BU exclusive, Shane Lawal: “I played on half a leg in Barcelona and about the Sacramento Kings experience…”

BasketUniverso had the pleasure of interviewing Shane Lawal, now a youth coach and former Player Development Coach of the Sacramento Kings and pro player in Europe for many years. Our ‘journey’ with him begins with the wonderful experience he had in the NBA thanks to coach Mike Brown.

How was the experience as Player Development Coach of the Sacramento Kings in the NBA, Shane Lawal?

I have to say it was a great experience. It gave me the opportunity to see what NBA basketball is like from the inside and to be able to compare it to basketball in Europe or other countries around the world or at the youth level. You have the opportunity to work with the best, it allowed me to improve a lot, it was a really great experience, especially the video analysis part.

How did this opportunity arise?

Chimezie Metu, a great friend of mine, suggested to coach Mike Brown to have a Nigerian on the coaching staff of the Nigerian national team, which consists of only American coaches. So coach Brown got a list of possible names and chose me. Things went well and he offered me to join him in Sacramento, so I did this Player Development Coach experience at the Kings.

Can you explain what the job of Player Development Coach consists of?

You have responsibility for 2-3 players, depending on the team: you have to improve them in every aspect of their game. You have to do this in daily practice, before practice, after practice, before games, and in general at all times related to basketball. An important job is video analysis where you can show them where they need to improve in 1-on-1 sessions.

The Kings have been one of the worst teams in the NBA for many seasons, while last year they did very well. What has changed?

They have a number of very strong young players. Domas Sabonis for example, very strong, but also Malik Monk, De’Aaron Fox, Harrison Barnes and others that you know well. In addition they are a great group and have a great coaching staff led by Mike Brown, that makes the difference.

During your career, you have been a globetrotter, playing in countries like Qatar, Kazakhstan and Libya. What was it like for a rookie to play so far from home and what can you say about the basketball and lifestyle in these countries?

One of the most difficult aspects for a player when going overseas is the environment. Playing basketball can be hard sometimes but not as hard as adapting to the language, the culture, not having your family around and sometimes not getting paid for what you are doing. I’m not sure if you know, Avellino still owes me a lot of money and I don’t know if I will ever see it. It’s not easy at all, you have to be able to accept all this, but if you have the right passion then you can get great results.

2014-15 season, Dinamo Sassari. You won three trophies. Was it the best season of your life? What was it like working with coach Sacchetti and playing with Logan, Dyson, Sanders, and other important players on that team?

That was without a doubt the best season of my career. We never started a game without the idea that we could win it. We played in the EuroLeague and we went into every game with the idea that we could win every game we played, even if we were playing against elite players. Don’t take me for a fool when I say this, we really believed it! We were a bit like Varese today, we played very fast, but unlike today we played against super defences. Reggio Emilia was tough defensively, Milan too. We played against some of the best defences in recent years, every game was a war against certain teams.

Offensively it had been years since Italy had seen a team so strong and with so many champions all together: Logan, Dyson, Sanders, but not only, because there were also Sosa and Brooks, for example. When you play basketball you look into the eyes of the men you have next to you and in their eyes I saw something different, I knew I could count on them in difficult moments, we trusted each other. There wasn’t a game when I was struggling that I didn’t know that one of them would help me out of that tunnel.

After Sassari you moved on to Barcelona, one of the most important clubs in Europe. But something went wrong in those two years. Was it only because of the injury during the Rio Olympics? Do you have any regrets about that period?

I partially broke my meniscus during the fourth quarter of Game 5 of the Scudetto Finals against Reggio Emilia in an attempt to grab a rebound. If I remember correctly I finished that game with 18 points and 21 rebounds and I broke my knee. That night I couldn’t go home, I couldn’t walk. And two days later we played game six in Sassari, I couldn’t miss it. Ugo D’Alessandro, our physiotherapist at the time in Sassari, kept putting ice on me, he tightened it, he did everything he could to get me on my feet for game six. I did well in that match but not in game seven, I just couldn’t do it, I couldn’t move. Drake Diener did whatever he wanted against me. But I didn’t stop and the week after the Scudetto I joined the Nigeria national team for training: in the summer of 2015 I practically played all the time before joining Barcelona.

At that point I only had half a leg, not even one. I did the whole 2015-2016 on half a leg until I got injured completely in February 2016 against Zalgiris. They told me I would have to sit out 2-3 months in 2016 but I was back on the court in not even a couple of months because I wanted to play in the EuroLeague Final Four. Unfortunately I wasn’t well and didn’t play much, we lost and didn’t make it to the Final Four or the finals of Liga ACB, we didn’t make it against Real Madrid. Unfortunately at the 2016 Olympics I got injured again because I ruptured my patellar tendon and that’s what happened. I have no regrets because I did everything I could do, I’m sorry I was never in condition during my two years with Barcelona because we could have done great things.

What are your plans for the future? Would you like to coach? And why not in Italy and especially at Dinamo?

Well, I have been coaching since 2018. I am currently still coaching youth club basketball. I want to coach, at any level, starting with the youth sector. Boys or girls, I don’t care. I want to coach as a professional in Italy, in Europe, in Russia, wherever there is an opportunity to coach. I want to combine what I learnt in the NBA and what I learnt in Europe, combine it all to become the best coach I can be. Of course before accepting any proposal I will discuss it with my family so that they will be happy with this decision.

I would also like to coach at the FIBA level, I wanted to coach Nigeria but they never responded to me, so I decided not to preclude myself from any opportunity because of the love I have for the game. Finally I want to say that I would like to coach together with Meo Sacchetti. Meo and I have had moments of discussion, of contrast, but I love him because every time he has protected me and my teammates. That’s why I’ll always be grateful to him, that’s why I’d like to coach with him. Go Meo!

We thank Shane Lawal for his availability and wish him the best of luck in his coaching career.