[ad_1]
Photo: BNS
BNS photo
Capital Basketball School (SKM) Marathon camps are gaining momentum. Young basketball players hone their skills alongside SKM coaches and have fun. In addition, young talents are also visited by professional basketball players who share their wisdom, experiences, and memories. Paulius Dambrauskas, 28, was the first to visit the camp.
Defender Dambrauskas, 195 cm tall, has played for Vilnius’ teams “Lietuvos rytas”, Klaipėda “Neptūnas”, Šiauliai “Šiauliai”. Paul has also tasted the legionnaire’s bread: he played for the French and Polish teams. After conversation and fun with the children, P. Dambrauskas agreed to speak briefly with SKM.lt and shared his thoughts on basketball for the upcoming season and sent his message to the entire SKM community.
– Did you manage to stay fit during quarantine? – SKM.lt asked Dambrauskas.
– yeah There was more physical preparation since all the basketball halls were closed. During the first month of quarantine, I had to exercise in one field in total, and then started exercising with a personal trainer from mid-April. I exercised every day, taking care of myself both in the gym and on my diet.
– Has this break from basketball helped you in any way?
– This break helped the fact that we had a newborn in the family, it actually came out so that I could spend more time raising my son, helping my mother and just enjoying the whole process.
– You have been energetic in previous years of career, you have been approaching the basket very frequently, and how is your current style of play?
– I can’t say I’m old now (laughs), but when I was young, I didn’t have such serious injuries. When I was 24 years old in Šiauliai, I suffered injuries to my stomach and groin, where I had severe pain. There were no doctors in Lithuania who could solve this problem. I had to finish two seasons in Poland and Siauliai.
The injuries affected my aggression. While I’m not saying he’s not aggressive right now, he used to go, trying to dance on everyone’s head. Now maybe I’m playing around with my head more, trying to outwit my opponents without making contact, but of course I’m not avoiding contact.
– You have been a professional since 2009. What was the most difficult part of walking the path of a professional basketball player?
– There was not much need to sacrifice anything on this path, because I was already determined to play basketball professionally. I remember when in 2009 we met for a meeting of the Perlo team. We thought we would play in the National Basketball League (NKL), but Perlo’s then-director, Giedrius Aidietis, told us that we would play in the Lithuanian Basketball League (LKL). I only played in the Regional Basketball League (RKL) before. I didn’t play NKL, so that jump to the top league was a little anxious. However, we were all hungry and in a couple of months we got used to LKL and in the same season we managed to defeat Kaunas “Žalgiris”.
I think a league jump was a good experience for me. After the first few months, when both I and the team did quite well, he gave me confidence that there is not some kind of space here that can compete with the same men.
– I had to taste a bit the legionnaire’s bread. Who remembered the most when playing in a country other than Lithuania?
– The first legionnaire season was the most difficult for me when I went to play in France. He was completely alone, he had no family, he had to live alone. There were two Americans on the team with whom it was possible to speak English, and all the other remaining French, both coaches and players, had minimal knowledge of English, it was difficult to communicate. There was very little communication. A new country, a new culture. That season was a season of hardening. The same basketball conditions in the French second league were not what you expected. During training, I had to draw water from the crane, which was a bit surprising when I arrived from Lithuania. In Lithuania we have good conditions in top and bottom level tournaments. Other seasons in Poland were much easier.
– What qualities do you think a young basketball player who dreams of becoming a professional should have?
– I think the most important thing is the character, because not everyone is given physical data, some kind of talent. But if you have the character and the desire, you can make up for it all – you need to work hard, and then you can accomplish more than those players who are talented but don’t work hard enough. There are plenty of examples of this when, with their laziness, poor approach to work, some do not achieve their goals and walk away, and players who may not be as talented but work on purpose work hard and ultimately pay off.
– Do you have any dreams or goals in your basketball career that you want to achieve in the coming years?
– I would like to be the champion of at least one basketball league. So far I have had money in Lithuania (with the then “Lietuvos rytas” – aut. Past), I have won third place with “Neptūnas”, but so far I have not won the entire championship. I really would like to win champion rings in some country. In Lithuania it is difficult to implement, but in other basketball leagues it would be very good.
– Do you already have any suggestions on where to play next season?
– It is still unclear where I will play. The agent speaks with a couple of commands, but everything is more at the conversation level. In Lithuania, it seems to me that the start of the next season has already been announced, also in Poland, but most countries do not know the start date of the championship, if it will be possible to play for the spectators or their budgets, this summer is a really non-standard situation.
– What do you think of these camps organized by SKM?
– Such camps are super. I believe that children from a young age need to be busy, they must have a purpose, have fun, not be locked up at home, not get into computers, televisions and just grow, improve and interact with other children. It is one thing to develop your body while moving, it is another thing to develop your communication skills with other people in the camps and this is very necessary.
– Your message to the entire SKM community.
– We need to work hard, work with determination, achieve set goals, continue to run the camps successfully, invite, educate children and help them discover themselves.
[ad_2]
