By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Who will win the upcoming Eurobasket? Probably the team that has the most players present in Slovenia. The list of absences is really long, probably longer than anyone expected and with one month left for the start of the tournament a lot can still happen.
Many familiar faces will be missing this year, starting from the reigning champions, Spain, which will have to do without its marquee stars, Pau Gasol and Juan Carlos Navarro. Also, Felipe Reyes wanted to rest, Serge Ibaka refused to play and Nikola Mirotic didn’t want to replace him as the team’s naturalized player.
One of the main favorites, France, will be missing an entire front line as Joakim Noah, Ronny Turiaf, Kevin Seraphin, Ali Traore and Rudy Gobert will not play due to injuries and rest issues. Russia will also have a new look, with the new coach being appointed officially just this week. After Fotis Katsikaris resigned, Vasily Karasev is the new boss and will have to build a team without Andrei Kirilenko, Viktor Khryapa, Sasha Kaun and Timofey Mozgov. Vitaly Fridzon initially was also thinking about not playing, but he will be present in Slovenia.
One more team that could compete for a medal, have a really tough work to do and build essentially a new chemistry. Serbia will be heading to the tournament without Vladimir Micov, Νovica Velickovic, Dusko Savanovic, Zoran Erceg and Milan Macvan. On the same time injured Milos Teodosic is still a question mark. Those four teams will definitely lose a lot of their strength, but specially Spain has the roster to defend its title.
Then there are two teams that will have key members missing, however still a lot of big names. That applies to Greece and Italy. The Greeks will not have in their roster NBAer Kosta Koufos, Eurocup MVP Nick Calathes and Sofoklis Shortsanitis who isn’t officially yet of the list, but has missed due to injury the first stage of the training camp. Italy will have to do without injured NBA scorer Danilo Gallinari and Daniel Hackett who will rest due to pains in his Achilles tendon. Despite those absences, those Mediterranean nations have a complete roster and the highest of ambitions.
The same be also said about Croatia and Slovenia. The hosts will not have Barcelona’s Erazem Lorbek and free agent Beno Udrih who refused to play, while their coach Boza Maljkovic didn’t included in the team Sasha Vujacic. Croatia will be missing its top point guards, veterans Marko Popovic and Zoran Planinic. A case can be also made for Lithuania, since Simas Jasaitis, Paulius Jankunas and Sarunas Jasikevicius will not play in Slovenia, but the roster of the Baltic nation on paper is one of the best in the tournament.
And then, we have the teams that are missing their top players – with some of them being NBA stars – and just don’t have the talent to replace then. That applies to Germany (D. Nowitzki, C. Kaman, T. Ohlbrecht, D. Shroeder, E. Harris), Great Britain (L. Deng, J. Freeland, P. Mensah – Bonsu) Ukraine (A. Len), Georgia (Z. Pachulia, T. Shengelia), Israel (G. Mekel), Latvia (D. Bertans, A. Biedrins) and Montenegro (Pekovic), as it was announced today.
Also Poland’s Marcin Gortat returned to the States in order to get examined in his foot and nobody knows yet if he will return to Europe, while Turkey didn’t invite Utah’s Enes Kanter in the team, which includes NBA veteran Hedo Turkoglu.
Just by counting those names and without including the players that are battling injuries, we have 47 players who could make their mark in the competition missing the upcoming Eurobasket. It’s almost like four teams full of top stars skipping the tournament…