Gran Canaria made a major change on its sidelines with the announcement that it has appointed Jaka Lakovic as the team's new head coach for the next two seasons. Lakovic, 44, arrives from ratiopharm Ulm, where he coached the last three seasons. Last season he led Ulm to the 7DAYS EuroCup quarterfinals for the first time since 2013 after upsetting Joventut Badalona, the best team of the regular season, in the eighthfinals round.
Lakovic's coaching career started in 2016 after a lengthy and successful career as a player that includes a 2010 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague title with FC Barcelona. He started as an assistant with Barcelona and the Slovenia national team. In 2017 he moved to Bilbao Basket as an assistant and ended up making his debut as head coach midway through the season in 2018 when the club released Veljko Mrsic. During 2018-19 he was also an assistant to Carles Duran at Joventut and then, in the summer of 2019, he moved to Germany to take charge at Ulm, where he stayed now.