criticism<\/a> on 29 June on X. Kelsey Bone, who played on ESB-Villeneuve d\u2019Ascq\u2019s championship squad, called him \u201cBY FAR the worst coach I\u2019ve ever played for\u201d because \u201che lacks the aggression and assertiveness needed to rally and lead a locker room.\u201d<\/p>\nMeziane\u2019s response?<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is not my enemy,\u201d he says. \u201cI helped her a lot when she came to France because she had terrible things to leave. I allowed her to arrive super late when we started our training camp. So if she\u2019s the only one who thinks that about me, I don\u2019t care. I can look at myself in the mirror. I hope that she can do the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meziane\u2019s response reflects a calm, focused perspective in the midst of chaos, whether to social media or to reports indicating a possible sale. One of the two potential ownership groups would move the team to Hartford, Connecticut. The other, led by former Celtics minority owner Steve Pagliuca, would move the Sun to Boston, where they played a regular-season game this year and last year. But the WNBA has yet to approve any sale, and could purchase the team itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s just tuning it out,\u201d Mabrey says about those reports. \u201cHe really doesn\u2019t get rattled emotionally. He doesn\u2019t give his energy to social media. I think that\u2019s kind of cool from a United States perspective because [we\u2019re] big on status, ego, stuff like that. But he\u2019s blocked that out and made it like, if you\u2019re hooping, you\u2019re hooping. If you\u2019re not, you\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though committed to his system, Meziane seeks to give players the opportunity to create.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe likes to give people the freedom to play, how they play offensively particularly,\u201d says Sun guard Haley Peters, who played under Meziane for two seasons in France. \u201cHe\u2019s going to let players do what they can do and I think that\u2019s a strength of his. We have a system we want to stick to, but we have good offensive players and we want them to be aggressive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though committed to his system, Meziane seeks not to force players into a preconceived template.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people that want to change me, want me to be different emotionally, this and that,\u201d Mabrey said. \u201cHe\u2019s let me be myself and helped me to channel it, take criticism and move on.\u201d<\/p>\n
As his players adapt to him, Meziane faces his own cultural challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cEnglish is not my native language,\u201d he says. \u201cSometimes when you want to express your emotion, it\u2019s not easy to do it every time when it\u2019s not your natural language. The biggest challenge for me is to try to be natural, to make sure my players are understanding what I try to express to them and try to teach them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sun center Tina Charles, a 16-year WNBA veteran and the league\u2019s most valuable player in 2012, empathizes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played overseas for 11 years,\u201d says Charles, who won three Olympic gold medals for the United States. \u201cAnything that is uncomfortable is growth, even for us as players and for him as a coach. It\u2019s just being patient, having grace and helping him along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the Sun goes about rebuilding, patience and grace become Meziane\u2019s most important tools.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if the reflection of our results is not good, I\u2019m still optimistic about how my team can play in the future,\u201d he says. \u201cI think a lot of our new players are growing. I can put my hand on this rebuilding process but I don\u2019t have magic tricks to change everything overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After achieving three of his biggest career accomplishments in eight months, Rachid Meziane crossed the Atlantic to make…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-98135","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}