“I’m not going to start saying everything I think”blurted out Laurent Lumber during the press conference following the new defeat of JDA Dijon (85-91 against Saint-Quentin), the fourth in a row for his team in Betclic ELITE. But the Burgundian technician still said a lot, returning in particular to the failures of summer recruitment.
While he is only a shadow of the exceptional player he was two years ago, Markis McDuffie is inevitably one of the JDA's flops, just like Gavin Ware, author of an exercise far below its standards for now. Likewise, unused on Saturday, Joshua Obiesie is looking for a way out while the chronic clumsiness of Kyler Edwards (34%) is a real problem.
Beyond the sporting level, Laurent Legname above all pointed out, at the microphone of the Public Good, an attitude problem, with certain players who do not correspond to the values of the club, supposed to be based on “sacrifice and self-sacrifice”.
“It’s a difficult situation. With the staff we work well, we try lots of different things to try to find the leverage that goes to this team and unfortunately we see that each time, there are 2-3 players who fall through. […] My job is to try to get the team out of this spiral, but we have to do it with players who are just playing at the Pro A level. […] It's an individual awareness of the players, but maybe they can't do it. Maybe we made a mistake when it came to recruiting senior players. And it's not maybe, we messed up. We made some good moves, Christian (Sengfelder) and others where we messed up. We wanted to continue to entrust the team to David (Holston) who is having a great season, with Markis (McDuffie) in 4, and bring back Gavin (Ware) in 5. Now we have to work. Some are on the right path to return and others are not making it. What really bothers me is that some people don't have the JDA spirit. I love this club more than anything, I have two clubs in my heart, HTV and JDA. The JDA is known for having this ethic of sacrifice, of giving of oneself, and to see players who don't have that and who don't care, that's what upsets me the most. »
