Over the next days, we present our FLBB coaches in interviews. In a listing on our website, you find all coaches –> ALL_Coaches_Overview
We start with an interview with Denis Toroman, who is currently coaching several youth teams of the FLBB (see the link above for details).
When did you arrive in Luxembourg? What do you like about the country?
I arrived in Luxembourg in 2019, when my contract with Flbb started. Prior to that I lived and coached in Berlin where I just finished my club season, so it was a very quick transition. My family and I are delighted with everything here, but mostly with people, how welcoming and open minded they are. It is overwhelming, and it made us feel like home immediately.
What are your ambitions/goals at the FLBB?
The biggest and most important goal right now at the FLBB is to do multidimensional development of the players. For me it starts with teaching young people (players) important sport and life values. Values they can later use in real life no matter what they do: hard work, grit, dedication and staying humble and respectful. During this long process and journey, my main mission and goal is to develop them as basketball players following and achieving the highest standards. By following these standards and of course by fulfilling many other requirements including building hardness in players (personality strength), we are on the right track of making future professional basketball players.
Each practice is a combination of changing multiple dimensions and doing multidirectional changes: reducing the number of mistakes in the game and increasing the level of understanding of the game.
This is part of a long and complex process, the results are sometimes spread over a long period of time, even years from now.
What are your main challenges in your coaching mission for the FLBB?
Biggest challenge is to make all the players trust the process and make sure they understand that with hard work and 100 % dedication everything is possible. Another (more technical) challenge is linked to the number of the practices, I would definitely like to have players much more often and have much more practices then now. And the last thing, I would like to have all the best players as members of the National team.
There are players who, for various reasons, are not part of the National team, and this is something I hope will change in the future. First step is that players recognize that practicing with the National team is helping them in their development, which, I hope, already happened. And secondly, something that is very clear for me, being part of the National team is an honor and the privilege, so every player should “dream” about being part of the National team and to represent your country the best you can.
How does a work day in your life look like?
My typical work day varies a lot from a day to another but usually it consists of a lot of preparation, evaluation of each practice, planning and of course practices. I also have regular meetings with our technical director and other staff members in person. During this time we go through all the administrative and technical topics. I also meet with the colleague professional coaches from Flbb in order to share our ideas and suggestions for the following week. We also go through the games that we visited during the weekend and discuss how national team players and candidates performed.
And last but not least, as a coach I also want to stay in touch with high level basketball, follow trends and benchmark tactics so I also make sure to include basketball clinics and scouting games in my schedule. I have a rule to watch and study at least 2 high level (mostly Euroleague) games per week. It is the way for me to follow the latest trends in the game, and to observe tactical battles between the best coaches in Europe. So in the end (like every professional coach) I live and work basketball 24 hours per day, 7 days a week. Like I always repeat to my players ‘’whoever works harder has the biggest chance to make it” and the same rule applies to me as a coach. For me studying the game everyday is a privilege, I educate myself every day and hopefully get better and more open minded as a coach. I think every coach should be very curious by nature and should continuously explore and learn every day.
Can you shortly describe your coaching philosophy?
It is impossible to describe any coaching philosophy shortly, but if I have to summarise it in one sentence I would use the quote of Thomas Jefferson: “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more luck I have”.
The next coaches in this interview-series will be Rumen Galabov, Mariusz Dziurdzia and Ken Diederich. Stay tuned.
