Eun’s goal is to rebuild the team’s culture.
Before last season, Seoul Samsung hired new head coach Eun Hee-seok for a change. Since his arrival, Eun has worked to bring the team together and change the team’s culture. That’s how the 2022-2023 season began. At the beginning of the season, Samsung’s transformation was encouraging. With cohesive movement and organized basketball, they made a splash in the first round with a 6-4 record.
However, Samsung’s run was short-lived. Injuries to key players faltered, and a combination of injuries to foreign players led to the team finishing in last place for the second year in a row. The difference was that Samsung didn’t give up at the end of the season and fought to the end, which is what Eun wanted, and that’s how his first season with Samsung ended.
After the season, the team had a well-deserved break and began full-scale off-season training on April 1. “It’s a body-building process, but the players have been training steadily in the offseason,” Eun told us. I can tell by looking at their weight and body fat. Everyone is in good shape,” Eun began the call.
He continued, “Nowadays, not only our team, but many players also train in the offseason. They play pickup games and go to skill training. So everyone was in better shape than I thought,” he said, praising the players’ physical condition.
“Actually, last season, I was the first one and I pushed them a little bit to train, but after one season, they realized that they can do it on their own, and that’s really inspiring,” he said, adding, “This is the culture I want to create. Hopefully next season we’ll have a better off-season, but that doesn’t mean we’ll just work out all the time. (Laughs) We’ll rest when we rest and work out when we work out. Even now, the morning workouts are coming by themselves,” he said, emphasizing the culture of working out.
When asked about their training, Eun said, “We are focusing on conditioning rather than touching the ball. In particular, we are working on a strength-building program. If you have strong muscles, you’re less likely to get injured. I don’t have much to do with it. It’s all done by the training department,” he said of the muscle-building program.
“After that conditioning, I do a little bit of ball work. We don’t do a lot. We keep it simple because the players have to touch the ball constantly. Other than that, they fill in the gaps themselves. We do skill training, shooting practice, and so on.”
When asked about training camps, he said, “We’re going to Japan in September, and we’ll have some practice games before then, but that’s just to keep the players from getting bored. In order to solidify our tactics, we need to select foreign players first.”메이저놀이터
Finally, Coach Eun said, “Right now, we start with the younger players and everyone comes out and works out first. I’m really proud of that. I feel like I’m starting to see the results I wanted to see when I took over as head coach. We still have a long way to go. But if we make small changes, it will change. The most important thing is to change the existing culture and create a winning culture,” he said, emphasizing the team’s culture.