(Jakarta) Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic, Stephen Curry… The 2023 World Cup will open on Friday in Asia again without the vast majority of basketball stars who have given up, with the exception of Luka Doncic, most preferring to focus on the NBA season and the prospect of the 2024 Olympics.
The observation is not new for this competition, scheduled since 2019 just before the Olympic deadline, the meeting on which the world or national stars report their objectives.
Thus, only two of the ten best scorers of the 2022-2023 NBA season (Doncic and the Canadian Shai Gilgeous-Alexander), and six of the 30, will be on the starting line from Friday in the Philippines, Indonesia and on the Japanese archipelago of Okinawa.
If the first American roles (Curry, Tatum, Lillard, Harden, etc.) are accustomed to declining the call of the star-spangled banner (Durant and James, aged 34 and 38, are themselves multiple Olympic champions), the main foreign players of the powerful and demanding NBA are also missing.
For some, the absence is explained by the wear and tear of a long season, before attacking another in October, like the player par excellence of the final won in June with Denver, the Serbian pivot Nikola Jokic.
“He is physically and mentally exhausted, not ready to take responsibility at the moment,” Serbia coach Svetislav Pesic said of Jokic, who is resting in his stronghold of Sombor with his racehorses.
The Nuggets’ other key man for the title, Canadian point guard Jamal Murray, also declined the selection, not considering himself “physically fit to be at the level required for the World Cup” after “a long and demanding season”. and a return from a serious knee injury in the fall of 2022.
Greek Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks) had knee surgery in early July and also doesn’t feel “ready to play at the level” required at the World Cup. Quitting was “the only option to make sure I got back to the level of basketball I worked so hard for,” the “Greek Freak” added, saying he was “extremely disappointed.”
Lithuania will be deprived of its star pivot Domantas Sabonis (Sacramento Kings), hit by an inch, and its Latvian neighbor will have to do without its star interior Kristaps Porzingis, in difficulty with one foot and whose package was recorded in accordance with his new franchise, the Boston Celtics.
Beyond injuries or physical and mental fatigue, the World Cup anyway often does not weigh very much against the stakes of an NBA career, a “priority” clearly put forward by Japanese star Rui Hachimura, who comes to sign a first big contract with the Lakers.
He has not yet stepped on the floors of the North American championship, but the Frenchman Victor Wembanyama, chosen in first position in June by the Spurs of San Antonio, put forward a “necessary sacrifice” by giving up the World Cup.
The French basketball sensation wants to give himself time to prepare for his NBA debut, to recover from a turbulent start to the summer, between the end of the season in France and the excitement of the repechage, in order to better return to home in Paris for the 2024 Games.
A few big guys with high salaries still responded to the sirens of their selection and the World Cup.
Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks wants to lead Slovenia to their first world medal. The podium will be more difficult to achieve, however, for the Finnish interior of the Utah Jazz, Lauri Markannen, and for Karl-Anthony Towns, interior of the Dominican Republic and the Minnesota Timberwolves.
His teammate in the United States Rudy Gobert, after hesitating, also decided to answer the call, with the hope of seeking a first world title with France.