EuroBasket 2025 is here!
And so is your comprehensive preview via the Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganza
The math is the math. It's inescapable.
NBA teams don't reconvene for training camp — apart from the five teams that open the exhibition season abroad — until Media Day on Sept. 29.
Which is still 34 days away.
However ...
The highly anticipated FIBA EuroBasket tournament starts Wednesday. A tournament starring Nikola Jokić, Luka Dončić and Giannis Antetokounmpo. With Franz Wagner and Lauri Markkanen and Alperen Şengün — plus Kristaps Porziņģis from the tournament co-hosts — also muscling their way onto the marquee. For the next two-plus weeks, then, there will be some high-level men's hoop for you to consume.
Speaking purely for myself: EuroBasket + US Open tennis + Premier League football is a magical equation to combat what the summer heat drains from my spirit.
So ...
In that spirit I have assembled a list of the 10 things I'll be most looking forward to watching in EuroBasket 2025, which is teeming with high-level talent.
🏀 I can't wait to see if anyone can challenge Serbia.
Jokić and Co. have pretty much their strongest possible team and a roster that truly stands out in this 24-team field. All but two of Serbia's players either currently play in the NBA, used to play in the NBA or were at least drafted by an NBA team. Plus they're due: Serbia hasn't won this tournament since 2001. Jokić didn't play in the summer of 2017 when Serbia lost to Slovenia in the title game. He won a silver medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016 and a bronze in Paris last summer but is still chasing his first championship with the national team. And Serbia finished a humbling ninth in the last EuroBasket in 2022 with Jokić playing.
🏀 I can't wait to see Luka and Giannis play full-speed August (and September) basketball … even though the teams around them are so weak.
Slovenia has never fielded a more limited roster in support of Dončić with its second- and third-best players (Josh Nebo and Vlatko Čančar) unavailable through injury. Greece is 20 years removed from its EuroBasket crown in 2005 but could only finish fifth in 2022 when Antetokounmpo led the tournament in scoring at nearly 30 points per game. At the last Olympics, even with Giannis, Greece finished eight in a 12-team field.
🏀 I can't wait to see how much public Bucks discussion Giannis will engage in while playing on the international stage.
Chances are I'm getting my hopes up for nothing and it won't be much — since players have a tendency to adopt a national team questions only stance at these tournaments — but in theory Antetokounmpo will be made available to reporters to some degree throughout EuroBasket. It will be the first time that the media has had any real access to him since Milwaukee's season ended in late April ... although it remains to be seen how much NBA media actually makes the trip for a tournament that will be played in Cyprus, Finland, Poland and Latvia. One wonders nonetheless: Will he take questions about his Bucks future? (The same curiosity applies to Lithuania's Jonas Valančiūnas and questions about his offseason flirtations with Panathinaikos in Greece before JV was dealt from Sacramento to Denver.
🏀 I can't wait to see if Markkanen can keep scoring like crazy.
The international game, remember, is only a 40-minute game. Yet that didn't stop Markkanen from scoring 48 points and then 42 in recent warmup outings. The Finns are also hosting Group B — which is headlined by Germany — and are known for their raucous fan support.
🏀 I can't wait to see FIBA Dennis Schröder ... and FIBA Bogdan Bogdanović ... and maybe someone new who emerges who forces us to affix FIBA to his name because he plays such a larger role for his country than we're used to seeing Stateside.
FIBA Evan Fournier is not playing for France, so there's an opening for someone to join Schröder and Bogdanović in this realm.
🏀 I can't wait to see how France copes without Victor Wembanyama, Rudy Gobert and Fournier.
This is indeed a bit of a fib. We'd all rather see Wemby playing ... unless we work or root for the Spurs. France, though, does still have a fairly interesting roster without those headliners because of all the young talent in the country beyond Wemby: Washington's Bilal Coulibaly and Alex Sarr and Atlanta's Zaccharie. The bonus, of course, is New York's Guerschon Yabusele.
🏀 I can't wait to see what playing at home can do for Porziņģis.
KP endured a miserable 2024-25 season due to persistent illness and then was traded from Boston to Atlanta in early July as part of the Celtics' rampant salary purge in the wake of Jayson Tatum's devastating Achilles tear. EuroBasket, though, has given Porziņģis quite a platform to put last season behind him. Latvia hosts a stacked Group A (which also features Serbia and Türkiye) and all of the tournament's knockout play from the Round of 16 on.
🏀 I can't wait to see what Spain looks like with only one current NBA player on its roster.
The Grizzlies' Santi Aldama … that's it. He's the only current NBAer available to Sergio Scariolo in Scariolo's last hurrah as head coach after the Spaniards — with all the names you know like Pau Gasol and Marc Gasol and Ricky Rubio and José Calderón and Rudy Fernández and Juan Carlos Navarro -- won four of the past six EuroBaskets. Some comfort for fans of Adam Sandler's Hustle movie: Bo Cruz (Juancho Hernangómez) is playing alongside Aldama ... as is Willy Hernangómez.
🏀 I can't wait to see Bosnia and Herzegovina play.
OK, OK: This is an exaggeration. Yet we are just a couple weeks removed from Bosnia and Herzegovina head coach Adis Bećiragić publicly blasting Utah's Jusuf Nurkić, announcing that the recently traded big man is "out of shape and can barely run." Tell me you won't tune in now to see this coach/player dynamic for yourself.
🏀 I can't wait to watch two of my favorite players.
Portland's Deni Avdija will be starring for Israel after his breakout maiden season in the Pacific Northwest and was recently dubbed the most underrated player in the tournament by my fellow Substacker Neil Paine. And I've been an unabashed Neemias Queta fan ever since another fellow Substacker (Ricardo Brito Reis) taught me how to pronounce his name the true Portuguese way. The Celtics' big man is the lone NBA representative on Portugal's roster.
PS — Tournament games are streamed via Courtside 1891 and a Max pass for the entire EuroBasket (link embedded in this sentence) is $19.99.
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Important NBA Calendar Stuff
If you scrolled past this too quickly at the top you might have missed the part about how five of the NBA's 30 teams have the right to hold Media Day and begin their training camp practices nearly a week ahead of the rest of the league because they play their first preseason games abroad and have to complete long-distance international travel to do so.
New York and Philadelphia are headed to Abu Dhabi for a two-game series on Oct. 2 and 4.
Phoenix and Brooklyn are bound for Macau for two games of their own on Oct. 10 and 12.
And New Orleans is playing its first two exhibition games in Australia on Oct. 3 and 5 against Melbourne United and the South East Melbourne Phoenix.
Both the Nets and the Pelicans, for example, will hold their Media Day festivities on Sept. 23 and then start practicing on Sept. 24. Sixers Media Day is Sept. 26.