Cuban, Mavericks forbid Nowitzky from playing in European Championship

That's his public statement. Privately, he's probably thrilled to be off the hook. Seriously, I doubt that Cuban would be doing this if Dirk didn't buy into it.

 

NBA players could actually do away with the continental qualifiers (i.e. Manu, Yao, Dirk, Pau) since the nations they play for had solid basketball programs....the nba players should only play the world tournaments (the olympics and fiba worlds) for them to recuperate from the grueling season.............


that's my opinion though

 

Even with Yao the Chinese team sucks. Like really, really sucks.

 

They could not compete in the same level as the US, Spain and Argentina. If only the guards of Team China can contribute and complement their front line then they would not as you said it suck,

 

If it's going to cause that player to suffer injury like Ginobili or Yao, then I would understand that the owners are the ones paying these athletes to live in a sport that is getting to the point where it is no longer even profitable. How would you like being one of those owners losing money operating his or her team only to have your best player injured with no compensation?

 

Great point. Their teams would still qualify without them and at the same time develop players that could be the next big thing for their respective countries.

 

Personally I support all players playing in the big tourneys (Olympics and maybe World Championships) if they want to . But other than that, I'd leave the choice to the teams they play on.

The more important question is that I thought owners can void a player's contract if that player is injured during the off season performing at risk activities, does playing international ball go under that?