By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Serbian head coach Sasa Djordjevic talked about the goals of the national team ahead of the three upcoming summer tournaments and the players he expects to emerge as the squad’s leaders in the future.
Djordjevic mentioned Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic among those he counts to lead the new generation of the national team. The 23-year-old big guy didn’t participate in the 2017 EuroBasket in order to spend the summer working out and skipped the 2018 World Cup Qualifiers due to his contract situation with the Nuggets but Djordjevic expects him to play in the 2019 World Cup.
This generation owes it to itself, I emphasize to itself, to fight for the shiniest medal,” Djordjevic said to “Trener” magazine (an official publication of the Serbian Basketball Coaches Association), per Informer. “And it can do that in 2021 EuroBasket and it can fight once more in the Olympic Games (2020). Of course, in the 2019 World Cup in China, if we qualify, we should go for the medal. From 2022, Bogdan Bogdanovic will probably be one of the national team leaders along with Nikola Milutinov, Nemanja Nedovic, and Nikola Jokic. They will have to continue with the young ones and to, as the more experienced, include them so they can carry out the next cycle of around four, five years.”