A fact that is not new for this competition located since 2019 just before the Olympic event, the event that honors the big names in basketball.

Thus, only two of the ten top scorers of the 2022-23 NBA season, the North American championship (Doncic and the Canadian Shai Gilgeous-Alexander), and six of the 30, will be present on Friday in the Philippines, Indonesia or the Japanese archipelago of Okinawa.

If the first American swordsmen (Curry, Tatum, Lillard, Harden, etc.) usually decline the call of the national team, the main foreign players of the powerful and demanding NBA will not be present either.

For some, the wear and tear of a long season weighed heavily, before starting another equal one in October, like the MVP of the final won in June with Denver, the Serbian center Nikola Jokic.

“He is physically and mentally exhausted, he is not ready to take on any responsibilities at the moment,” Serbian coach Svetislav Pesic said of Jokic, who is resting in his stronghold of Sombor near his racehorses. .

“required level”

The Nuggets’ other key man for the title, Canadian point guard Jamal Murray, also declined the invitation, not considering himself “physically fit to be at the level required for the World Cup after “a long and demanding season” and a comeback from a serious knee injury in the fall of 2022.

Greece’s Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks) had knee surgery in early July and will also not be “prepared to play at the level” required at the World Cup. Resigning was “the only option” to be sure to “return to the level of basketball that I worked so hard for”, added the ‘Greek Freak’.

Lithuania will be without its star center Domantas Sabonis (Sacramento Kings), with a finger problem, and its neighbor Latvia will be without its star Kristaps Porzingis, suffering from foot discomfort and whose withdrawal has been agreed with his new franchise, the Boston Celtics.

NBA “priority”

Beyond injury or physical and mental fatigue, the World Cup doesn’t usually win out in the balance of what an NBA career means, a “priority” expressed bluntly by Japanese star Rui Hachimura, who just sign a first big contract with the team. The Lakers.

Frenchman Victor Wembanyama, number one for the San Antonio Spurs in June, said forgoing the World Cup was a “necessary sacrifice”.

Other great players gave in to the siren songs of their teams and to the planetary event.

Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks wants to lead Slovenia to a first world medal. The podium will be more difficult to reach for the Finnish interior of the Utah Jazz, Lauri Markannen, and for Karl-Anthony Towns, of the Dominican Republic and the Minnesota Timberwolves.

His teammate Rudy Gobert, after hesitating, decides to answer the call to seek a first world title with France.