The General Director of Astana summed up the performance in the VTB United League

Astana General Director Samson Arakelyan summed up the performance in the VTB United League regular season and spoke about the club's plans for the future.

- Samson Gevorgovich, how would you describe the result of Astana in the regular season of the VTB United League?

- I have dual feelings. By participating in every competition, we count on victories. And, of course, that losing streak in the VTB United League was pleasant, but it is definitely an experience that we had to go through to raise the level of our local players and give them playing time.



If we look at the statistics, the Kazakh basketball players of Astana have played more than ever this season. In the second half of the season, we looked good, we had victories, and very often, not only imports but also Kazakh players were the key to these victories. But, of course, the plan that we had initially — to reach the playoffs — we did not fulfill for several reasons.

- What can you say about the work of the coaching staff?



- The season turned out to be difficult for the coaching staff. In fact, it began at the end of May because the head coach Oleg Kiselev already then begun working with the national team, the base club for which is Astana.

I can say the same about the assistant coach and scout Gleb Plotnikov. We understood that the budget for import players would be greatly reduced because the club's main goal for this season was to form a farm team, the basis for our future, to open the Academy hall. Thus, a significant part of the funds from the budget went to these purposes, even though the budget remained the same. Our general sponsor, the SportQory Foundation, supported this decision. Accordingly, our scout has been working since June; we looked through dozens of players and chose from those who could have the potential for little money.

The same is true of physical training coach Rinat Abitov, who, at the end of May, began work on the rehabilitation of Askar Maidekin, on bringing the national team players into optimal shape. The work was quite difficult, but it paid off.

We had a hectic schedule in the VTB United League. The new season format increased the number of games from 24 to 32 also noting that the regular season ends in March rather than the usual mid-April. Also, let's remember the national championship and the games of the Kazakhstan national team. We have to remember that these are the same players who were supposed to play almost every two or three days, with a lot of flights. There was a huge risk of losing many players due to injuries, and the team could just «fall apart.»

Therefore, the work was started in advance and turned out to be successful. Fortunately, there have been no serious injuries to Kazakh players so far. The team looks pretty good in the second half of the season.

I think the coaching staff did an excellent job preparing for such a difficult season; the facts speak for themselves. Almost all of our imports had offers from other clubs. These are players who didn't interest clubs in the League in the off-season, but thanks to the work of the scout and coaching staff, they were able to play at a new level, increase their value, and arouse interest among clubs with great financial capabilities.



Daniil Aksenov, during the championship, was among the top 3 Russian players in terms of performance in the VTB United League. There were offers for Myers from clubs now playing in the League playoffs. There were also proposals for Markell Johnson… But we try to keep everyone we can as much as possible because we have ahead of the playoffs of the National League of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the West Asian Super League.

Of course, not everything is so rosy, and our result in the United League does not meet our expectations. We did not expect that so many American foreign players would come to play in the VTB United League this season. Almost all clubs had 5-6 foreign players. We still expected that this season would be held with fewer foreigners.

Summing up the intermediate results, I assess the coaching staff's work satisfactorily. Ahead of the championship of Kazakhstan and the matches of the West Asian Super League. Based on these results, I will be able to give the final assessment of the coach's work.



– Are there any new players planned for this season?

- Everything will depend on the championship of Kazakhstan results, which will end closer to mid-May. Based on this, we will look at where we need to strengthen.

We will likely look for imports. This will also be an additional opportunity to look at the players to sign them up for next season.

We have the main backbone of the team, and given that there is a limitation in the West Asian Super League — two legionnaires on the court and one in reserve — we will rely on Kazakhstani players.

I do not rule out that in the off-season, we may be able to attract not only legionnaires to Astana but also Kazakh players from other teams of the National League. But, again, everything will depend on the health and fitness of Astana's leading players.

– What would you say to fans who are not as interested in the home matches of the National League as the VTB United League?

- It is worth remembering the beginning of the season, especially the meeting with IRBIS, where we mainly involved the youth team. This match was more spectacular for the fans than some games in the VTB United League: struggle in every quarter, overtime, victory points scored in the last seconds. These were the emotions for which we love basketball.



I want to tell the fans that we will continue to attract young players to the team. This may give our rivals more chances somewhere, but on the other hand, it will make the games of the National League more spectacular and help develop players.

In addition, I follow the championship of Kazakhstan and see how active the fans in different cities are. Almost every club has an enthusiastic fan base, including away games. And the fact that each team can beat Barsy Atyrau or Astana this season makes the National League more interesting for the audience.

- An interview was recently published with a member of the executive committee of the NBF of the RK, who expressed the idea that Astana could leave the VTB United League if there is no increase in funding. Is it true?

These conversations have been going on for many years. Of course, the main success factor in the VTB United League is the club's budget. But I will say this: there is no alternative to the League now. The level of the teams and organization of the tournament is very high. It is not entirely correct to consider the League as a competition only for the development of Kazakhstani players. This is a high-level product in which foreign players play the main role regardless of the country that the club represents.



On the one hand, for us and the fans, this is a super opportunity to play against big and titled clubs and star players. Still, at the same time, constant losses do not bring any benefit either to the development of basketball in the country or to the marketing history of the club. Therefore, of course, the issue of further participation in the VTB United League, like ten years ago, requires an appropriate budget. Another question is whether this will be at the expense of the main sponsor or will be funded from additional sources that we could attract and with whom we work. This is a task that we have to solve this summer.

This season saw the start of the West Asian Super League (WASL), which is similar in format to the VTB United League. This is a full-fledged season with traveling; there are quite strong and interesting clubs from Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Lebanon. This is also a very interesting project for us. Ideally, to be honest, I would like us to participate in both championships.

To sum up, there are no talks about withdrawing from the VTB United League at the moment. Now the main task for us is to win the championship of Kazakhstan and show our worth in the framework of the West Asian Super League.

Of course, the question may arise: «How can you play in three leagues simultaneously because it's about 100 games a year?». We plan to play with two teams next season in the Kazakhstan championship.

There will be a «main» team that plays in international leagues. As part of the National League, they will play, relatively speaking, one round for a formal entry into the playoffs and exemption from other games of the regular season.

The second team, consisting of players under the age of 22, will fully participate in the championship of Kazakhstan throughout the whole season. And this will allow us to give sufficient experience and good games for the second team without pressure on the result. The young team will have no fewer fans. Moreover, its home arena will be the Academy Hall, which the fans liked so much at the Astana Cup games.