The complete “beautiful, wild horse” quote
This has got to be one of my favorite quotes ever.
(from David Blatt’s post-game press conference following Russia vs. Serbia)
Have you ever met a horse trainer? Andrei is like a beautiful, wild horse. He’s best when he’s roaming around and running free. We try to ask from him to play within the system, but honestly it seems like his best moments are when he’s doing what his heart and his instinct tells him to do. Most of his great plays, they come from not the structure, but from the mind and from the beautiful talent that he has.
The lucky thing is that he’s not a selfish man. He’s not a greedy player. He plays for the team, and I talk to him all the time about books and about a lot of nice things but I try to tell him very little about how to play because it seems that I just bother him if I do that.
And he was, in the second half, he was unbelievable. … Andrei did things in the second half that I can’t teach, and that Coach Ivkovic cannot prepare for. It’s a block from the weak side, it’s an offensive rebound, it’s a steal, reading the moment. These are not things that are teachable, and they’re not coaches’ things. That’s Andrei. Thank God he’s on my side.
Side note: Good to know that there are still some people that see value in reading, and that reading isn’t frowned upon everywhere like it is in the Jazz locker room…
