In news that is based solely on you perspective about Eurobasket, it looks like Nuggets second year player Evan Fournier will not make the French Eurobasket squad this summer, but his teammate and fellow Nuggets draftee Joffrey Lauvergne will.
From the site Eurobasket2013.org here is a quote from French Eurobasket team coach Vincent Collet:
Youngsters Evan Fournier and Leo Westermann, as well as forward/center Kim Tillie are the three players to have been left out of the final French squad.
While Tillie had not featured in the last two friendly games of Les Bleus and his omission did not come as an enormous surprise, many expected the Denver Nuggets combo guard and the Partizan Belgrade playmaker to make their debut with the senior national team in September’s EuroBasket.
“Evan had little time to show us what he could do, and although in the last few games he improved and started to play more freely, it was still not enough to make us change our mind about what we had seen before,” Collet explained.
“The decision was taken on Saturday night (before France suffered their first defeat in a warm-up game, to Greece).”
This should come as a pretty large surprise for Fournier, as he was expected to not only play … but have a critical role in the French Eurobasket team this summer. How this will affect Fournier going forward remains to be seen. Will this motivate him to play even better in the NBA, or will this disappointment carry over into his professional life? It could be a blessing in disguise because there are those who believe Danilo Gallinari’s commitment to the Italian National team has affected his health for the NBA season (Gallo won’t be playing Eurobasket, obviously, this season do to partial ACL tear).
As for Lauvergne, since he won't be making the Nuggets squad this season, it will be interesting to see him play in an organized fashion in Eurobasket. Maybe we will see what the future of the Denver Nuggets holds?
The above information alert came from Blazers beat writer Casey Holdahl and was brought to my attention by our own Nate Timmons. CREDIT!!
