By Antigoni Zachari / info@eurohoops.net
Pedro Martinez posted a short but very meaningful message on his Twitter account Sunday that reads “preparation interrupted”, due to the FIBA World Cup qualifiers.
The Baskonia coach is one of the many critics of the FIBA Windows and this time around the issue intensifies, as plenty of players – including EuroLeague marquee stars for the first time – have to temporarily leave their clubs’ training camp in order to join their national teams for the September games.
In the case of Baskonia, eleven players are expected to leave the preparation of the team, among them team captain and star Toko Shengelia. As a result, due to the lack of personnel, Baskonia decided to pause its preparation period, as Martinez himself confirmed with another tweet Monday.
At the same time, Real Madrid’s Anthony Randolph and Bayern’s Petteri Koponen have just joined the Slovenian and Finnish selections respectively. This marks a first for both, as they have skipped previous windows and stayed with their teams during the past season. The same applies to players like Olympiacos’ Giorgos Printezis and Kostas Papanikolaou, CSKA Moscow’s Sergio Rodriguez, Fenerbahce Nicolo Melli and Gigi Datome to name just a few.