February 13, 2023 - Croatia's best basketball player, Bojan Bogdanović, revealed that he has no intention of playing for Croatia anymore in an interview for the Spanish nationwide daily sports newspaper Mundo Deportivo.
The basketball player answered honestly about why he could not achieve significant success with the Croatia national team.
After another debacle at EuroBasket, where Croatia was eliminated in the round of 16, there was little hope that Croatia would see Bogdanović again in the Croatia jersey. However, he has only now confirmed the decision to end his national team career:
"My attitude is the same as last summer, and I don't think it will change."
Croatia has not achieved good results in major competitions for years, like missing the World Cup and failing at EuroBasket, and all this while Croatia still has several NBA players on the team. It's not entirely clear why better results have not been achieved:
"We had a lot of problems with injuries. It's been like this practically my whole life; we always lacked the best players due to injuries. It is assumed that good players should make some result, and why we can't is a million-dollar question. We should be better, I don't know what to say, but there were always injuries."
Last night, Bogdanović became the top Croatian scorer in NBA history, overtaking the legendary Toni Kukoc. He also has the best numbers this season in the Detroit Pistons jersey. There was a lot of interest in Bogdanovic, and his fans wished he'd be traded to a better NBA team that would compete in the playoffs, but that did not happen:
"I did not know the details, the clubs were negotiating, and it was not in my hands. Detroit decided to keep me. It meant a lot to me to see how much they love me here, so we'll see what happens next season. There is room to bring in good players. I hope that next season we will be much better than now."
Bogdanović also revealed that he has no intention of playing in Europe:
"I don't think I will play in Europe anymore. I wish the European rules were like the NBA, but I don't care. I like that debate; the style of basketball is different, the European mentality is different, and every game is played fiercely."
Source: HRT
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