Seven Practices and a Confession: What Obradovic Said After the Win Over PAOK

In the second minute of the Pavlos Giannakopoulos tournament final, Zelimir Obradovic raised his hand for a timeout. Not the twelfth minute, not after a broken play. Just two minutes. In a pre-season friendly where no result counts toward the EuroLeague standings. The Serbian coach still stood up, still called his players in, and still spoke. That is how Obradovic operates: standards are set from the very first minute, regardless of what the game means. For him, a friendly is not a rehearsal — it is an opportunity to test whether the principles have soaked into the players' blood. Panathinaikos beat PAOK in a game Obradovic himself called a "thriller." He described several players diving to the floor for loose balls, called it a "very good game for us before the EuroLeague begins." But then he added one sentence I keep returning to, because it matters more than any win: "We are not ready." PAOK, according to Obradovic, will be in the EuroLeague next season. That turns this friendly from a practice with spectators into a genuine test. The opponent is no longer a lower-tier club; they are a future EuroLeague side, with matching pace and intensity. And against that backdrop, the way Panathinaikos had to struggle to win — even though they won — says a great deal about their true state. Obradovic was clear: "We have done seven practices with ten players." Seven sessions. Ten players. Meanwhile, a standard EuroLeague team typically enters the season with dozens of heavy practices, a full roster, and tactical drills repeated until they become reflex. Panathinaikos are a long way from that standard. I do not trust assertions; I trust injury history. And this is the most important thing in this story: Panathinaikos are missing several players to injury, and that makes those seven practices a far more worrying number than it appears on the surface. Break the problem into three layers. The first is quantity. With ten players in practice, you cannot simulate five-on-five at competitive intensity. You cannot rotate during conditioning drills. You cannot rest your core players at the right moments. The result is that the healthy players carry a heavier load than normal — during a period when their bodies need to gradually adapt to game speed. The second layer is quality. Seven practices are not "half a preparation." They are a truncated sequence without repetition. In basketball, systems are not learned by listening; they are learned by repeating. When the number of sessions drops to a third, defensive principles — rotations, help, communication — remain at the recognition level rather than becoming automatic. And in the EuroLeague, where half a second of delay costs points, the difference between "knowing" and "automatic" is the difference between winning and losing. The third layer is psychology. "We want more energy, more concentration," Obradovic said. That is not a complaint about talent. It is a complaint about consistency of effort. And that consistency — the foundation of every team — is the first thing eroded when the roster is incomplete and practices are disrupted. In all my years of tracking, Obradovic has never said "we are not ready" as a humble deflection. He says it because it is true. And it is notable that he said it after a win, not after a loss. An ordinary coach would use the win as a shield. Obradovic used it as bait to drag the truth into the light. There is a more counterintuitive reading: perhaps Obradovic's candor is itself a strategy. The 70-year-old coach with nine EuroLeague titles has something most of his peers lack — immunity to public pressure. When he says "we are not ready," he does not damage his credibility; he is lowering external expectations to match the internal reality. If Panathinaikos start slowly, that "not ready" will be cited as an honest warning. If they win early, it will be seen as a miracle from a legendary coach. Either way, Obradovic stands in an advantageous position. But I do not want to push the analysis too far. The truth remains: seven practices are seven practices. Ten players are ten players. Injured players are injured players. No communication strategy compensates for a lack of physical and tactical preparation. And in the EuroLeague, where the season stretches across a dense schedule, the price of underpreparation is rarely paid in the first month — it is paid in the third, when the body starts to speak. Obradovic said his team will have three more practices before the EuroLeague begins. Ten practices for a EuroLeague season. I am not saying Panathinaikos will fail — I am saying they are entering the season through a narrower door than any team of their caliber. And in a league where every game counts, walking through a narrow door means every mistake costs more. Tonight, my laptop stays open. My tracking sheet stays filled. And the question I am asking is not whether Panathinaikos will win their first game — it is whether their bodies can survive the third month.