Three days ago TalkBasket reported that Lorbek was unsure about his presence in Eurobasket 2011. Seems like he made his mind today not to play, but his decision has sparked some reactions within Slovenian basketball.
Lorbek’s decision did not go down well with the Slovenia NT administration. The General Manager of the team Matej Avanzo said to the press he would “publicly speak about it, in the next days.” {jathumbnail off}
And he was not the only one agitated by the player’s decision. Slovenia NT coach Bozidar Maljkovic was quoted saying: “He called me just fifteen minutes before the start of National Team preparations and told me not to count him in. He went off to explain the reasons, but I said it didn’t really matter.“
Avanzo also doubted that the real reason, which Lorbek cites, is Barcelona’s unwillingness to allow the player to play in Eurobasket, when asked bout it by a reporter: “This does not exist in European basketball or NBA. Each player has a clause in his contract according to which the player himself decides to play for the National Team. Everyone can speculate what this means. I don’t want to talk about this any further.“
For the record Jaka Lakovic, who played for Barcelona for the past five seasons, was never barred from playing for Slovenia NT by the ACB champions. Also, as far as we know and remember, Barcelona has never had any problems with Navarro playing for Spanish NT, for example.
According to a person close to Slovenian basketball scene whose opinion TalkBasket asked about the situation the real reason behind this decision is pure politics. Apparently the head of the family, Rado Lorbek, wanted to see his youngest son, Klemen Lorbek, included in the NT squad after Damen Lorbek [who was called together with Erazem] was knocked out due to an injury.
Of course there was no way Maljkovic would go along with this and laughed off the request. It is also rumoured that Rado Lorbek was denied a position within the Slovenian NT and Eurobasket 2013 organisation. Well, you get the picture…
