The Celtics acquired Potapenko in 1999 for Andrew DeClercq and a first-round pick the Cavaliers used to select Andre Miller , and he was a contributor on the Jim O’Brien -coached team that reached the Eastern Conference finals in 2001-02.

Vitaly Potapenko giggles when he hears “The Ukraine Train.” He’s carried that nickname since his days at Wright State University, when he was a fierce, burly center who ran through the Midwestern Collegiate Conference on his way to being a first-round pick of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Potapenko has excelled in his new NBA life as a Cavaliers assistant coach the past four years. He works with the big men in near anonymity. What’s more, during the Cavaliers media session during the Finals, when every member of the team and coaching staff was available, the 42-year-old Potapenko buried himself behind his laptop to work, shocked to receive an interview request.


But the 6-foot-10-inch Potapenko has a supreme goal, to become the first NBA coach born and raised in Europe. There have been a handful of coaches who were born in the United States who have dual citizenship in European countries, but there has been never an NBA coach born and raised in Europe.

“It’s always been in the back of my mind,” he said. “I’m learning the way. You want to have your own things, want to try to run a team and win. I’m taking my time. I’m trying to learn as much as I can, and one of these days hopefully I’ll get a chance and an opportunity to do that.”

Potapenko was selected 12th overall in 1996, in the same draft class as European standouts Peja Stojakovic and former teammate Zydrunas Ilgauskas.

“What helped me was two years at Wright State, learning the culture, language. I think a lot of guys who were making the jump straight from Europe to the NBA, the biggest barrier was the language,” Potapenko said. “Those two seasons helped me to learn basketball language, adapt to the culture.


“Towards the end of my career in Seattle, I started to think about coaching. We had a couple of young guys on the team who were getting in early to do workouts and I kind of organized that. That kind of helped me create a more concrete idea of being a coach.”

Potapenko became the Cavaliers’ player development coach in 2013 under former coach Mike Brown and remained on the staffs of David Blatt and Tyronn Lue. Potapenko has worked with sparkling rebounder Tristan Thompson and he just finished his third consecutive NBA Finals appearance.

Some of the coaching staff made a trip to Cavaliers training camp and ran into the pride of Wright State Vitaly Potapenko #RaiderUp pic.twitter.com/dkeIiL2ANh — WrightStateMBB (@WSU_MBB) September 29, 2016

“It was an incredible experience winning [in 2016],” Potapenko said. “Being around great players like LeBron [James], Kyrie [Irving], Kevin Love, Tristan, and to see how the team grows. It helped me to grow as a young coach and get better, to get to this level and see what it takes. Mike Fratello was my first NBA coach and those three years [with him] really helped me. He was the kind of coach that you almost hated him when you played for him, but when he left you appreciated him. I was young at the time, I was stubborn, but when I left [for the Celtics] I realized how he was important to me, so I try to pass along all of that experience.”


Although he played in Boston during a difficult transition — the end of the Rick Pitino days to O’Brien’s coaching tenure — Potapenko said he never took the Celtics’ tradition for granted.

“Playing for Boston, for me, it was always the Celtics’ greatness, seeing names like Larry Bird, Robert Parish, Danny Ainge, Kevin McHale, those are the guys we watched [growing up in Ukraine],” he said. “Larry Bird was the first name that came to mind when I thought of Boston. I remember I was a little kid watching those games and those guys playing in the Celtics uniforms and when you play in the Garden and you look at all the banners and retired numbers and it’s all about the winning culture.

“When I played there, I’ve got to give the credit to the fans, they understand winning and they understand the game very deeply. You had to play 100 percent every night.”

Potapenko said the key to the franchise’s turnaround in 2001-02 was at midseason when assistant coach Dick Harter jumped on the team for goofing around at practice. He said that motivated the players to take their jobs more seriously and it resulted in that long playoff run.

“It’s still in my memory because every practice and every little drill, it all leads up to the final goal,” Potapenko said. “I’ll always take that away. [In Boston], the main core had been together for some time and it made the team more successful.”

Of course, the leader of those teams was a young Paul Pierce, more athletic and raw before Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen joined him five years later.


“People didn’t see a lot of the things Paul did in practice,” Potapenko said. “The way he could score the ball and create his own shot, some of the shots he made in practice were unbelievable. He was a talent. His position, having to play 2 or 3 and the ability to score, it was great be alongside him.”

QUEST TO BE THE BEST

Warriors’ nucleus hopes to stay put

Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images

Whether the Golden State Warriors are the greatest team of all time will never be determined, but they will go down as one of the best after posting a 16-1 playoff record and a second championship in three years, this one after adding former league MVP Kevin Durant to an already loaded roster.

The best may be yet to come. All of the Warriors’ core players have indicated they want to return, including Durant, who has a player option for next season. Sharpshooter Stephen Curry, who averaged 28.1 points in the postseason and scored 34 points in the clinching Game 5 of the Finals, realizes he’s part of a potential dynasty.

The Warriors are trying to let their success soak in, understanding they are in a special situation with most of their players in their prime. They could add multiple titles.

“There’s people who do a lot more important things than what we as basketball players do on a greater scale, but when you get so locked in on a goal and want to do what it takes to be successful at that goal, it’s hard to take a break,” Curry said. “It’s hard to truly get away and recalibrate throughout the year until you get to [Game 5] and you play for a championship and get it done. When I woke up [Tuesday], I took a nice deep breath and appreciated all that we were able to accomplish.


“It’s what we worked for. It’s the ultimate goal and it feels like it. It feels overwhelmingly special. You go crazy because not just the last nine months being here as a team but everybody individually your whole lives — you put the time in and everybody who has sacrificed to get you to this level. Who would have thought I’d be a two-time champ?”

Keeping the team together for the long term is not lost on the standout players. Durant said he wants to be back next season. It would appear highly unlikely he would bolt after winning his first title.

“It would mean everything,” Curry said of keeping the team together. “What we’ve built here is truly special. It’s unique. It’s something you don’t want to see end at all. All the pieces that we have are important to the equation of winning a championship and competing for a championship, it is a business. I do know we had a conversation along with Draymond [Green] and [Klay] Thompson and Andre [Iguodala] last year before [Durant] even showed up that involved the identity of who we are as a team, the importance of the guys who are here. We know what’s best for us as a group going forward and we’re going to do everything we can to keep this team together.

“The beauty of what I know with this team, we all want to provide for our families and get all that we can from this team while we’ve still got the legs to do it, but there are no egos when it comes to that side of the equation. I’m blessed to be around guys like that.”

Curry is eligible to sign the super-max five-year, $205 million extension and co-owner Joe Lacob intimated the team will make the necessary steps to secure Curry for the long term.

“This whole process, which is obviously new for me, I will approach it like [I want] to get the most out of it that I can as an individual,” Curry said. “It’s something that I’ve been working for for a very long time in the context of keeping the team together — if there are decisions that need to be made [with perhaps a reduced contract], we’ll talk about it.”

PLAYERS’ CHOICE

White House visit remains a mystery

It’s no certainty that Steve Kerr, Steph Curry, and the Warriors will visit the White House. Tony Dejak/AP

The question remains whether the Warriors would visit the White House if invited. Several players have privately said they would reject any invitation but none openly said they wouldn’t go after they won the title.

It would be the first time a team from the NBA, a predominantly African-American league, would be invited to the Trump White House. While many NBA players didn’t publicly express their political leanings during the November election, several publicly denounced the actions of President Trump during the process.

One of those was Golden State coach Steve Kerr. So it’s no certainty, to say the least, that the Warriors would visit the White House.

“It’s obviously a conversation that’s surrounded the Patriots and [Clemson football], whether collectively as an entire group and certain people would sit out — all I know is I’ll personally do the right thing for me,” Curry said. “I know as a team we’re going to have a conversation about what’s going on, probably more to come on that.

“Somebody asked me about it a couple of months ago and I answered [I wouldn’t go] and I still feel like that today. This is a moment [winning the Finals] we all need to enjoy together and nothing should distract from what we were able to accomplish together and the different kind of ceremonies and traditions that have happened around championship-winning teams. We don’t want that to taint what we’ve accomplished this year. So we’ll handle that accordingly and responsibly.”

ETC.

James, Irving going strong

LeBron James and Kyrie Irving have advanced to NBA Finals three straight years together. Tony Dejak/AP

All indications from the past few years in Cleveland with coach Tyronn Lue is that the relationship between LeBron James and Kyrie Irving has strengthened considerably since James returned three years ago. As Irving has improved as a scorer and playmaker, James has stepped back and allowed his teammate to flourish.

After the Finals loss to the Warriors, Irving opened up about James and their improving symmetry.

“Man, that guy is — I think that some people would say he’s on the line of greatness. But that guy is way over,” Irving said. “Man, he’s freaking awesome. As a student of the game, it would be a disservice to myself if I didn’t try to learn as much as possible while I’m playing with this guy.

“Every single day demanding more out of himself, demanding more out of us, the true testament of a consummate professional. And understanding how things work, not only just in the game but off the court, things that matter, just taking care of your body, understanding the magnitude of what the goal is at hand and what steps it takes in order to achieve that goal.”

Together James and Irving have reached three consecutive NBA Finals. Perhaps if Irving were healthy for the 2015 Finals they would have had a better chance to win two of those. Irving is a four-time All-Star and averaged a career-high 25.2 points per game this season.

“You can’t skip any steps,” Irving said. “And that was one thing that I came to understand, because as a young player you want everything to happen right now. And ’Bron’s been in this league for a while now, and he’s seen every which way from on the court, to off the court, to dealing with [the media], to dealing with the whole world of just choosing a side. Whether you want to believe in him or not, he’s still coming. And that’s the type of guy that I want to be with every single time I’m going to war, because I know what to expect, and you stand your ground, too, with a leader like that. You don’t want to take a step back. You move to the front line with a guy like that, and you want to bring your game up to another level. That’s what I’m going to continue to do, because I know that if we continue to be with one another and keep utilizing one another, man, the sky’s the limit.

“So, I’ve learned a lot and I will continue to, and I couldn’t be more proud of that guy. He left it all out there on the floor, and to average a triple-double in the freaking Finals, man, add that to the LeBron long list that everyone keeps forgetting.”

James was asked to reflect on not only another trip to the Finals but his 3-5 record and whether that record affects his legacy.

“This is my eighth trip to the Finals, and I’ve had some pretty good ones in my day. I just try to do everything to try to help this team win and more,” he said. “For me to go out there and for the guys that allowed me to be the leader that I am, and allow me and trust me that I’m going to make the right plays and I’m going to do the right things and have the right intention, that’s a compliment to my guys — it’s a compliment to the 14 guys that allow me to do that and the coaching staff. And I just try to put in the work.

“I put in the work individually, in the film room, in my mind, my body every single day to prepare myself for whatever obstacle that this ball club entails. Does it always result in us winning? No. This is my third year here, and we haven’t won every game. We haven’t won every Finals, obviously. We lost two of them. But like I’ve always told myself, if you feel like you put in the work and you leave it out on the floor, then you can always push forward and not look backwards.”

Layups

The Trail Blazers went 41-41 this season and were the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference. Craig Mitchelldyer/AP

The Portland Trail Blazers have all of their players signed through at least next season. The bad news is that the Blazers were the eighth seed in the Western Conference and need improvements to reach the next level. General manager Neil Olshey displayed loyalty by re-signing several of the team’s free agents, but now the roster is bloated and the Blazers have zero cap space. What is preventing the Blazers from having flexibility are the contracts of Evan Turner (four years, $70 million) and Allen Crabbe (four years, $75 million). Those two combined to earn nearly $35 million this past season. The Blazers need a dependable scoring small forward and may have to trade Turner or Crabbe to accomplish that. The positive news for Olshey is the Blazers have three first-round picks they can package with one of those contracts. The Blazers have the league’s second-highest payroll behind the Cavaliers and could be the most active team during the draft in their quest to improve and also reduce payroll . . . Cleveland needs to improve its bench and determine whether to bring back 3-point specialist Kyle Korver, who is 36 years old but made 48.5 percent of his 3-point attempts in 35 regular-season games. There will be a high demand for Korver, who could help another championship-caliber club with his shooting prowess. Backup point guard Deron Williams looked completely lost at times during the Finals and his days as a starter are likely over. Williams was not able to give Irving the necessary support and playing them together wasn’t effective in the Finals, either. The market for reserve point guards isn’t good, which may help Williams get another job with a contender . . . Timberwolves swingman Zach LaVine said his surgically repaired left knee is progressing well. The high-leaping LaVine tore his left anterior cruciate ligament in February and could return to action by the end of the calendar year. There are high expectations in Minnesota after a disappointing non-playoff year under coach Tom Thibodeau . . . Former Celtic Tony Allen is a free agent, and there is no guarantee he will return to the Grizzlies. Coach David Fizdale wants a younger, more athletic, and more offensively capable roster. At age 35, Allen may be beginning to slow down. With his defensive skills, there will be a market for Allen, who could help a contender off the bench.

Range factor

Diana Taurasi is climbing the ranks in the WNBA record book. On June 1, the 2009 MVP, who is just 28 shy of tying the career mark for points, set the record for 3-point field goals made. Here’s a look at who she surpassed (statistics through Thursday):

Compiled by Michael Grossi