You are invited to get known the opinion of one of the protagonists in the Russian Basketball, Boris Sokolovsky, the Head Coach of the team of Novosibirsk, the Head Coach of the Youth National Team and the laureate of "The Golden Basket" award as the best coach working with women's teams in Russia. We asked Boris what he thinks about this situation in general, where he sees the cause of the problem and what measures could be done in order to avoid the worst outcome...

"You asked me a question the answer to which is evident... In the context of the present championship every time when a more or less valuable player is involved in a game it is connected with a lot of investments. Of course, 16 games are not enough for such a huge country as Russia, for such a country which was always distinguished by great results and many outstanding teams.  I think that the Basketball Federation should reconsider the chances of the teams to take part in the Russian championship. And for sure, the Russian championship deserves more attention from the side of sponsors, spectators, television and media in general. But a lot of promotion and publicity work must be done in order to attract funds from the budget, to get sponsorship and to create interest to women's basketball in those regions where there are all the prerequisites for this. Unfortunately, the Russian Basketball suffered a grievous loss in the Volga region: there was a brilliant team in Samara which, having moved to Moscow under the auspices of CSKA, fell into oblivion; the team Victoria in Saratov also fell out of the number of the Russian strongest teams.
I think it is necessary to revive and attract additional financing and attention to Krasnoyarsk where an excellent coach Tsybulevsky and his assistant Elena Shulzhenko are working. The latter works also as the Head Coach of the National Team of Cadettes. Broadly speaking, there are regions in Russia where it is necessary to revive basketball traditions, to strike life into the teams and these teams could become the key points of the Russian Women's Basketball!"

The problem is really serious as it is evident that the teams are absolutely unable to play enough games during the season. And urgent measures must be taken as this can be interpreted as the first signal of the threat. A threat of fading away, if you like. Even though so far Russia is still considered to be among the Giants in Women's Basketball. But everybody knows that the most difficult in sport is not to win the title but to defend it!