His high-flying, shot-swatting exploits certainly grabbed a
few headlines last season as he enjoyed a stellar first season for Andreas
Kapoulas’ Bristol Flyers, and now Malcolm Delpeche is back for more as he looks
forward to another term at SGS Arena.
You may have feared we’d lost Delpeche to Hollywood after his
cameo in LeBron James’ Hustle Movie over the summer, but we get to enjoy more
of the 25-year-old’s super talents and we sat down with the big man recently to
discuss his hopes ahead of the new campaign.
“We had an underdog mentality which worked really well for
us, and we’ve got to embrace that again this year. We don’t just want a repeat
of last year though, we want to do even better, and the biggest thing we need
to do is make sure we close out those winnable games better.
“Win or lose, our games are always exciting and for fans,
our games are super exciting, but some of them are heart-breaking for us
because we’re generally right there against most teams to win, and sometimes we
just can’t close, so we’ve got to learn from last year and make sure we do that
better.
“We can’t just be satisfied to be in the conversation. Fourth place is nothing to shake your head at, it is a great achievement, but we’ve got to understand that if we want to surpass and be even better than when we were last year, we’ve got to stay up when we’re up and stay ready when we’re down. We’ve got to take every game and possession seriously and make sure we close.”
“Success is measured by our win column, we know that.”
With a number of changes to the roster over the summer, the
Flyers will be required to come together quickly once again as the season gets
underway, but Delpeche credits his Head Coach Andreas Kapoulas for the work he’s
done in identifying a group of guys who have come together very quickly, and
discusses what the goals are for the team in the upcoming campaign.
“Everybody has come in with a really good mindset and I’ve
been excited by what I’ve seen. Coach has done a great job and you have to tip
your hat off to him for what he did here last year, because he brought us all
together in a great way and enabled those performances and that chemistry.
“I’m excited to work with him again this year and he’s built
another group of guys here – you can see he is a great judge of players and
their personalities and characteristics because we’ve not been together that
long, but we’ve already come together really well.
“Success is measured by our win column, we know that, and I
think a top five finish is definitely where we would like to be again. Anything
below that would be disappointing, I think. The main goal is to make that
post-season once again, which is the same for everybody, but top five is a real
goal for us. We’re underdogs, nobody talks about us, and we’ve got to use that
to our advantage.”
The Flyers get their Championship campaign underway at SGS Arena on Friday 23 September against the Manchester Giants. Tickets have sold out for Bristol’s season opener, but you can watch the match live and for free on the BBL YouTube channel, and get your tickets for future Flyers games here!
