bruindre

Been a while since the Warriors had a player on the National Team. Well, they've got themselves another representative for the wonderful nation of Latvia.

Biedrins to star on Latvia squad

Quote:

Andris Biedrins has been named to Latvia's preliminary 22-man squad for September's EuroBasket. The NBA star has not played for the national team since signing with the Golden State Warriors - and then only for the junior sides - so there was a doubt about whether he would compete in Spain. But he will be one of 17 players who will assemble in Tallinn, Estonia, on July 25 to begin their pre-tournament preparations with a round-robin against Estonia and Hungary.

PFortyy

I'm happy for Biedrins. He will have a big role for the Latvian team. I hope he does well.

__________________

bruindre

I'm curious to see how the Latvians will fair against squads like Spain, Portugal and Croatia (their Group B co-tenants in Euro Basket). Latvians fielded a spirited ice hockey team that certainly made up in fight and spirit for what they lacked in skill the last Winter Olympics.

Toxicity

He'll face Belinelli's Italy on August, the 13th, if i'm right... it should be the first time they meet.

PFortyy

ooooo a bit of rivalry between these two maybe.

I'm interested to see how both these players play in Euro Basket.

__________________

bruindre

What will be interesting to me is how much leadership Biedrins will be, essentially, forced to show. As the player head-and-shoulders above his teammates (literally AND figuratively), the Latvian team will rely on his NBA experience - he'll be the only NBA regular on the Latvian squad. Belinelli, on the other hand, will be a role player on a team featuring at least one other NBA starter and a handful of players that are on the cusp of being legitimate NBA players.

Italy should cruise over Latvia.

PFortyy - you gonna change your name in your Biedrins' fan club as well? Just curious...and what's with the name change to PFortyy?

PFortyy

Yeah, I agree. I really want to see how Biedrins reacts to being one of the leaders of the the Latvian team. I don't think he has been a leader of his team before and it will be interesting to see how he handles it.

And BTW Bruindre, I am not going to change the name of the Biedrins fan club .

And I changed my username to PFortyy because it's my nickname and my username for the bball forum i made(no spam) and my username for all the other forums i post on...Basketballforum was the 1st basketball forum i actually posted on and i wasn't quiet sure what my username was suppost to be...So i just typed in my name

You guys can still call me Ronna if you want

__________________

Toxicity

No, Belinelli could be (if he's not already) the leader of the team, at least offensively. Last World Championship in Japan he finished as the top scorer of Italy NT and also in this Euro Championship he'll be the 1st offensive option... yesterday he should not have played (because he was training for just 3 days) but he did and finished with 16 points (6/9 FG) and some assists in 20 minutes. And Italy defeated Turkey 77-59 in the 1st friendly game of preparation...

bruindre

Well, I certainly don't know much about the Italian team, but between Gianluca Basile as one of the elder statesman of the squad and Andrea Bargnani as the 'seasoned' NBA player, I figured Belinelli would be a secondary force on this squad. Certainly not head-and-shoulders above his teammates like Biedrins is with the Latvian team.

PFortyy

Is Biedrins the only Latvian player in the NBA atm?

__________________

Toxicity

Yeah, that's fair. But Basile is 32 y-o, he can't play too much minutes while Bargnani never played for the Italian NT (Belinelli already made his debut last World Championship)... so Marco will be the go-to-guy, also because he's a SG (in Europe they're usually more important than big men)...

Of course. Italy has several good players in its roster...

bruindre

Yes. I think the 'next closest thing' (if you even want to call it that) was Kaspars Kambala.

Zalgirinis

Hes almost the only Latvian player ever to play in NBA. Gundars Vetra played 13 games in 1992-1993 for Minnesota Timberwolves. Other than that Biedrins is the only one. Latvia'a main sports are ice hockey and soccer.

shaliq

Isn't L. Klezia Latvian too? According to Warriors.OTRbasketball.com he is indeed...

__________________