By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
The conflicting schedule of EuroLeague with the World Cup Qualifiers won’t allow Adam Hanga to join the Hungarian national team. And this might mean an early retirement from international basketball.
“Ι heard Ettore Messina say that coaches or players aren’t involved in the decision-making process. It’s wrong for me because I may no longer play for my country because this year I won’t be able to do it. Without me, I don’t know if we will qualify (to the World Cup). For smaller countries, it’s more difficult,” Hanga said in an interview with Onda Cero radio, per Mundo Deportivo.
“We can’t do anything. I can’t do anything”, he added.
Hanga also mentioned that it the coaches and players should make their voices heard before decisions are being made so that they won’t have to make ugly decisions between their clubs and their national teams. “This has to start in big countries, not Hungary. If I started it, people would wonder ‘who is this?'”
“There is no money in a country like Hungary,” he said. “When you begin playing you do it because simply you like basketball.”
In regards to being a Barcelona player, the 28-year-old swingman, talked about how he feels playing at the side of Juan Carlos Navarro. “It’s an honor to be working with Navarro this year. Five or six years ago I didn’t think that I could play with him in Barcelona. Sometimes I have to stop and think about where I am.”
After finishing the season with a EuroLeague DPOY award in his pockets, Hanga believed that it was time to sign with the San Antonio Spurs. Yet such a thing didn’t happen, so he stayed in Europe. “I was hoping to sign with San Antonio this summer and I felt but for it. But if I signed with the Spurs I felt I couldn’t play for my country.”