by Luc Ciotkowski

 European Vibe Magazine brings you an exclusive interview with American basketball star Will McDonald. McDonald, from New Orleans, currently plays for Vitoria club TAU Cerámica and will hope to help Spain’s remaining representative in the competition lift the greatest prize in European basketball this weekend. The 28-year-old star used to play in Madrid, and before that, Gran Canaria. I spoke to him about basketball, life in Spain and being a basketball star in Spain (includes some questions not in the magazine interview):

What do you think of your chances of winning the Final Four and taking the trophy back to Vitoria?
Well, we got this far, why not go on and win? We’ve got the same chance as the other teams.

Who do you see as the biggest threat in the Final Four?
The team we play first, the Russians (CSKA Moscow). They’ve got the biggest budget of any team in Europe. They beat us over there, and here, too.

Do you think Real Madrid will be tough to beat in the ACB Playoffs?
Well we’ve beaten them every time we’ve played them this season, so they’ll be more worried about playing us than we are about playing them.

After football, basketball is one of the highest profile sports in Spain. Do you get recognised a lot?
Yeah, it’s kinda different here (in Vitoria, Basque Country). It’s not like in Madrid where you’ve got millions of people and football is first. Maybe you’d go somewhere and someone would recognise you, but not like if you were a football player. But Vitoria is different. In Vitoria, basketball is first, basketball is before soccer. So recognition, and going places and doing things is different. And it’s a little more difficult because Vitoria is a small place… and we’re more popular here.

Right, so how do fans act when they see you? Are they, are they respectful of your personal space and privacy?
I mean, yeah… They’re fans, you know; I mean some people don’t know the boundaries and some people do know the boundaries. Maybe they wanna stop and ask for an autograph while we eat dinner. But it doesn’t matter to me, because I know when I was a younger player, if I saw someone who was famous in my eyes, I didn’t stop to think, “Oh, they’re eating dinner I’m not gonna go”, I want it now! It’s just a situation that you gotta deal with – some players deal with it differently. I’m just the player, that, I deal with it, if someone wants an autograph, I’ll stop and sign it, you know.

So it wasn’t like that in Madrid?
Well in the discos, in the nightclubs, places like that people would know who you are. Maybe around the city, people would know I am a basketball player ‘cos, I’m super tall! You know. But nothing like, “Oh, that’s Will McDonald!” No.

Where there must be a clear difference between the NBA and the likes of the ACB is in wages. Do think that makes you guys over here more humble and more approachable than the guys in the U.S.?
It depends on… some players make a lot of money and they act, like, different people. Not the normal players who earn not that much money. In Europe, I’m at a time with my money, like, last year I got an offer from the NBA. I got an offer from Milwaukee, for two years- guaranteed, but I didn’t want it, ‘cos I’m doing so well here and I’m actually making more here than if was playing in the States… So, the American Dream is really not mine: I just want to concentrate on playing basketball in a nice environment and make as much money as possible.

To see the rest of the interview, read the May 2008 issue of European Vibe Magazine, out now across madrid.

TAU Cerámica play CSKA Moscow in the semi-finals on Friday, 2nd May, 21:00. the winner will play either M.Siena or Maccabi Elite in the final at 21:00, on sunday, 4th May.

http://www.europeanvibe.com/imagenes_revista/200_pdf.pdf

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