By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Alexis Ajinca dropped the bomb in a recent interview, saying that he’s days in the French national team are, more or less….. over!
“There’s a 95% – 97% chance I won’t return to the French national team”, he said to RMC.FR. “I think that the national team and I are going to two different directions. So at this point in my carer, I don’t know.”
When asked to give a reason for this decision, the New Orleans Pelicans center explained that, “It’s because of the ways things have gone over the last three years. For example, it was received badly when I stayed at home because my wife was giving birth. And I had informed about this months before, during the pregnancy. Then when I got injured I had to make a choice and this was also received negatively. The coach and the technical director said so in the newspapers and I thought this was a lack of respect. I’ve always been there. Don’t forget that I made sacrifices to be in the national team. In 2010 when I joined the camp my father died. I left for five days only to be dismissed afterwards.”
Ajinca was a part of the French national team that won gold medal in the Eurobasket 2013. He missed the 2014 World Cup due to his wife’s pregnancy and the Eurobasket 2015 because of some pains on his Achilles tendon after which the Pelicans prohibited the national team in the tournament.
“Vincent Collet knows about it. It may be difficult to understand it, but I’ve thought a lot about my choice and I have a quite clear idea about it,” he concluded.