Africa,” he said.
 
“Better root for the home team.”
 
Then Donewald got a serious question about Zhang Bo, the promising national team player he’d just chucked off the national team because he’d missed an 11pm curfew.
 
This was the most interesting 20 seconds of the Donewald reign in China.
 
Did he, reporters wanted to know, tell Zhang Bo face-to-face that he was off the team and did he think of giving him a second chance since the player, according to Donewald, had been working so hard in practice?
 
Donewald said: “To answer the first part, yes. I deal with all the problems. I don’t hide. If there is a problem, I deal with it. So yes, I was the one that told Zhang Bo my decision.”
 
A hushed silence fell on the reporters because the jovial Donewald had turned into a hard Donewald.
 
The coach then said: “As for the second part of your question, this team is going to be made up of discipline.
 
“Disciplined teams win basketball games.
 
“Without discipline, we’re dead in the water.
 
“We don’t move forward. He made a decision. As all decisions, they have consequences.
 
“He made the decision to go out, he’s got to live with the consequences.
 
“This is a team of discipline.”
 
China had a disciplined coach in Jonas Kazlauskas of Lithuania, but he is cut from a different cloth.
 
Having watched Donewald coach in Great Britain, it’s safe to say that Kazlauskas is no Donewald.
 
Disciplined is not the first thing that comes to my mind when remembering the Donewald-coached teams in England’s British Basketball League like Leicester, Derby and London Leopards.
 
It was more like ‘out of control’, at least on some nights.
 
Donewald had teams of fighters, players like Rico Alderson and Yorick Williams that would go out and play hard and yes, sometimes fight.
 
They didn’t back down from any team at any time.
 
When Donewald left England, the sport lost a winner, and its biggest showman.
 
He returned to America and served as an assistant coach to Paul Silas with the Hornets, and the Cavaliers, before popping up in China with Shanghai before the 2009-10 season.
 
Like the reporters are finding out in China, Donewald doesn’t “hide”.
 
There is a refreshing quality about him. He makes a reporter’s job easy.
 
He’s not secretive, but opens up.
 
He also speaks directly, and to the point.
 
As an objective observer, China needed someone like Donewald.
 
China were soft.
 
They played hard under Kazlauskas, but they weren’t hard men.
 
Being blown out in the gold medal game at home against Iran was inexcusable.
 
They needed to come together, fight together and look at the big teams and believe they can win.
 
I think the CBA has got it right.
 
Under Donewald, they will do all three or, in his words, they’re “dead in the water.”
 
Jeff Taylor