Ergin Ataman’s criticism to FIBA: “Extremely wrong”

Head Coach Ergin Ataman and national player Furkan Korkmaz made a statement to the press after the training held in Tbilisi Arena, where the National Team will play their group matches in the championship.

Expressing that they made the final preparations before the championship, Ergin Ataman said, “Tomorrow, we will start the preparations for the opponent rather than the preparation for the tournament. Every match is very dangerous in this type of tournament. Montenegro, where we will play our first match, is a dangerous team, they have experienced players. That’s why we must go on the field decisively.” “We need to focus on winning the games instead of thinking about the place we will be in the group. We made the necessary preparations. Yiğitcan Saybir was also included in the squad. Furkan Korkmaz had a slight injury. We rested him today, but I don’t think there will be a problem tomorrow.” he said.

Upon a question about the problems in defense in the matches played against Latvia and Serbia in the FIBA ​​2023 World Cup European Qualifiers, Ataman said, “The squad we have has features. We are trying to go beyond those features. With this squad, we found a 5 that can defend in the second half of the Serbia match. ” made its assessment.

Noting that Spain seems to be the strongest team of the group on paper, Ataman said, “Especially teams such as Montenegro, Belgium, and home country Georgia are teams that can always pose a danger. Bulgaria seems a little weak compared to its performance in the qualifying matches, but we will see that.” expressed an opinion.

Criticism of FIBA ​​by Ergin Ataman

Ergin Ataman emphasized that the balance of power was not very important before such important tournaments and continued his words as follows:

“There is a point that surprises me, FIBA ​​has published a balance of power. This is the first time I have seen this. It is a mistake to publish which team’s medal chance as an official institution. Journalists may publish this privately, but the international federation, which organizes the tournament, predicts such a medal. It’s very controversial in my opinion. It can also make a prediction on the referees. That’s why I say that I find it very wrong. They gave us a 7 percent chance of a medal. We’ll see. We’ll see. We came to this European Championship to get a medal. I repeat, FIBA” I find the statement made by .

Furkan Korkmaz: “We will do our best”

National player Furkan Korkmaz, who plays for the Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA teams, expressed their excitement for the European Championship and said, “Now the preparation period is over, we will go out and play the matches. We will do our best. We will go out to win our matches.” said.

Furkan Korkmaz, who could not take part in the training due to his slight injury, said, “I don’t have anything very serious. There was just a little tension in my muscle. That’s why I didn’t want to push too hard. Because it will be a very long championship that requires a lot of effort. I didn’t want to go out for a little protection.” used the phrases.

Stating that what they do is more important than the opponents in the championship, the national basketball player said, “If we go out on the field every day and play our best basketball, I think there is no opponent we can’t beat. We didn’t show it much during the preparation period, but we did positive things. I hope it will be a very good tournament for us.” made its assessment.