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Nikola Vucevic is not a fan of FIBA’s new World Cup qualifying format. The Montenegro and Orlando Magic big man expressed his displeasure with the new format in an interview with French basketball portal BeBasket (then translated into English by Eurohoops.net):
“It’s complicated and it makes no sense”, said the Orlando Magic center. “It does not make sense if you do not close an agreement with the NBA and the Euroleague so that their players can compete… If it’s not possible for everyone to be there, then we have to keep the system we had before, I think it worked well. I do not see where the problem of playing during summer is, it always worked”.
In this new World Cup qualifying format instituted by FIBA a couple of years ago, countries will now have to play round-robin qualification games which will be played in November, February, and June/July instead of the old format, where qualification was determined via summertime tournaments.
The obvious sticking point is that most NBA players like Vucevic won’t get to take part in qualifiers for their respective countries since they will take place during the regular season. Meanwhile, the EuroLeague also expanded its competition, leaving no window for their players to take part in the qualifiers.
One of the big problems Vucevic sees is that most countries will essentially have two teams: one that will qualify and one that will get to play in the tournament once their top players are available. Vucevic notes that it would be unfair to the ones who got the team into the tournament in the first place. He also doesn’t believe this is fair to the fans, who won’t get to see the best players playing.
