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Conor Morgan, London Lions: ‘The club is on an upwards trajectory’

Conor Morgan, London Lions: ‘The club is on an upwards trajectory’

Interviews

16 October 20239 Mins read

Javier Gancedo

Conor Morgan, London Lions: ‘The club is on an upwards trajectory’

The London Lions have started the 2023-24 BKT EuroCup season with two consecutive victories, downing Umana Reyer Venice at home and Veolia Towers Hamburg on the road. London achieved those wins without star forward Sam Dekker, who has been sidelined until now. Several players have stepped up for the Lions during those two games, one of whom is Conor Morgan.

Morgan is a EuroCup veteran playing in his fifth season in the competition, having previous suited up for MoraBanc Andorra, Joventut Badalona and Slask Wroclaw. Against Hamburg, Morgan had 17 points, 9 rebounds and a PIR of 21. That game in Germany was his 61st appearance in the competition.

Speaking with EuroCupBasketball.com, the 29-year-old discussed – among many other things – how it feels to have a veteran role for the first time in his career. "Personally, my role in the team is kind of to be this more of a veteran player, which has been kind of fun for me," Morgan commented. "I haven't done that anywhere else and actually have something to show for it. I think we're going to have a pretty good chance at doing something fun and making the playoffs as well."

"I'm really, really excited to see what we can do with our team."

Hello, Conor. Congratulations on such a great start to the season. Back-to-back wins without Sam Dekker, which says a lot. How happy are you about such a great start?

"Thanks. Yeah, for sure. I think with the level that our EuroCup group has, I think those two wins are really going to go a long way come February due to them making the playoff race a little bit more challenging, with only six teams getting in. So that's our focus kind of as a team, to get off to a really good start. And I think we have done that so far. We'll look to keep that going hopefully in Riga [against Prometey Slobozhanske in Round 3]."

Matt Morgan earned Round 2 MVP honors, yet he had been a little bit under the radar and is surprising a lot of people this year. Can you tell us a little bit about him?

"I think Matt is a really cool, calm and collected guy. He's a guy that you'll never see get too nervous or too excited about something. He's super, super fast, which is crazy. I tell him that every day in practice – he's got a turbo mode on him. And he is programmed to score. With guys like him and Sam Dekker, it makes the rest of our jobs really easy because they create so much for us and they can draw more than one or two defenders to them. Matt was obviously the MVP of Round 2 and I was happy for him. He's been through a lot in Europe. I think he started his career in the Turkish second division. He was in France last year and it's nice to see good things happening to him."

The London Lions are fully established in the EuroCup and are getting better and better. How does it feel to be at a club that is growing and heading in the right direction?

"It's nice. Obviously, there are things that they are working to improve here and as players we are excited about that, but the whole reason for me coming to join London’s project was the direction that it was moving in. And like you and everybody else said, London is on an upwards trajectory. I think that's a fair assessment of it, so it's exciting. We are on this rocket ship and hopefully we can make it blast off a little bit. It's only been two games in the EuroCup, but like I said, hopefully this good start will turn into something bigger and then hopefully it will snowball into something bigger again."

Head coach Petar Bozic is new at this level but knows everything about the EuroCup as a player. How has it been working for him until now?

"Petar has been tasked with not the easiest of things. I mean, he joined us around August 20, maybe even later than that. The things he's been able to really do with our team and instill the confidence in our players to go out and play has been a reason for our success as well. I think he is a very cool, calm and collected coach, which is big in the EuroCup and in big moments of games. He's got a very good mind for the game and everybody on our team is really excited to play for him. I think it was a really good move on our organization's part to bring in Petar. Like I said, the guys are super excited to work for him, see him, play for him and come to work every day because of the positive environment that he has instilled. Even in our last game, we had Coach [Robert] Youngblood stepping up [because Bozic was unavailable]. Youngblood had no problem stepping up into that head coaching role, and I think a lot of that is to do with the groundwork that Petar has laid in only a month and a half, two months here. So I'm really, really excited to see what we can do with our team in the next 6-7 months."

The club is also making a lot of efforts to bring in new fans, like it did with that rooftop event at the start of the season. How do you evaluate the work London is doing off the court to bring more fans on board?

"The work that they do off the court here is probably the best I've seen for any team I've played on. Yeah, we did the rooftop event there with [Toronto Raptors forward] OG Anunoby, who is a part owner of the team. We also did this other event where we went to one of the parks in the city, just to spread the word about the London Lions and get people excited about it. So, yeah, the off-the-court stuff here is definitely a strong suit of theirs. We are hoping to build the fan base throughout the year and hopefully, come crunch time and come the time we really need the fans, we can have them there supporting us. You go to Hapoel [Shlomo Tel Aviv], you went to Partizan [Mozzart Bet Belgrade] back when they were in EuroCup, even [Joventut] Badalona this year… they're going to have some really good fans at the game. So we kind of want to have this similar advantage here in London, and hopefully we can build that fan base into something that we can rely on for many years to come."

"The way we look at EuroCup games here in London, it's the ultimate test for us."

Like you said, you will face Prometey in Riga on Wednesday night, a team that made it to last season’s EuroCup Semifinals. How much are you looking forward to testing your strengths against one of the best teams in the competition?

"The way we look at EuroCup games here in London, it's the ultimate test for us. The domestic league that we play in is not the strongest. It is improving a lot, even from last year, but it is fun [to play in the EuroCup] every week; we get to really challenge ourselves against some of the best teams in Europe. The Prometey game is definitely circled on our calendar, and we are really excited to go there and test our togetherness and our talent levels and how well we can bring this thing together. The way we look at EuroCup, it’s just a really, really exciting opportunity for us. We go out and we get really locked in and see how well we can do. Prometey is a very good team. They have a lot of guys returning from last year: [Ondrej] Balvin, Caleb Agada, who actually I played against in university, and their role guys are similar. It's a very high-level team, probably one of the higher-level ones that will play this year, and our expectations of ourselves are high as well. So we're excited to go play there, for sure."

Finally, what would make it a good season for you and also for London?

"That’s a good question. Obviously, we are comparing our team to last year quite frequently. And I think we want to be more successful than the team last year. I mean, your ultimate goal as a competitor is to win the EuroCup. I'm not sitting here in this interview telling you that our goal is to win the EuroCup, but it is! But if you play the game, your ultimate goal should be to succeed. At the same time, we need to be realistic. This is our second year in the competition and I think we just need to take it game by game at this point. Hopefully, the first and most important thing is to get into the playoffs and then see what happens from there. Like you touched on earlier, we still have some really good players that have to come back to our team – Sam Dekker being one of them. He is the marquee player of the franchise here that people really know and like to watch and are excited to see. But we also have guys like Kareem [Queeley], who is an X-factor as well with his defense. He can bring his athleticism to our team as well. So we are excited to see those guys return and have more options and more looks against other teams: the more players we have, the more positive things we can do."