Mike Fratello to coach Ukraine National team

The only plays Mike Fratello has drawn up lately have been as the Czar of the Telestrator, but that will change this summer.

In what may be Fratello’s biggest professional challenge, the Hackensack native agreed to coach the Ukraine National Team in the European Championships in Lithuania.

Ukraine has never qualified for the Olympics and is an extreme long shot for the 2012 Games. It didn’t qualify for the last two European Championships and has never finished higher than 13th. Ukraine has had little success in basketball since becoming independent after the dissolution of the Soviet Union 20 years ago.

But Fratello, 64, is excited about his first foray into international competition and hopes to help put Ukraine on the basketball map.

"I was interested in something new that I’ve never done," said Fratello, an analyst for Nets games on the YES Network and the NBA on TNT. "I just thought at this time in my life, having never had the chance for that opportunity, it was kind of a wonderful challenge to see what you can do.

"This program is trying to establish a base, a foundation to eventually [become a power]. They just haven’t had that. It’s been haphazard, hasn’t been run the right way. I think everybody wanted to make a commitment to do this thing the right way."

Fratello wants to coach in the NBA again. He interviewed for the Hornets and Cavaliers vacancies last summer and was a Clippers candidate. But Fratello insists he didn’t take the Ukraine post in hopes of returning to the NBA sidelines

"This isn’t being done because I’m hoping to get a job," Fratello said. "People know whether I can coach in the NBA. The whole thing is a huge challenge. That’s why I really did it."

It’s about a 2 1/2-month commitment, from early July until September. Fratello has begun putting names together to be his assistants and doing his homework on players.

Ukraine doesn’t have household names. Jazz big man Kyrylo Fesenko is the lone NBA player. Oleksiy Pecherov played for the Wizards and Timberwolves. There are other Ukrainian players in Spain and some in college in the United States. The Ukraine may nationalize some guys who have been playing there the last few years.

"I have to come up with a search mission to find some new guys," Fratello said.