Juancho Hernangomez on Celtics:”I lost my love for Basketball a bit”
Despite Boston’s success this year, Juancho Hernangómez continues to recount his bad experience with the team. He also rules out going back to Europe.
In the midst of promoting ‘Hustle’, the Netflix movie in which he stars with Adam Sandler and in which LeBron James works as a producer, Juancho Hernangómez speaks again about his past and future in a crazy year of his professional career.
The Spanish player, who was a former Celtics, recalls how bad his time was in the league last year, from the Timberwolves preventing him from participating in a controversial decision due to an injury, to going through the Celtics and Spurs without praise, and to recover part of the lost time in a somewhat headless Jazz.
Hernangomez wants to continue in the NBA
Despite all that, the 26-year-old is still interested to continue playing in the NBA starting July with a new contract.
“I want to continue in the NBA,” he said. “I don’t see myself returning to Europe yet,. It’s no disrespect to the ACB or the Euroleague, very much the opposite. I don’t see it as a step back in my career. But when they talk about Madrid, Barcelona, CSKA… I don’t care. I’m no supporter of any basketball team. I have spoken to nobody or signed any offer,” continued Hernangomez.
The Celtics were not a good team to Hernangomez
Hernangómez also stressed that the environment in Boston was not ideal, at least for him, despite the fact that the team was going through the playoff rounds and is now battling in the finals against the Warriors.
“I wasn’t happy there, it was very hard. There was no communication, I didn’t know what was expected of me. There were many super selfish players and no team building. I lost my love for basketball a bit.”
The Celtics were unable to find consistency or chemistry on the court this season, with players constantly taking a shot at each other, until they made a drastic transformation with the players focused on developing together.