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Alex Caruso about Thunder's NBA title Quest: “The most difficult thing you will ever do in sports”

Alex Caruso about Thunder's NBA title Quest: “The most difficult thing you will ever do in sports”

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When the Oklahoma City Thunder acquired Alex Caruso last summer, he was celebrated almost generally as a coup for a franchise that was already set up for a brilliant future.

Caruso's arrival only increased the case of thunder as a championship candidate. He is a relentless competitor, one of the most versatile defenders in the league and a leader on the floor and in the changing room. He also has championship experience from his role as a sixth man with the Los Angeles Lakers 2020.

“This type is a winner,” said Thunder Big Man Chet Holmgren about Caruso. “If you go to Lifetime (fitness), that's the type of type you choose first. You love to play with such people. You will play the right games, all the competitions.

After signing the center of Isaiah Hartenstein two weeks after Caruso, the thunder seemed to have all parts to do a deep after season run. A historical season followed with 68 wins. Then came a sweep of the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round of the playoffs. Now the thunder awaits the winner between the La Clipper and Denver Nuggets.

Caruso – the only player on the roster with championship experience – sat down The athlete To discuss what it takes to conquer the first franchise championship. In a far-reaching questions and answers, Caruso considered his championship memories why the thunder among the best organizations in the league and what Oklahoma City Star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander-Special is viewed.

(The following interview was easily processed for brevity and clarity.)

Is defense impossible to play today's Spread-Out NBA? Not for thunder. You have found the secret to put the clamps to your opponents.

I am excited to see that I have seen your perspective on what you have seen up close that the thundering organization is successful year after year if you have your second commitment to the organization and were in some different clubs?

I think it naturally starts with (Executive Vice President and General Manager) Sam (Presti). He is very picky about who he brings to the organization, whether this is a player, a player developmentman, a trainer, training staff, equipment – all. There is only one way of thinking and a focus focus that is very optimized. You hear the concept “one to 15” in a team. How, everyone is at the same level. You want us to act and treat trainers as well as kitchen staff such as the security boys and teammates – and vice versa. I think that goes a long way, everyone pushes and pulls in the same direction.

And of course you have talent on the floor, and that helps. You did it right with a few designs and brought in some people. But I think a lot starts only with the character of the people in the building.

This organization focuses on basketball. How important is this and how does this show the players?

Even in the six or seven months in which I have been here several times over the course of the season, Sam come to me (Vice President of Human and Player Performance) Donnie Strack comes to me and you asked me how you can help me: “What can we do better for you?” And then you ask me: “How can we improve the team? How can we improve the organization?”

I think this is just your ambition to improve further. You are never satisfied with how good you are, even if people like you or outside the people say: “Wow, this organization does a great job. You can be the model you need to follow.” And yet at the same time they are still not perfect and want to get better. That is the same with players. Big players in the league are great because they use the work and are never satisfied. I think this organization is probably one of the best in the league: they are already so good and they are still looking for opportunities to improve.

After game 3, they talked about how they would not be in the NBA and sitting on the postgame podium if they did not stick to this standard. Is this a goal that you saw when you took place last summer due to this symmetry?

Yes, of couse. I knew that the stars at this level were still aligned because of the people I knew in the organization, and only interact with Sam.

I have told a story about him several times in which he came to Sioux if we had a trip with the G League team, and we had two games in four days in Sioux Falls, and he came down for the first game and then stayed the night and just made a Q&A with all boys in the G -League team, an open forum to ask him what they wanted. Knowing what I know now is very unusual. So I knew that the kind of people who led the organization was still here when I was here for the first time. I only knew what she stood for. And then, when I played the team, I saw how hard they play and how much success they had the year before, I knew that on the pitch it would be a big fit for me and o's o'ss on the pitch, and I would somehow seamlessly in line.

What do you remember that you have won the best part of the win of your first when you are looking for your second championship?

To be honest, the mixture of emotions after winning is incredible. It's like euphoria and gratitude. But there is this piece of them that has just gone through a glove, and it is like: “Thank God I can sit down now.” I remember this feeling on the pitch and was obviously only enthusiastic and excited that we made it. When I look back, I have a look now and years and years from this route and years to remember how basketball is in the playoffs in this stage because I have not been there ever since.

That is the goal of coming back. It only brings back memories of the different times in the series, in which we pursued or have to withdraw in the first two series against Portland and Houston. We showed who we really were as a team. I think this team also has some of it. With game 3 (29 points) on the street and not just pack up and think, we will get game 4 and try to close at home. There are many similarities in this aspect.

Enjoy the trip on the way or are you so much focused on the tunnel point of view that you have to wait until it is over?

It is a mixture of both. But to be clear, it is not the same celebration after every win it is in the end when you win the last one. You can finally switch off the switch when you win. But the intensity and the focus and the emotional train that the playoffs bring and the final brings … I think you have to enjoy every win. I think if you don't celebrate and enjoy every win on the way, it will be more of a task than a trip to get there. I think they enjoy the victories because it is difficult to win. It is difficult to get into the playoffs. It is difficult to win in the playoffs. You have to have a kind of joy in success.

From the outside it looked that this Thunder team has everything it needs to win everything. What is your message about your teammates about what it takes to do it?

It is the most difficult thing I've ever done in sports. It just takes so many different things to go right, and so many different players and trainers to have input and dictate the game. It's not easy what is easy. That is what I try. I try to tell the boys: “It will be the most difficult thing that you will ever do in sports.”

For me it was the most difficult to come here, I thought, first. And then I came here and it is a completely different level to do this. But (I) just try to draw your attention. I even told them (while game 3) when we were in our comeback, we were 12 or 13 years old, we still had a long way ahead of us. I came out and said to them: “We will not be perfect for the rest of the game. We will make mistakes. This is about this in the playoffs: in every possession at the highest level, without thinking about the last or the next. I think that is a special quality that this team has.


Alex Caruso was an impact player for a team in Oklahoma City who won a franchise record 68 games of the regular season this season. (Mark J. Rebilas / Imagn Pictures)

How did you integrate your leadership style into this team?

Just sweaty, man, man. Invest time. Almost all of these people I don't think I've played with one of them before. I played against a handful of them. But on the same side and being together in the trenches is another animal. So, especially in the course of the year, they bother and enter the welding capital to earn trust, and from there what good managers should do, e.g. As soon as I do this, it is easy for the young boys to understand that I have the best intentions for you and the team. From there we could move as one forward.

How much did you have to navigate at the beginning because you entered a invited team, a playoff team and a team with some stars?

It is part of the structure of these relationships. This is part of the accession of a new team to build relationships and to gain the trust of your teammates and trainers. Fortunately, I had experience with it because I had to earn all the teams in which I had to earn every minute and in every role I was. Although I had an individual success in previous years to come here and to have the attitude to earn everything I will do, I think that this has taken a long way to build this justice and this trust within the team.

For years we have seen that they accept the challenge of defending someone. What does it take for you to go from a Desmond Bane to a Jaren Jackson Jr.?

Only the differences in the two boys understood, the differences in the way players play, the different sentences that they like to run. If I have the knowledge of what to do, it can be a little easier to go out physically and do it just because I will be in good positions. I will be able to work early and get an advantageous positions.

But it's difficult. I will give myself a little recognition: it is difficult to do. But we have several people in the team who can do that. I think Lu (there) guarded everyone. Caso (Cason Wallace) can switch by three or four, and Dub (Jalen Williams) protects everyone. We have a few people who do this and it was also fun to learn each other.

They played with a few sizes of all time, especially LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Demar Derozan. What separates Shai Gilgeous-Alexander?

He has this special, competitive advantage that all the great boys do. The boys I saw – Bron, AD, (Rajon) Rondo, Danny Green, Dwight Howard, Demar – these are boys who have already been the most talented, but then there is also a standard to stick to. They are competitive with themselves to get better and be the best. I see that with (Gilgeous-Alexander). He does so much work if not more work than anyone else on the pitch.

In practice there are days when he only has the juice and his team wins, no matter what happens. It is just things that I have seen in boys where you can control the game by starting at such a high level, and then the most talented. This is a special combination.

(Toptoto: Alonzo Adams / Imagn Images)

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