Will the NBA champion join the Polish team? He would replace an important American
The Polish national basketball team won the pre-qualification tournament for the Olympics and will compete in the final competition for tickets to Paris. It won’t be an easy task, because they only qualified for the same qualifications as, among others, with Spain. A new naturalized player may help Igor Milicic’s squad. According to media reports, it is about the 2019 NBA champion who would replace an important American.
Polish basketball players still count in the fight for the Olympic Games. Igor Milicic’s players, forced to play in the pre-qualification tournament, won the August competition in Gliwice. Thanks to this, they received a chance to continue fighting for tickets to the competition in Paris. However, the final qualifying tournament is an extremely difficult task for which the coach needs the best squad.
PZKosz wants to become the NBA champion
Poland went to the tournament in Spain, where they were in a group with Finland and the Bahamas. In addition to the hosts, the second team includes the Angolans and the Lebanese. The two best teams will advance to the semi-finals, and only the winner will advance to the Olympic Games. The clear favorites of the event are Sergio Scariolo’s players, because we are talking about the world champions from four years ago and the winners of the last EuroBasket.
The Polish men’s national team last appeared at the Olympics in 1980. Before the last Olympics, the basketball players fought for promotion in Kaunas, but lost to Lithuania in the semi-finals. Now PZKosz wants to give Milic the best possible conditions to fight for promotion. A new naturalized player would help.
According to the reports of Przegląd Sportowy Onet, the Polish Basketball Association wants to convince Jordan Loyd to play. He is the 2019 NBA champion with the Toronto Raptors, but he did not stay in the best league in the world for long. However, he became known as a great scorer in the EuroLeague. He has already played for Valencia, Red Star Belgrade, Zenit Saint Petersburg, and since last season, AS Monaco. In the colors of the club from the Principality, he scored an average of 12 points per game, helping Sasa Obradovic’s team advance to the Final Four of the EuroLeague.
Poland without AJ Slaughter
Loyd has not played much this season due to health problems. The player’s possible naturalization would mean that there would be no place in the squad for AJ Slaughter, an important American who has driven the Poles’ play for years. In turn, in the pre-qualifying tournament, the place for a naturalized basketball player was taken by Geoffrey Groselle (only one player of this type can play in the national team).
