Jusuf Nurkic sends message to EuroBasket opponents and Bosnian government / News - Basketnews.com

The Portland Trail Blazers center Jusuf Nurkic is ashamed that the Bosnian government jeopardized their EuroBasket 2022 appearance but believes their last win over France shows they can play any team in the competition.

Credit: FIBA Credit FIBA

When a simple question had so many feelings behind it.

Bosnia and Herzegovina / Schedule

Bosnia and Herzegovina HungaryThu12:30 Germany Bosnia and HerzegovinaSat12:30 Slovenia Bosnia and HerzegovinaSun15:45 Bosnia and Herzegovina FranceTue12:30 Lithuania Bosnia and Herzegovina09-0712:30

'So how was your flight, Jusuf?' we asked the Bosnia and Herzegovina star Jusuf Nurkic on the eve of the EuroBasket 2022 opener vs. Hungary.

The Portland Trail Blazers big man just smiled with relief, but there was so much to tell about it.

"Flight was long," a 28-year-old center responded.

"But we're here. We've made it.We made it to one place, and we're excited to be here," Nurkic concluded.

While some other national teams traveled to Cologne with charter flights, Bosnia and Herzegovina took a commercial flight with a layover.

2.13 m Nurkic, one of the bigger guys in the tournament, had a hard time finding any space to squeeze his huge body into an economy seat.

Bosnia and Hercegovina had plenty of other uncomfortable problems that never existed in many other national team camps.

Bosnians had only two preparation games scheduled before the FIBA World Cup qualifiers and the EuroBasket 2022.

But two days before the trip to a friendly tournament in Tartu, the team didn't have tickets to Estonia and thought they would be left out with no preparation games.

"I'm assuming, and I'm pretty sure Estonian basketball federation paid tickets for us and somehow managed to send us to go to Estonia," Nurkic revealed.

Until the very end, Bosnians weren't sure if they were able to travel to EuroBasket due to severe financial issues.

They didn't have a training camp they were supposed to. At some point, four Bosnians had to live in one hotel room.

"To explain this, you need to dig into our political and government setup," Nurkic told BasketNews when asked how he would explain this situation to a European basketball community.

"We have three levels of authority. All three have to agree on something. And if those three people are not in the communication, it's really hard," he continued.

"We didn't have the camp we should have. It's a shame because our country has the money. There's no doubt about it. There's not an issue between the people. But it's just the government and politicians. They don't want to work. On some level, they don't really work on anything," Nurkic expressed his disappointment.

"It's kind of messed up. But at the same time, you can't change the world but yourself. For us athletes, it's hard to focus on something when you don't know what will happen tomorrow with your team. But we're really trying not to go too deep into it. We're actually here, and I'm glad everybody is healthy and able to play," Nurkic sighed deeply.

"But at the same time, they have to figure out how we will have national teams at any sport, not just basketball. We have handball, volleyball... Whatever it is, they have to have a source of money to do the camp and represent the country easier than just going by ourselves, paying for our hotel, or whatever. It's shameful, but at the same time, it is what it is right now."

The frustration was all over Nurkic's face. But despite all the hurdles, he couldn't turn back on his friends by not joining them in the national team campaign. That comes with pride in wearing The Dragons jersey.

Credit FIBA

The draw threw Bosnians into the group of death, where basketball fans mainly discussed it as a four-team competition with Slovenia, France, Lithuania, and Germany as the four locks for the playoffs.

But Bosnians are entering the group stage with a statement.

On August 27, Bosnians send Rudy Gobert, Evan Fournier, and the French team home with an emotional win, 96-90.

"Of course," Nurkic didn't think for a second when asked if that was a statement win before the EuroBasket 2022.

"I really believe we have a great group of guys who can defend and score. We care only about ourselves and how we are going to play. But I don't think there's a team that we can't beat. I really don't," Nurkic didn't hide his confidence.

"But at the same time, we can't play like we did against Montenegro and don't show up as we should. I think Montenegro was a wake-up call for us. And it was good because we didn't have friendly games to prep up like everybody. I think we're in great shape. We know we can play anybody, as we showed with France. I'm really looking forward to the tournament."

Credit FIBA

Jusuf made sure the world heard about this Bosnia and Herzegovina victory. He put one of the best defensive EuroLeague bigs, Vincent Poirier, on the heavy poster to make a case for a dunk of the summer.

"Oh, it's a lot, man," the Bosnian Beast smiled when asked if he received many messages after that play.

"The funniest? At the end of the day, it was just a basketball play. Somebody goes viral, and it's a big competition, so it will happen regardless. We probably going to have more of them, so we'll see which one is better," Nurkic smiled.

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