Bojan Bogdanovic opens up: 'This will be my last championship' / News - Basketnews.com

Bojan Bogdanovic thinks EuroBasket 2022 will be his last championship wearing the Croatian jersey. He justifies his decision with the FIBA calendar and previous shortcomings of the national team that have led to missed tournaments in the future.

Credit: FIBA Credit FIBA

Bojan Bogdanovic is one of the leaders of the Croatian national team. An NBA veteran of 8 years, he will try to prove doubters wrong in EuroBasket 2022.

Similarly, this will be the eighth major tournament and fourth EuroBasket Bogdanovic will proudly wear the Croatian jersey while playing for the national team. The forward is open - he doesn't see himself competing on an international level for many more years.

"We won't play in the World Cup next year, the way things are now, maybe we won't have the next big competition until three years from now, and then I'll be in some serious years," Bogdanovic told to Sportske Novosti. "The way I'm thinking at the moment, this will be my last championship, my last matches for Croatia."

If FIBA changes the qualifying system for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, Bogdanovic admits he would think about it but is currently not sure about it.

Croatia faces Greece in its first match in the tournament today. Talking about the matchup against Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bogdanovic admitted - stopping Giannis is impossible, you can only slow him down.

"It is quite difficult to guard him because he plays in every position from one to five," he said. "We're going to have to play with all five players helping out on him, we're going to have to rally, slow him down and keep him down to a poor shooting percentage."

Similarly to Luigi Datome, Bogdanovic also joined in criticizing the FIBA windows and the system where EuroBaskets are played only once every four years.

"I think that this decision is bad for us athletes because we are prevented from fighting for medals every two years. It's too big of a hole in between. It's also bad for the fans, it's certainly bad for all basketball fans because the games of Giannis, Doncic, or Jokic will be watched all over the world," the veteran explained.

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