By Nikos Varlas / varlas@eurohoops.net
The clock is ticking for the end of the Olympic men’s basketball tournament and… we already turn on the next page: at Slovenia’s Eurobasket, next summer. EuroBasket 2013 Ambassador, Radoslav Nesterovic, talks about everything there is to know.
The retired Slovenia international, with the great career (he was the NBA’s champion, with San Antonio Spurs on 2005) admits: “Μy country is not 100% ready yet for the big tournament, but our love for basketball guarantees we will be ready, when the time comes. On mid-November we will know all the details. We are waiting for our government to decide on several matters and then we will know how exactly we are going to act, to have a great Eurobasket. And then, we will be ready to announce our plans and our goals.
Slovenia is a small country, without many big and modern arenas. For sure, we are going to use some small gyms for the first round. For the Final Round we will use the new arena we have at Ljubljana. It meets all the conditions for the comfort accommodation of all the great teams”.
His personal plans are… “to promote the tournament at all European countries, to contribute so we can offer all the right conditions for the national teams which are going to be here and to deal with public relations matters, so Eurobasket will have an overall success. My agreement with our Federation is due to the end of the tournament. Afterwards, we are going to have a discussion about my future and the role i will have at Slovenia’s basket. I know i will face a few problems, but i believe we will be successful, since the Slovenians adore basketball and they will want to be a part of this great event, in anyway they can”.