Hoops

Aleks Maric: Will he Play at World Championships?

Fiba.com report that Aleks Maric remains only a "slim" hope of playing for the Boomers at the Woprld Championships.

Link: http://linky.com.au/11b07

"Aleks is still a chance for the world titles with Australia, but a very slim one and we believe he will be unlikely to be available," a spokesman for Basketball Australia told FIBA.

Aleks Maric appears set to move across to Greek and Euroleague powerhouse Panathinaikos! I would assume they have made him an offer too good to refuse...

Link: http://linky.com.au/si24y

Whilst I have a Greek heritage, I feel no sense of affinity or attachment to Greece at all.

Aleks Maric is no different to many other first generation Australian sports people whose parents were born overseas and migrated to Australia. The same issue arises in Football (Soccer) where having dual citizship enables them to play as a local in the lucrative European leagues. Once there, they feel at home with their heritage and naturally if very talented, are eagerly feted by that nation.

The issue they face is to decide whether or not they want to acknowledge the country of their birth, where they were raised, where they got their start in their Sport and where they were strongly supported through the AIS, etc or their cultural heritage.

If you look back at the Australian Basketball Teams of the 1950s through to the early 1960's, they were full of migrants such as George and Mike Dancis, Inga Freidenfelds, Algis Ignatavicius, etc. Later of course the influence of the Nagy and Blicavs families both in male and female basketball was very high. They chose to represent their adopted countries as communism held sway at the time.

He clearly states in that translated article that he wanted to play for Serbia, but his hand was forced by FIBA and Basketball Australia. So he goes on to say that he is therefore willing to play for Australia...basically because he has no other choice - and no mention of potential bans...

Is in heart really in it? Will he put everything on the line for the Boomers if he actually plays when we play against Serbia in our first game?

All good points...I would have Barlow start at the 3 if Maric does in fact play and starts. You now have to go with Mills as the starting PG and I think Ingles also has to start as you point out Paul. We have precious little depth at the SG position...

Wow!

Reading between the lines and taking into consideration the translation, I interpret this as Basketball Australia flexing some muscle by telling Maric they will invoke a FIBA rule that will suspend him from playing for anbyone else both before, during and after the world champs for a period that totals 58 days, resulting in missing a lengthy amount of basketball at the start of the European season for Partizan - his club team.

If I am wrong and your Serbian is better than mine, please elaborate further so we can better understand the situation.

By the way, Brad Newley was just interviewed on SEN Radio in Melbourne and stated that there was still hope that Maric would in fact join the team, likely after thew Stankovic Cup.

I like that team on paper Paul too.

I hope Maric doesn't want to play with us so he can tank in our game against Serbia! Imagine the betting scandal!!!

That Team is Spot on PAUL!

I would love to have Maric in the team. But just a question:

Would we want him to play for the Boomers, even if that wouldn't be his first choice? I mean the kid wants to play for Serbia period. My belief is that if someone doesn't want to play for the team, why put him there. Members of the team have to be 100 % devoted to the program

Would he give as much effort as if he was playing for Serbia?

He plays on Sunday nights at Pasadena, not a bad player, good on the 3 pointers. I would of thought it was in his contract that he couldn't do that.