Kushchenko Voted Euroleague Executive Award
Barcelona, Spain September 6, 2006. CSKA Moscow president Sergey Kushchenko, whose team brought the continental title back to Europe's biggest country, will receive Euroleague Basketball's Club Executive of the Year Award when the draw for a new Euroleague season takes place on September 14 in Athens, Greece. CSKA overcame hardship all last season to finally raise the Euroleague trophy on April 30 of 2006 after a thrilling Final Four in the Czech Republic capital of Prague. The club's first continental title in 35 years had Kushchenko's stamp all over it. Since he joined CSKA in 2002, Kushchenko has presided over a string of successes, most notably the club's four consecutive Final Fours appearances, a record since the format came to European basketball in 1988. CSKA has also won every Russian League title since Kushchenko's arrival, not to mention the last two Russian Cups. By taking the Euroleague, domestic league and national cup titles in 2006, CSKA became the first-ever triple crown winner in Russia. Kushchenko was voted the award winner by a panel of his peers, the 24 general managers of Euroleague clubs at the end of the 2005-06 season.
In building a team good enough to take the Euroleague title, Kushchenko has shown equal parts of consistency and risk-taking. Four of the players on the Euroleague title team - J.R. Holden, Sergey Panov, Alexey Savrasenko and Theodoros Papaloukas - joined CSKA the same summer that Kushchenko arrived. Dividends came immediately, as CSKA reached the 2003 Final Four, only to lose its semifinal game to host and eventual champion FC Barcelona. The same scenario repeated itself in 2004, when CSKA lost the semis to eventual champion Maccabi in Tel Aviv. In 2005, playing the Final Four at home in Moscow, CSKA suffered another semifinals loss, ending in disappointment what had been a record-breaking season in which the team won 43 consecutive games overall, including its first 17 in the Euroleague. Although its team did not, the club triumphed in its role as co-host of the 2005 Final Four in Moscow.
Despite the disappointment of losing the Final Four at home, Kushchenko decided last summer not to overhaul the team, but to make some precise changes, bringing in a new head coach and a few new players. Just as important, he did not panic when the team lost its first two Euroleague games, nor when its top scorer David Andersen was lost to a season-ending injury in January. Prague turned out to be CSKA's place of destiny. There, CSKA defeated two of the teams that had denied it titles before, Barcelona and Maccabi, to end decades of frustration and culminate four years of excellent work by Kushchenko and the club staff. Kushchenko did more than build a championship team during his four seasons in Moscow. At the same time, he lifted CSKA to its current status among the world's first-class club organizations and helped put Russia back on the map of great basketball countries.
In building a team good enough to take the Euroleague title, Kushchenko has shown equal parts of consistency and risk-taking. Four of the players on the Euroleague title team - J.R. Holden, Sergey Panov, Alexey Savrasenko and Theodoros Papaloukas - joined CSKA the same summer that Kushchenko arrived. Dividends came immediately, as CSKA reached the 2003 Final Four, only to lose its semifinal game to host and eventual champion FC Barcelona. The same scenario repeated itself in 2004, when CSKA lost the semis to eventual champion Maccabi in Tel Aviv. In 2005, playing the Final Four at home in Moscow, CSKA suffered another semifinals loss, ending in disappointment what had been a record-breaking season in which the team won 43 consecutive games overall, including its first 17 in the Euroleague. Although its team did not, the club triumphed in its role as co-host of the 2005 Final Four in Moscow.
Despite the disappointment of losing the Final Four at home, Kushchenko decided last summer not to overhaul the team, but to make some precise changes, bringing in a new head coach and a few new players. Just as important, he did not panic when the team lost its first two Euroleague games, nor when its top scorer David Andersen was lost to a season-ending injury in January. Prague turned out to be CSKA's place of destiny. There, CSKA defeated two of the teams that had denied it titles before, Barcelona and Maccabi, to end decades of frustration and culminate four years of excellent work by Kushchenko and the club staff. Kushchenko did more than build a championship team during his four seasons in Moscow. At the same time, he lifted CSKA to its current status among the world's first-class club organizations and helped put Russia back on the map of great basketball countries.