Home FIBA FIBA World Championship 2010 World Championship Round-Up 6

World Championship Round-Up 6

Michael BeasleyGroup C side, Puerto Rico are looking into a possibility that NBA stars, Michael Beasley and Udonis Haslem could be eligible to play for the national team. But they are a long way from knowing if they might actually play in Turkey this summer.

Puerto Rico Basketball Federation president, Carlos Beltran commented: “We received information, unofficially, that the two allegedly have a grandparent, possibly grandmothers, who are Puerto Ricans.”

Beltran went on to say: “If this information is confirmed, we are looking to see if they would be legally eligible to play for Puerto Rico.”

Both Beasley and Haslem play for the Miami Heat – alongside Puerto Rico’s own, Carlos Arroyo and Beltran would love to see all three pulling on the national vest.

“On one side you have to confirm that they are eligible.

“On the other, you have to see if they will want to play for Puerto Rico.”

Despite this, Beltran doesn’t know where the information, regarding Beasley and Haslem has come from and is looking closely into this rumour.

The Puerto Ricans are in Group C, alongside the hosts, Turkey, Greece, Ivory Coast, Russia and China.

EuroBasket 2009 runners-up, Serbia are preparing officially for the World Championships, by naming their preliminary squad for Turkey.

Serbian coach, Dusan Ivkovic has named a 22-man squad, which includes all 12 players that won the silver medal in Poland, plus Partizan’s Aleksandar Rasic, FMP’s Mladen Jeremic and DKV Joventut’s Luka Bogdanovic.

“We are continuing with the tradition of adding youngsters to the national team as much as it is possible,” Ivkovic said.

“All the candidates will get an equal chance, but it is very, very important for all of them to come ready for our first training as we’ll cut the list to just 16 names only a week later.”

The squad will be broken to 16 after their first official training camp in Belgrade. Then they will travel to Folgaria, Italy on July 5th for another training camp.

Serbia will then compete in the Istanbul Tournament, running from August 6th-8th. Where they will face off against Turkey and Iran. Then, the Serbs will head to Slovenia five days later for the Maribor tournament against Russia, New Zealand and hosts Slovenia from August 13-15.

After Maribor, Serbia will play at the Acropolis Cup in Athens from August 17th-19th with Greece, Slovenia and Canada.

John Hobbs for Talkbasket.net

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