During the press conference with President (Dejan Bodiroga) and CEO (Paulius Motiejunas) of the EuroLeague, TalkBasket.net asked Paulius Motiejunas about the NextGen tournament and teenagers going to play in the NCAA.
Motiejunas: “I don’t think there’s much we can do. It all belongs to the clubs. We also read rumors about Madrid and Barcelona cancelling their systems. It clearly can only be controlled by FIBA, by the management of international competition. We also read about this letter of clearance thing. We spoke with Andreas (Zagklis, FIBA General Secretary) and he mentioned it could get done, so we really hope and we will talk with them to see what the options are. It’s a big threat – I don’t know if threat is the right word – but it’s something we have to adapt to. I seriously believe that it’s only a temporal issue. Those guys go there to go to the NBA and I’m pretty sure that after they’re done with university, not a lot of them will go and they will come back. I hope this cycle will start and finish and the guys will come to Europe and we will have motivation to be growing the young players, or with the help of FIBA if we can solve the issue and maybe buyouts could be put in. Then it’s motivating for the clubs into this. We’re talking to the clubs, we’re talking to FIBA, but as a league I think there’s not much we can do other than continuously do the junior competition, which is always competitive and always good to watch.”
