Surrey Heat’s Creon Raftopoulos talks Mike Martin, new signings and more… (Part 1)

With the 2012/13 BBL season approaching, I caught up with third year Guildford Surrey Heat Head Coach, Creon Raftopoulos.

Raftopoulos, whose Heat team experienced an indifferent 2011 campaign, talked openly about losing Mike Martin, his aims for the season and a new signing…

KF: Last season the team got off to a slow start but still ended up making the play-offs. Is a good start vitally important?

CR: “You could lose the league in the first six games. The way they’ve structured the league this year, the way they’ve moved the tournaments around, I think is a lot better than before because you could basically get knocked out of the trophy, play in the cup and get knocked out and within a month of the season you could be out of all competitions and fighting just to make the play-offs, so it’s very important you get a very good start.
“So it’s a little frustrating not to get a good pre-season in order to make things happen.”

KF: What’s the aim for the 2012/13 season?

CR: “We do go into every season wanting to make a push for silverware. In (Martelle) McLemore and Frank Holmes they know the league well enough and then obviously, bringing in one or two others, we should be at least competing to be in that top six.”

KF: Any hints as to who you’re bringing in?

CR: “I’ve got a couple of players lined-up. Unfortunately, this becomes a time in the season where players who were unaffordable a month ago are all of a sudden coming back so you have to make the right decisions to get the right chemistry.

“All I can say is that I’ve got an exciting American combo guard that I’m bringing in. I’m looking to strengthen in the forward position because all we’ve got right now is Frank Holmes. As everybody knows losing Mike Martin is a tough one and it’s one of the toughest positions to strengthen at.”

KF: Losing Mike Martin – a former captain of the Heat – how big of a blow is that?

CR: “It’s huge, it’s huge. As coaches we always talk about getting the best British kids in our league.

“I’ll give you an example: You’ve got Mike Martin, you’ve got Anthony Rowe – really strong power forwards. After that you’d really have to think hard about who’s going to play that power forward position and holds a British passport. So to lose someone of his magnitude and his experience is huge.
“It’s one of those things where maybe I look a lot at the whole picture of the club. Sometimes as coaches, we can be ‘I need that player, I need that player, I need that player’ and then four months down the line, the club is in financial problems because we’re trying to hold onto certain players who we just can’t afford. So trying to find British forwards is a huge problem for everybody.”

To read Coach Creon’s thoughts on improving the BBL, how far he feels he can take the Heat and the potential of the Surrey Heat, click here….