By George Efkarpidis/ info@eurohoops.net
The Turkish national team qualified for the 2019 World Cup in China and Furkan Korkmaz is looking forward to his first World Cup: “That’s going to be my first Wolrd Cup experience and I’m really excited about it. When you say the national team, it’s a totally different feeling for us. Especially right now when we are out of our country and we miss more”, he said before noting that their squad will be a force to be reckoned with in the future: “We have a young generation which is talented and if you followed the summer games we showed people that this team can play, this team will be successful in the future. I don’t know when. Maybe this summer maybe three summers later but we will be successful.”
After a year of adjusting, Korkmaz has become a regular in the Philadelphia 76ers roster and his role is getting bigger: “This is my second year, I got used to it right now and I know the expectations from the coaches, from the players, I know very well what I should do on the court. That’s why I feel really confident about it and I’m just trying to do my job on the court offensively and defensively.”
Before Korkmaz could answer what’s the 76ers’ goal this season after adding Jimmy Butler, the latter stepped in with a joke as he heard his name: “I just heard my name, plead the fifth. How do you say fifth in Turkish?” After teaching him a bit of his native language, Kormkaz answered: “He is a big guy, Jimmy Butler is Jimmy Butler. It’s a big difference for us. Right now, we are trying to play better basketball offensively and defensively. We are still trying to find solutions on how to score, how to defend but right now our goal is, about the playoffs, to finish on the highest position and then be the champion, in our conference first and then the NBA.”
Among other things, Korkmaz also talked about how much his EuroLeague experience meant to him and gave a piece of advice to all those who look to play the highest level of basketball. Take a look: