WURZBURG (Germany) - Ch-ch-changes! There's gonna have to be a different man. Time may change me but I can't trace time. Or so goes the end of the chorus to that famous David Bowie song. And, as it happens, so goes the overarching philosophy for head coach Sasa Filipovski's project at FIT/One Wurzburg Baskets.
"My life philosophy is that change is the only thing that matters," Filipovski told championsleague.basketball. "Even if you don't want to change, life is pushing you to change, so you cannot avoid the change."
After reaching the final of the 2019 FIBA Europe Cup, like almost every club in Europe and beyond, the covid-19 pandemic made a big dent in Wurzburg Basket's financial outlook and, as a result, performance levels started to drop.
"Basketball is not just ten people hitting each other, fighting for one ball, and trying to throw that ball in the basket" - Sasa Filipovski
Three straight top-10 finishes in the German BBL (2018, 2019, and 2020), were followed by a 16th-place finish in 2021, and a club with the heritage of past players like Dirk Nowitzki and Maxi Kleber narrowly escaped relegation back down to the Pro A. Changes were needed at Wurzburg and they were needed urgently.
In Sasa Filipovski they found a coach who was coming off the back of stints with AS Monaco and Partizan Belgrade and looking for a change of scenery.
"I was interested in a project where I can select people around me who will work with my work philosophy, with a high work ethic and approach," Filipovski explained. "That's why I've chosen the people around me. I've chosen an environment that is, let's say, mature enough that they can follow. They can follow changes in the right direction."
Following the change of direction and trusting the pathway has certainly yielded the desired outcomes for Wurzburg. 2022 saw a modest recovery but solid foundations were established, with the team finishing 12th in the domestic league.
Another incremental improvement with a tenth-place finish in 2023 and then the project really started to take off last season, as Wurzburg finished fourth and reached the Semi-Finals of the Play-Offs in Germany, only losing to the eventual champions, Bayern Munich. That fourth-place finish also earned them a spot in the Regular Season of the Basketball Champions League.
The progress isn't showing any signs of slowing down either. Wurzburg are unbeaten in their first three games of their BCL campaign and are once again sitting comfortably in fourth place in the Bundesliga table.
According to Filipovski, the strongest foundations underneath the project they are building are based on building a sense of togetherness.
"Synergy is not a new word in this world and for sure, synergy means that together we are stronger," he said.
"Basketball is not just ten people hitting each other, fighting for one ball, and trying to throw that ball in the basket. Basketball is much more than that, it's about sharing, It's about caring, It's about helping. We are helping each other on offense, we are helping each other on defense".
Those words are exactly what you might expect to hear from any coach when talking about what they hope to see from their team but when it comes to Wurzburg, they are more than just words. As we will see, sharing, caring, and helping is exactly what makes this team greater than the sum of their parts.
Keep your eyes on center Owen Klassen in the defensive clip below.
Klassen recognized the play call from Igokea and as soon as he saw one of his frontcourt players being targeted in the post, he left his own man early to be in position to double up on the post.
When the ball moved out of the double to the man whom Klassen had just left, Zac Seljaas was there to rotate over and buy Klassen just enough time to recover and contest the shot.
In the very first game of the BCL season in Group A at the start of October. Wurzburg hosted BCL regulars Hapoel Netanel Holon, and that game provided us with an excellent example on the offensive end.
The play starts with a drag screen in transition but just watch the ball movement and the timing of the player movement. This is exactly what Sasa Filipovski means when he uses the word synergy.
Statistically, we also see the fruits of this synergy and commitment to helping each other. Wurzburg average close to 10 steals and force 16 turnovers every game, ranking in the top six for both metrics in the BCL.
They also score over 90 points per game - as the third-highest scoring team in the league - and at a rate of 124 points per 100 possessions, making them the second-most efficient offensively.
When you have a team of players who are adaptable to change and open to playing as a unit, it also makes them harder for opponents to prepare for.
"I think that we are unpredictable," said Filipovski, before clarifying, "we have many more scoring options and we don't depend only on one or two players."
A quick look at the box score for Wurzburg backs up Coach Filipovski's point here. Wurzburg have three main scoring options: captain Zac Seljaas, who is putting up an MVP-caliber 25 points per game, closely followed by their two, hot-shooting, backcourt players Mike Davis Jr and Jhivvan Jackson with 21.3 and 17.7 points per game, respectively.
But even if a team does manage to slow the roll for those three, at times it feels like any player on this Wurzburg roster can hurt them. All 12 players on this roster contribute and even youngster Hannes Steinbach, who is 18 years old and yet to score in the BCL, has the ability to pose the defense unique problems.
This next clip from Nelson Phillips is a great example. His averages of just 4 points and 0.5 assists so far clearly aren't painting the full picture and when Coach Filipovski needs him to get a bucket, you had better believe he has it in his bag. For those of you playing our fantasy game, Phillips is absolutely a sleeper pick to have a breakout game anytime now.
Just to really hit the point home about this team being hard to prepare for, we need to look no further than captain Zac Seljaas.
As we see in these next two clips, his bread and butter often revolves around Wurzburg running actions to get him shooting looks from behind the arc.
But just when a team thinks that maybe they have him figured out, Filipovski can throw him into the pick-and-roll as the playmaker and give defenses a completely different problem to solve.
This type of adaptability to keep opponents on their toes is all part of the same philosophy of change for Filipovski.
"I think that also my coaching style and what I want to teach my players is that we are adjustable, that we are flexible, we have to make sure that these situations of quick changes don't hurt us," he stated.
"In life, nothing ever goes exactly to plan. So to play at a higher level, you have to be flexible. Like in life, the most important thing is to be flexible."
The perfect example of this flexibility and adaptability lies in Wurzburg's most recent encounter with Nanterre 92. We broke that game down tactically here but to explain briefly, Nanterre very nearly found a way to beat Wurzburg through a combination of zone press and switching defensive schemes.
In the end, Filipovski and Wurzburg held their nerve and found the adjustments to win the game. So far that is exactly what we've seen them do all season. They have won three games in the BCL and in each game, the problems to solve were unique and required different solutions to the last. We have seen teams and coaches that look to impose their philosophy on every game they play but Wurzburg Baskets are not that team, nor is Sasa Filipovski that coach.
The next challenge they have to conquer is what to do with teams who know them and there is no question that their next game against Nanterre 92 in Germany this Wednesday on November 6 is against a team who are now all too familiar with them. If they can find a way to make it a 4-0 start to life in the BCL, FIT/One Wurzburg Baskets will be in a great position to top Group A and progress directly to the Round of 16 and maybe even beyond.
Who could forget Sasa Filipovski's last team in the BCL was the finalists from Season 1, Banvit. And what a team they were. This Wurzburg team is very different and undoubtedly operating under very different constraints and circumstances but don't let that fool you, they are just as dangerous.