Patsas

According to french sports daily L'Equipe:
http://www.lequipe.fr/Basket/breves2...-portland.html
is the French national team coach's interpretation of things (roughly "Portland prefers that he plays international games rather than summer league"). France failed to qualify directly to the European Championships, so they have an additional qualifying tournament against Italy and Finland in early August, with the winner playing for the final spot in the EC (in September) against the winner of the Portugal-Bosnia-Belgium pool. I'd consider France to be a reasonably heavy favourite to advance to the EC, which would give Batum more than 10 games against pretty stiff European competition.

As an added Blazer bonus (or negative, depending on how you consider things), the two France-Finland games will have added Portland interest, because Petteri Koponen is expected to play for Finland. That probably means he won't be seen in Las Vegas either, depending on when the national team starts preparing for their qualifiers.

mgb

I'm not surprise Batum is going home to play, but I'd think it's more his decision then Nate.

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Michael



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