According to a recent article published on FIBAEurope.com, Denver Nuggets Center Jusuf Nurkic is expected to be part of the Bosnia & Herzegovina team which will attempt to qualify for the 2017 Eurobasket Tournament in Ukraine. A brief snippet from the article:
Jurkic (sic) had only played for the senior national team during a few minutes in September 2012, when he was just 18 years old. Training camp starts on 25 July and the NBA duo will join preparations in August, as per the relevant agreement.
So despite the article being unable to get his name right, the excitement is none the less high for the Bosnian Beast to play for his national team. The Eurobasket is the largest European basketball tournament and typically in the past has meant an automatic qualification to the victor for either the Olympics or the World Championships, however with the new competition system scheduled to start in 2017, it doesn’t appear that the 2017 Eurobasket will have any impact on qualifying for the 2019 World Cup of Basketball.
What is of far more interest to Nuggets faithful is competing in the qualifying tournament for Eurobasket means Nurkic effectively has ended his offseason. With games slated to start in just a couple weeks and extend until mid September, Nurkic is going to roll right into training camp upon completion of the tournament. Normally this might be reason for concern, especially given the fact that the he spent the majority of his previous season recovering from knee surgery but Juka has been fully recovered for some time now and has spent his summer working tirelessly in the gym at the Nuggets facility. Think of it as a pre-presason and a chance to get Nurkic up to game speed a little quicker. Expect big things from the Bosnian Beast this upcoming season.
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