The fight between FIBA and the EuroLeague creates an absurd situation. In the qualifiers for the national team matches, the EuroLeague players do not play because the windows are held in the middle of the season. When the real thing comes - the EuroBasket or the World Cup, the EuroLeague players steal the show and their representation in the very different national teams.
Almost 70 Euroleague players will take part in the European Championship that will start on September 1, including a large part of the Israeli national team players.
The meaning: a major damage to the preparations of the Euroleague teams for the season, those who reach the final stages of the tournament will not be back home before October 20 - when the league will start already on the Friday of that month.
Getting back is not the end of the story.
Days of physical and mental recovery are required here after a grueling tournament, there is almost no doubt that there will be an injury at the beginning of the season for teams with almost half of their squad absent from a large part of the preparations.
The list of the missing is not yet final because screenings are still expected, and of course there could also be injuries.
It is important to note - it is not only the number of absentees, but also the importance of the players in the team, even here there are those who will be hurt more and those less.
In addition to the players, there are no less than four Euroleague coaches in the teams, even expected to reach the final stages.
The absence of a coach is an injury no less significant than the absence of one or another player.
Blatt and Susman.
They will miss the preparation for the season at Alba Berlin, photo: Alan Shiver
Suffering greatly from the situation,
by the end of the week Maccabi Tel Aviv had more national team players than any team in the Euroleague.
After the removal of Yeftah Ziv, the situation changed, but the Yellows are at the top - with 6 players, including Lorenzo Brown in the Spain team.
The number is still not final, because the Israeli national team is expected to have another final screening.
Lorenzo Brown.
Will play with Spain and miss the preparations at the temple, photo: Twitter
Maccabi's preparation for the season will go significantly wrong, but most of the Maccabi players who will be absent are not among the leaders in the team.
It can be said that those who will suffer the most are the two big Spanish and the two Turkish ones.
Real Madrid will be missing 6 key players, with two of them Sergio Huey and Rudy Fernandez already at an advanced age where they need to plan their workloads well.
Barcelona also with 6 important players, from 5 different national teams including the shiny acquisitions: Jan Wesley, Thomas Saturnski and Nikola Kalinic.
Fenerbahce has 6 players and also coach Dimitris Itoudis of the Greek national team.
Anadolu Efes will be missing 5 players who are the base of the team: Shane Larkin and Vasilija Micic, as well as coach Ergin Ataman, coach of the Turkish national team.
The situation could have been more complicated, but Ante Zizic was unexpectedly dropped from the Croatian national team.
Sergio Yoi. At his age it won't be easy, photo: AFP
They will also hurt
and the Italians will have big shortcomings, although some of the players are not among the leaders.
Milan with 6 minuses, Virtus with 5 and also coach Sergio Scariolo (Spain coach).
Valencia will also be missing between 5 and 6 players.
Elba Berlin will have to do without five players, including Blatt and Sussman.
Those who will have to deal with fewer problems are Partizan Belgrade, whose number of players in the team is 5, a number that will probably be reduced after the sifting
.
Bayern Munich and Red Star Belgrade with 4. Zalgiris Kovna will probably only have 3 players in the championship, but coach Kazis Maksevitis, the coach of the Lithuanian national team, will also be absent.
With less constraints these two Greeks with three minuses each.
And who are the teams that will hardly be hurt and will be able to reach the season in better condition?
The two French teams - Villerban and Monaco with one player, and in Saconia they will be missing between one and two players.
Mike James.
Monaco will hardly hurt, photo: from Twitter
were we wrong
We will fix it!
If you found an error in the article, we would appreciate it if you shared it with us