Aito - that was Berlin basketball in perfection for four years.
The Spanish coach, or better: the legendary coach Alejandro García Reneses, who moved to Germany at the age of seventy, brought Alba Berlin, which was much more important than the first championship in twelve years, two titles in total, as well as winning the 2020 cup and achieving the Final in the EuroCup.
Michael Reinsch
Correspondent for sports in Berlin.
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He integrated the large-scale youth work of the largest basketball club in Germany with the development of outstanding talents into seasoned professionals and coveted stars and with them established a style that was thrilling - for those involved as well as for the audience. You can see his smiling eyes in front of you when you read the news that Alba Berlin spread on Tuesday: Aito is taking a sabbatical at 74 and will not coach the team in the new Bundesliga and EuroLeague season. As if he would return to Berlin at the age of 75.
However, you have to be prepared for surprises with the man.
After winning nine championships with FC Barcelona, six times cup winners with Barcelona and Badalona, having won four different European titles and, as national coach, won the silver medal in the final against the United States at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he took the first break of a year.
Nice and successful
Then he moved to Seville at retirement age, Aiot with a 17-year-old talent from Latvia, Kristaps Porzingis, repeated what he had drilled through in Barcelona with players like Pau Gasol, Rudy Fernández, Juan Carlos Navarro and Ricky Rubio: them with a deep understanding the game and a wide range of training to help lead to an exceptional international career. All of them, including Porzingis, of course, became multimillionaires in the NBA.
Aito likes to say that sport is not about winning, but about getting the best out of it.
His style shaped the Spanish league, and it also changed the Bundesliga.
The Ludwigsburg trainer John Patrick called Aito the godfather of European basketball.
The Spaniard Pedro Calles has become one of the most fascinating coaches in the league in Vechta and Hamburg because he primarily studied his role model Aito.
Since Aito came to Alba Berlin, there was no longer any contradiction between playing beautifully and successfully.
He expected his players to read the game and decide for themselves what to do.
He doesn't like specialists who can only throw distance throws, who only defend or wait under the basket to be played.
They needed the broadest possible foundation, which is what the team's success is based on.
Aito is the first coach who began to exploit the talent pool of Berlin basketball and thus enabled his club to concentrate the limited resources on outstanding commitments. Those who work well in training can show what they can do in the game - regardless of age. Time-outs, in which other coaches yell at their players, are opportunities for him to point out constellations to his players and to suggest tactical variants that they cannot think of in the heat of the game.
Aito allows its youngsters to make mistakes. This is how they mature. The callousness of his youngsters also decided the championship games against Munich last season. At Aito it was always clear that the game belongs to the players. Aito rejects fouls as a tactical means to steal time and to gain possession of the ball after free throws by the opponent. You destroy the flow of the game, the beautiful game.