Dončić joining Slovenian team training camp for World Cup
Ljubljana, 28 July - The Slovenian men's national basketball team, presently ranked 7th in the world, is entering the second stage of preparations for the FIBA Basketball World Cup, which starts on 25 August. The team will also be joined today by superstar Luka Dončić as well as newly crowned NBA champion with the Denver Nuggets, Vlatko Čančar.
Trieste, Italy
Slovenian basketball player Luka Dončić
Photo: Jure Makovec/STA
An extended national team, which has been trimmed since, entered training camp for the World Cup in Laško in mid-July and beat China in a friendly on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the two NBA players on the roster had a slightly different regime and are joining as the team is moving to Ljubljana.
Dončić, the leading force of the Dallas Maverics, has reportedly spent the summer working hard with his personal trainer and on the court. In Ljubljana, the four-time NBA All Star will have hooked up with his coach in Dallas, Jason Kidd, who has been spotted in the capital in recent days.
The 24-year-old Dončić has been a loyal national team member, helping Slovenia don the European crown in 2017, finish fourth at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and sixth at the 2022 Eurobasket.
At the World Cup in the Philippines, Japan, and Indonesia, Slovenia will have to do without their third NBA player Goran Dragić, who has retired from the team, but help is again coming from American-born naturalized Slovenian centre Mike Tobey, who will be preparing alone in the US until 7 August.
The team getting ready in Ljubljana will thus feature Dončić, Čančar, Jaka Blažič, Saša Ciani, Jakob Čebašek, Žiga Dimec, Zoran Dragić, Gregor Glas, Gregor Hrovat, Aljaž Kunc, Jordan Morgan, Aleksej Nikolić, Bine Prepelič, Klemen Prepelič and Žiga Samar.
The next friendly is scheduled in Ljubljana on 2 August against Greece. In total, Slovenia will play seven friendlies before the start of the World Cup, the last one against Croatia on 8 August.
Their first game at the World Cup will be against Venezuela on 26 August. Slovenia's preliminary group moreover features Georgia and Cape Verde.