Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
His huge ring stole the show, but even if he didn’t have it, Hall of Famer Dino Radja was always bigger than life. The Croatian legend who played for three years in Greece, two for Panathinaikos and one for Olympiacos, traveled to Crete as the guest of honor of the Heraklion pre-season tournament.
He signed autographs, met with his fans and also spoke to the clinic of the local coaches association. Radja spoke about attention to detail on the basketball court and he was also asked, since he is responsible for the national team program of Croatia, about the difficulties of getting NBA players to compete in the FIBA Windows.
Radja did not hide behind words about the whole situation: “What’s going on it’s stupid. It’s not just a matter of the NBA players, but all the players. Essentially we can only have them available in the summer. That has to stop. We have national team games in which may be the 200 best players in the world are missing. And in Croatia, we are a small country, we don’t have that many players”.
According to Radja, there’s also one more important aspect in this issue: “Many agents are advising their players not to compete for their national teams in order to protect themselves. That would never happen in our generation. My agent would not dare to say to me something like that. He knew that if he did, he would have been in trouble. The agent should work for the player. In nowadays, it seems that many players are working for the agents, which is a wrong perception”.