The last time a Finnish player celebrated the kingship of the main league was 43 years ago. Then TuNMKY did the trick Tapio Stén in the season 1979–1980.
Stén, who played 134 international matches in the Suomi shirt, scored 35 points per game in the regular season at that time.
Now the curse can be broken by Lahti Basketball Erik Sajantila, who has risen to the Korisliiga star guard this fall. Before Saturday night’s BC Nokia match, Sajantila had scored no less than 24.8 points per game and was second in the statistics, just behind Kataja Nike Sibanden (25,3) on heels.
– Yes, it makes me a little humble, because there haven’t been many Finns in the top ranks. The season is just beginning. We work here every day to win as a team. Basketball kingship is not my goal, but that we win games, says 22-year-old Sajantila.
Logical and everyday reasons explain the breakthrough.
– Everything starts with training. After last season, when we missed the playoffs, we made a clear plan of what we were going to do. The final result is here, Erik Sajantila explains the reasons for the sensational first season.
Even last season, Sajantila’s point average could be calculated on the fingers of two hands. Playing his third full season in the ranks of Lahti Basketball, the throwing machine had at his best played in the league with an average of nine points. The summer training course has raised the man’s game to a whole new level.
– There was a lot of running and physical training and, of course, normal sports training. Of course, it helps if you have good self-confidence. There must also be skill in the background, so it is not only a question of self-confidence.
– I have gained more strength and explosiveness, and because of that the game has opened up much better for me, the 195-centimeter Sajantila explains.
Sajantila has rotted baskets in a way that only one Finnish player has been able to do in the entire 21st century. The ball virtuoso who represented Huimaa in Äänekokski Jyri Lehtonen averaged 25.6 points during the 2001–02 season.
This season, Sajantila has been an exception in the point statistics dominated by American players. The next Finnish player, from the Seagulls Lake Okko (16,4) can only be found in the 14th place in the basket maker’s statistics.
– Almost 25 points per match is really a lot. If we don’t win games, we have to look at other areas where I can help the team. It takes some of the joy out of it because basketball is a team sport.
Sajantila’s comment is easy to understand, because Lahti Basketball has had a lot of difficulties since the beginning of the season. Out of eight matches, LaBa has managed to win only two.
Lahti’s head coach Tom Cooman has given his most important player plenty of responsibility and Sajantila has played 30 minutes in the match.
The throwing percentages of Tapiola’s Honga breeder have remained high despite the large number of throws. 56.1 percent of Sajantila’s two-point attempts and a whopping 52.5 percent of his three-point attempts have been hit during the eight games.
However, Sajantila keeps her feet firmly on the floor, even though the result has come.
– However, I still haven’t proved anything in this series. I still come to trainings and games with a clear mind and I want to prove myself again every day, Sajantila says.
49 point evening speech
Sajantila’s wildest performance of the season so far was seen in the third match against Loimaan Bisons, when he scored no less than 49 points. With that score, he wrote his name among the legends of Suomi Koris.
Of the Finnish players in the 2000s, he has collected more points in a single game Martti Kuismawho scored 61 points in the 2001–02 season in Honga’s jersey in a match against BC Jyväskylä.
Apart from Kuisma, only Jyri Lehtonen (66 points), Kari Kulonen (52), Petri Niiranen (50) and Sakari Pehkonen (50).
– The Bisons game was a really unique night. Every throw felt like it was going in. When you have that kind of feeling, there’s nothing to do but shoot the ball in the air. The saddest thing about that is that we lost the game. It left me with mixed feelings, says Sajantila.
Sajantila’s basket factory has not come out of the blue. He has junior national matches in all age groups, and he spent last summer in the strength of Finland’s challenger national team. In addition, Sajantila played and trained for four years at HBA-Märsky, a club for Finland’s most promising young players.
The game performances of the past season have hardly gone unnoticed by Susijeng’s coaching management.
– I have wanted to represent the men’s national team since I was a child. I await the invitation if it is to come. If it comes, then I will seriously go to challenge slightly more experienced players, Sajantila decides.