Draft:Melzin Lazimi

Melzin Lazimi, born in October 12, 1993 is a basketball coach from Tirana , Albania. He was the Head Coach for SK Tirana, Goga Basket and Ks Teuta. During his career he lead teams to National League titles and international success. In 2016 Lazimi was named the sports director for SK Tirana where he lead the club into their first Balkan league appearance falling just one game short of making the Playoffs. SK Tirana ended up winning the treble in Albania that year clinching their first Superleague title in 5 years while also winning the Albanian National Cup and Supercup following the next season by reconfirming league championship and Albanian Cup. Starting the 2018 season after just 1 game Lazimi and Sk Tirana parted ways as Lazimi took on a trip to follow ICAB program in USA where for 2 months he was engaged in basketball activities with different NCAA Division 1 programs. In December 2018 following his return from US coach Lazimi signed for newly promoted club Goga Basket. After Lazimi took over the club Goga Basket went on to an impressive run finishing the regular season with a perfect record and eventually winning the Albanian Superleague in 21 May 2019. Lazimi was awarded coach of the year by Eurobasket for his impressive turn of events at Goga Basket leading them to their first ever Supeleague title. Lazimi went on to coach Goga Basket in the next 2 seasons during which the club marked some historic achievements by making the Unike League Playoffs in 2021 after the 2020 season was canceled due to Covid. In that season Goga Basket went on to an impressive 17 games unbeaten run in the regular season. Following a National Cup loss in the final to city rivals KS Teuta, Lazimi and Goga Basket parted ways in March 2021 despite the team leading the Albanian Superleague with unbeaten record and being the favorites to win the league. In summer 2021 KS Teuta announced that they had signed a 2 year deal with Lazimi taking over Nikola Milatovic as the new Head Coach of the club. In his first season on the helm of KS Teuta the club went on to win the Albanian Supercup and Albanian League while Lazimi also repeated a personal success of making the Liga Unike playoffs while falling short in the semifinal game against Golden Eagle Ylli when Erion Kastrati hit the game winning layup with 0.6 seconds to go on the game. It was historic in the club's achievements as the only Albanian team to make it to playoffs of Liga Unike since its creation in 2020. KS Teuta went on to claim the League title in that same season as Lazimi was awarded another coach of the year award by Eurobasket. In the following season Lazimi lead KS Teuta to repeat the success by winning Albanian Supercup and Albanian Cup in December 2022 and January 2023 dispite falling short in the league playoffs against KS Tirana who went on to win the Superleague. In summer 2023 KS Teuta and Lazimi parted ways as the club informed the fans that coach Lazimi had decided to move on to United States to continue his career.

National Team
Coach Lazimi has been nominated to coach the Albanian youth national teams from summer 2016. In 2019 his Albania U18 went on to win bronze in European Championship in Andorra. He repeated the same success in 2021 by winning bronze after a Semifinal loss to Luxembourg by just one point in Tirana. Albania went on to beat Andorra in the bronze medal game the next day. However it was a historic success for the country who hadn't seen a medal from early 2001 in the international arena. In 2022 European Championship Lazimi's U20 National team marked a historic win towards Romania by 22 points qs they ranked 15th out of 24 teams participating. Lazimi worked as an assistant coach for the Senior National team in 2018 and despite different rumors linking him with possibly taking over the Albanian National Team it was never made official.

In 2018 Lazimi graduated FIBA Europe Coaching Certificate in Chemnitz, Germany. The 3 year program in known to be the best coaching degree of basketball all over Europe where some of the most achieved coached have built their backgrounds and education.