Carlos Frade:
Effort Without Quality is Nothing

The near miss of the playoffs last season forced Latvian VEF Riga to change their ways of running things as the team replaced the head coach and most of the players on the roster and focused on developing young and talented athletes.

Head coach Carlos Frade spoke with VTB-league.com and shared his thoughts about the team’s new philosophy, League’s first Mexican import and the level of competition within the team.

VTB United League season is about to start. You previously worked in Spain and Hungary, what do you expect from this year?
I expect we improve more than anyone, play harder than anyone and work more than anyone. You cannot control other factors, like how other teams prepare, but we can control what and how we behave in practice. I expect our players, coaching staff and club personnel to come hungry everyday, to work with high desire and to be better and make the club grow.

How did you manage to land this job with VEF?
They wanted a change in many things in the club and offered me the possibility to give my input and ideas. Not only talking about basketball, off the court as well. From our recruiting to our practices, everyone tells me that this is a big change compared to how things used to be done. That does not guarantee anything. It is just a beginning and we have to do things with quality, do the things well. Effort without quality is nothing.

What was the key to you accepting the offer?
Desire. Since day one, they showed great commitment and desire to listen to me and follow my advices. The organisation proved they wanted me and that makes me feel great about the idea of coming to Riga. Also, both competitions, VTB and LBL, are very strong and a huge challenge.

With VEF not being able to offer competitive salaries, what factors bring the players to the team?
None of the players in our team is with us because of the money as the main reason, obviously, because our budget has gone down a lot. Everyone knows that. They all have bought into the idea of a future investment on their careers. We all believe that this season is going to be special and great for all of us. We've got players that want to practice, stay in the gym and invest time in themselves to became better players.

What could you say about your new players?
I love the time we have spent together so far. It’s been a tough preseason and now that we are working with the whole team (only Jakovics is injured) I can tell how happy I am to be around these individuals. I’m happy to see how they have been working until now, and if we prove to ourselves that we can compete hard enough and be true warriors, we will have a good chance to do well.

What about Vladislav Staratelev?
Vlad is working very hard. I think he will need a little more time than others to adjust but is still young and if he keeps working hard he will become a good player. He just needs to be patient and keep working. I’m very happy with his practices.

VEF's roster is well balanced. Do you have an idea of what your starting five will be?
We want to be a versatile team. We will probably not have a very clear five during the entire season. On the other hand I want to have every player on the roster ready to start and finish every game. They all have a chance.

What is your goal for the upcoming season?
To me success will be if all the players improve and become better during the season. If we do that, we have a chance to win a lot of games. If we don’t improve, no chance.

The reality is that we don’t know our level compared with all the other teams. After we play everyone one time I can give my opinion on what we should be at the end. It will be a very difficult season as we have seen how the other teams spent their money and strengthened their rosters. Much higher budgets than ours will be on the line in most of the cases, but we still believe that if we do things the right way we will have a great season.

What do you think about your Mexican import Francisco Cruz?
We signed Pako because I think he is hungry enough to adapt to Europe his basketball and his life. There is no question in my mind about his quality as player, but the fact that has competed very well with his national team in international championships makes me think he is ready to take the next step.

Your team will be dominant in the paint, but does it mean that the size you have will slow you down?
We have a very long season ahead with probably more than 60 games and we need a deep roster in order to stay healthy and fresh all season. All our bigs are very quick for their positions and versatile. That is one of the reasons why I hope we can play quick basketball.

Mareks Mejeris and and Martins Meiers had an impact for team Latvia during EuroBasket 2015. What do you think about them?
Mareks and Martins had a good EuroBasket in my opinion. They had a good impact in their team and we are very happy for them and proud of their job. In some games they will start for us and in some games they will not but I am sure they will work with the same level of energy, commitment and passion every day.