International Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Four Countries Advance To EuroBasket Round Of 16

August 30th, 2025 at 8:16pm CST by Rory Maher

There are still five days left of group phase play at EuroBasket 2025, but four countries — Finland, Germany, Serbia and Turkey — have already advanced to the round of 16, according to FIBA.

As the group phase standings show, both Finland and Germany have 3-0 records in Group B, while Serbia and Turkey are each 3-0 in Group A.

None of the other 20 national teams have been officially eliminated, though Czechia (Group A), Great Britain (Group B) and Montenegro (Group B) aren’t in a great position after starting 0-3 in their respective groups.

A handful of additional teams could advance to the knockout round on Sunday, with Greece (2-0 in Group C), France (2-0 in Group D) and Poland (2-0 in Group D) off to solid starts.

The top four teams from each six-team group qualify for the round of 16, which is the start of a single-elimination tournament.

Germany, which won the 2023 World Cup and finished fourth at the 2024 Olympics, defeated Lithuania on Saturday. The Germans had a balanced attack, spearheaded by Dennis Schröder (26 points, six assists, four steals), Franz Wagner (24 points, seven rebounds, four assists) and Daniel Theis (23 points, six rebounds), notes Eurohoops.

Unfortunately, German captain Schröder was subjected to racial abuse while walking to the locker room at halftime, per The Associated Press.

“Making monkey noises, that’s something I don’t respect,” Schröder told reporters in German after the game. “No matter what status, insults, that’s all fine. But racism simply doesn’t belong in this sport. That’s something that’s not OK.”

FIBA announced in a statement that one spectator has been banned from attending the rest of the tournament after being identified by video. The group also said it would meet with the Lithuanian delegation to discuss the incident and try to prevent it from occurring again in the future.

“FIBA unequivocally condemns hate speech, discriminatory conduct, and racist language in any form. Creating an inclusive, respectful, and safe environment for players, teams, and fans remains a fundamental priority of our sport. FIBA has provided the relevant footage and information to local law enforcement authorities, who are continuing to investigate the matter.”

Yongxi “Jacky” Cui Signs With Chinese Team

August 30th, 2025 at 6:14pm CST by Rory Maher

Yongxi Cui, also known as Jacky Cui, has signed with the Guangdong Southern Tigers of the Chinese Basketball Association, according to Zhang Duo (Twitter link).

Cui announced the news on his Weibo channel, notes NetsDaily (via Twitter). The 22-year-old’s deal with the Tigers will reportedly cover the 2025/26 season, per Albert De Roa of HoopsHype.

A 6’6″ guard/forward, Cui suffered a torn ACL last December while playing for the Nets‘ G League affiliate in Long Island. He had been on a two-way contract with Brooklyn but was released a couple days after the unfortunate injury.

Cui, who went undrafted in 2024, made five NBA appearances as rookie for the Nets in ’24/25, playing just 10 total minutes. He also played in five games for Long Island, averaging 6.2 PPG, 2.6 RPG and 1.2 APG in 16.9 MPG.

Cui graduated from the NBA Global Academy and spent a couple of seasons with the CBA’s Guangzhou Loong Lions before catching on with the Nets.

Brian Lewis of The New York Post provided an update on Cui’s recovery progress a few days ago, stating that the young wing had been working out at the Nets’ practice facility but was recently playing 5-on-5 in Los Angeles. Now the Chinese national team member will be heading back to his home country for the upcoming season.

EuroBasket Notes: Sengun, Markkanen, Jokic, Poland

August 30th, 2025 at 4:45pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

All-Star Rockets big man Alperen Sengun nearly notched a triple-double during Turkey’s 92–78 win over Czechia on Friday, writes Edvinas Jablonskis of BasketNews. Sengun finished with 23 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists.

Turkey head coach Ergin Ataman, who previously expressed a belief that there’s not a significant difference in the levels of play in the NBA and EuroLeague, doubled down on that assertion after Sengun’s big game.

“I saw on social media, both in the United States and in Europe, people writing about my statement on the difference between the EuroLeague and the NBA,” Ataman said post-game, per Jablonskis. “Give me Alperen Sengun at Panathinaikos and we will beat the Houston Rockets.”

Sengun followed up that Herculean effort with a 20-point, seven-rebound, five-assist showing in a 95-54 blowout of Portugal Saturday, per Sportando’s Alessandro Maggi. Turkey will now square off against Serbia for their group’s top spot in the Round of 16.

There’s more out of EuroBasket:

Jazz star forward Lauri Markkanen has been in the midst of a superlative tear throughout EuroBasket and in the tournament’s warm-up games so far. The seven-footer notched 43 points in just 23 minutes for his native Finland in a 109-79 blowout of Great Britain, per Eurohoops. He followed that up with a double-double in an 85-65 victory against Bulls center Nikola Vucevic‘s Montenegro on Saturday, reports Maggi.
Three-time MVP Nuggets center Nikola Jokic helped propel Serbia to an 80-69 win against Portugal with a 23-point, 10-rebound double-double, writes Semih Tuna of Eurohoops. Heat forward Nikola Jovic chipped in 18 points of his own. Serbia followed that up by beating Kristaps Porzingis‘ Latvia on Saturday, 84-80, and clinching its place in the round of 16, tweets Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel. Jokic logged a 39-point, 10-board effort.
Home team Poland vanquished Israel, led by Trail Blazers forward Deni Avdija, 66-64, maintaining its perfect record in EuroBasket competition on Saturday, writes Maggi.

Rivers, Ham, Spanoulis Discuss Antetokounmpo At EuroBasket

August 29th, 2025 at 10:00pm CST by Eli Cohen

Giannis Antetokounmpo led Team Greece to a win in their EuroBasket opener against Italy on Thursday, scoring 31 points in a 75-66 victory. In attendance for that victory were Bucks general manager Jon Horst, head coach Doc Rivers, and assistant coaches Vin Baker and Darvin Ham, writes Michalis Gioulenoglou of EuroHoops.

After the game, Rivers spoke about the experience of watching his star compete for the Greek national team.

“I love watching the movement and how they play,” he said, as relayed by Giorgos Kyriakidis of BasketNews. “I always steal plays, I watch it, and I take some of these plays back home and I run them. Yeah, I love all the movement, all the elbow action.”

Rivers, who is planning on staying to watch at least one more of Antetokounmpo’s games, noted that the two-time MVP tends to operate out of the post more at EuroBasket than in the NBA. Ham elaborated on some of the other differences he’s seen.

“He’s trying to involve his teammates and allow his teammates to help him help them,” said Ham. “It’s more team-oriented, more sets, and all of that here is different. They don’t play as fast as we do in the NBA, but in the NBA, his usage rate is off the charts. He constantly has the ball in his hands, so a little bit different role for him over there.”

While Ham was clear that Antetokounmpo is an unselfish player regardless of the situation, he summed it up in a simple sentence: “With us, he has to be Superman.”

Antetokounmpo’s Greek team coach, Vassilis Spanoulis, also answered questions about the star player and whether he’d be load-managed during games that might not be as crucial for the Hellas, according to Gioulenoglou.

“Giannis can play as much as I want him to play, we are in the official games now and there’s no limitations anymore,” Spanoulis said.

When asked about the experience of coaching Antetokounmpo this year versus prior years, Spanoulis saw a clear difference in approach despite the same personality he’s used to.

“He is more vocal this year. He is very humble for his status and the kind of player he is, and that extends off the court,” he said. “He wants to win, he wants to get this team to another level. He listens, but he can also lead the team in his own way.”

Team Greece, which most recently won the EuroBasket tournament in 2005, will next face off against Cyrpus on Saturday, followed by a matchup with Georgia on Sunday.

Bogdan Bogdanovic Leaves EuroBasket Game With Injury

August 29th, 2025 at 8:03pm CST by Eli Cohen

The Serbian national team, and possibly the Clippers, suffered a blow during Serbia’s EuroBasket game against Portugal as Bogdan Bogdanovic exited the game with an apparent hamstring injury.

Bogdanovic, who serves as the captain of the national team, was injured on a drive to the basket late in the second quarter, according to Semih Tuna of EuroHoops. BasketNews adds that Bogdanovic came up grabbing the back of his leg, and wasn’t seen on the bench in the second half.

“He’s dealing with a hamstring problem, stayed in the locker room, and will need scans to determine more,” commentator Slobodan Sarenac clarified later in the game.

Bogdanovic ended the game with seven points and five rebounds. Serbia held on for an 80-69 victory, powered by Nikola Jokic, who led the way with 23 points and 10 rebounds, and Nikola Jovic, who contributed 18 points.

Bogdanovic dealt with hamstring injuries early in the 2024/25 season, but finished the second half of the season with the Clippers, averaging 11.4 points and 3.2 assists in 25.0 minutes per night off the bench for LA

Team Serbia also lost Filip Petrusev, who was ejected after four minutes for what was deemed a violent act during a box out. Petrusev will be fined €5,000, and placed on a three-year probation, FIBA announced after the game. If he commits a similar offense during that three-year period, he would be suspended for one game on top of any additional sanctions handed out for the new incident.

Diogo Brito, who was the subject of Petrusev’s foul, expressed some level of disagreement with the referee’s ruling after the game, according to Alessandro Maggi of Sportando. “It was a hard box-out, but I still think it was just a basketball play,” Brito said.

And-Ones: Fall, F. Jackson, Z. Simpson, ESPN

August 28th, 2025 at 8:44pm CST by Luke Adams

The Ningbo Rockets of the Chinese Basketball Association have added a trio of former NBA players for the 2025/26 season, according to Alberto De Roa of HoopsHype. Center Tacko Fall and guards Frank Jackson and Zavier Simpson have reportedly joined the CBA team.

Fall, a 7’6″ big man who appeared in 37 NBA games for the Celtics and Cavaliers from 2019-22, is no stranger to China’s basketball league, having spent time with the Xinjiang Flying Tigers and Nanjing Monkey Kings since he last played in the NBA. He also had a stint with the New Zealand Breakers last season.

Jackson has also played in the CBA with the Shanxi Loongs and Jiangsu Dragons, while Simpson will be playing in the country for the first time after spending last season in Romania. Jackson, a 2017 second-round pick, has appeared in 214 NBA regular season games, but has been out of the league since March 2023. Simpson made seven appearances for the Grizzlies on a pair of 10-day contracts near the end of the 2023/24 season after playing four times for Oklahoma City in ’21/22.

Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

ESPN is making a change to its top broadcasting team for the 2025/26 NBA season and 2026 NBA Finals, according to Andrew Marchand of The Athletic, who reports that Tim Legler will replace Doris Burke alongside Mike Breen and Richard Jefferson. However, Burke has signed a multiyear extension with ESPN and will be on ESPN’s No. 2 NBA broadcast team with play-by-play man Dave Pasch.
An ESPN panel of NBA experts is forecasting the Cavaliers to win an Eastern Conference-high 59 games in 2025/26, with the Knicks (54-28), Magic (50-32), Hawks (47-35), and Pistons (47-35) rounding out the top five. ESPN’s projections have the Bucks, Celtics, Sixers, Heat, and Pacers battling for the final playoff spot and play-in seeding. Over in the West, ESPN’s forecast calls for the Thunder (64 wins) to repeat as the conference’s No. 1 seed, followed by the Rockets (54-28), Nuggets (53-29), Timberwolves (51-31), Clippers (50-32), and Lakers (50-32).
Unsurprisingly, in a separate story predicting next season’s conference and NBA champions, ESPN’s panel picks the Cavaliers and Thunder as the favorites to meet in the NBA Finals, with Oklahoma City repeating as champions. For what it’s worth, the Nuggets received the second-most votes as potential champs, followed by Cleveland, the Rockets, and the Knicks.

Heat Notes: Jovic, Larsson, Fontecchio, Dragic

August 28th, 2025 at 5:49pm CST by Luke Adams

Heat forward Nikola Jovic got off to an excellent start at the EuroBasket tournament in Latvia on Wednesday, as Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel writes. Jovic was Serbia’s leading scorer – with 18 points on 6-of-8 shooting – and was an eye-popping plus-36 in just 16 minutes of action in a blowout victory over Estonia.

As impressive as Jovic was a scorer and shooter (3-of-4 on three-pointers), his passing was perhaps even more noteworthy — he racked up six assists while committing just one turnover. The 22-year-old has averaged 2.2 assists per game in 107 regular season outings through three NBA seasons.

A pair of Jovic’s Heat teammates who are also competing at EuroBasket weren’t as productive in their respective 2025 debuts. Pelle Larsson battled foul trouble and scored just 10 points while missing all four of his three-point tries in Sweden’s loss to Finland on Wednesday. On Thursday, Simone Fontecchio made just 1-of-11 shots from the field and was a minus-11 across 34 minutes in Italy’s nine-point loss to Greece.

We have more on the Heat:

In a mailbag for The Sun Sentinel, Winderman explores the Heat’s expectations and projected roles for Jovic and Larsson in 2025/26, suggesting that Jovic will likely be a top frontcourt reserve while Larsson would be doing well to show he can be a “quality ninth man.”
Although former Heat point guard Goran Dragic may one day take on a more formal role with the club, there’s no indication that he’s joining Erik Spoelstra‘s coaching staff at this point, despite social media posts that showed him in attendance at practice, Winderman writes for The Sun Sentinel. For now, it appears Dragic is just informally “looking to pass on knowledge to the next generation,” including rookie point guard Kasparas Jakucionis, Winderman explains.
With the deadline for teams to use the stretch provision on 2025/26 salaries now less than 24 hours away, Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald hears from a league source that the Heat are “leaning against” stretching anyone’s salary on Thursday or Friday. A waive-and-stretch move likely would’ve received more serious consideration if Miami hadn’t moved under the luxury tax line by trading Haywood Highsmith to Brooklyn earlier this month.

Veteran Nuggets Executive Martynas Pocius Joining Real Madrid

August 28th, 2025 at 4:32pm CST by Rory Maher

Veteran Nuggets executive Martynas Pocius is leaving the NBA to become a deputy general manager for Spanish powerhouse Real Madrid, reports Donatas Urbonas of BasketNews.com.

Pocius has spent the past eight years working in Denver’s front office, most recently holding the title of assistant director of pro personnel, Urbonas writes. The 39-year-old has also served as a Nuggets scout both in the NBA and around the globe.

Pocius played college basketball for — and graduated from — Duke and competed in the EuroLeague for several years prior to retiring in 2017, as Kendra Andrews wrote for The Athletic in 2020. Pocius, who was a guard, played for Zalgiris Kaunas in his native Lithuania as well as Real Madrid and Galatasaray (Turkey).

“Since I played at Duke, I had seven surgeries,” Pocius told Andrews. “It took a toll on my body and I was in this cycle of getting injured, having surgery, trying rehab, all to come back and then have it happen all over again … I was reaching a point where I wasn’t enjoying basketball as much as I used to. I was a gym rat and I loved the gym, and it wasn’t fun being there anymore.”

Pocius also won a pair of medals — a bronze at the 2010 World Cup and a silver at EuroBasket 2013 — with the Lithuanian national team, Urbonas notes.

Pocius will be working alongside former Real Madrid backcourt mate Sergio Rodriguez in running the team’s front office. Rodriguez, a former NBA first-round pick, retired as a player last year.

It’s worth noting that Pocius got his start with the Nuggets due to his connection to childhood friend Tommy Balcetis. According to Andrews, while they were both attending Balcetis’ wedding, former head of basketball operations Tim Connelly offered Pocius a job if he decided to retire, something he wound up doing a year later.

The Nuggets decided not to retain Balcetis in June after the team’s former assistant GM had spent 12 years with the organization.

Pacific Notes: Suns, Ishbia, Doncic, EuroBasket

August 27th, 2025 at 9:06pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

There’s little question who the most important Suns player is. Beyond recently extended All-Star guard Devin Booker, however, identifying the top talent on the current roster is more of an open question.

Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic (subscriber link) tackles that question, ranking the five most important Phoenix players aside from the 6’5″ Kentucky alum. Second-year wing Ryan Dunn, new post-Durant trade additions Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks, and new centers Mark Williams and Khaman Maluach make the cut.

There’s more out of the Pacific Division:

Suns owner Mat Ishbia has weighed in on ESPN’s recent forecast that Phoenix would win 30 games, Rankin writes. Given that the Suns won just 36 games last year with a more star-studded roster led by 15-time All-Star Kevin Durant, ESPN’s thinking seems fairly logical. “I’m not worried about what the so-called experts think,” Ishbia wrote (Twitter link), while quoting a Burn City Sports tweet about the article. “They had us as a title contender the past two years and were wrong then. We’re focused on making our fans proud by playing great as a team and building a brand of basketball that’s tough and gritty.”
Lakers officials, including president Rob Pelinka, paid a visit to five-time All-NBA guard Luka Doncic in Poland prior to the EuroBasket tournament this week, writes BasketNews. Doncic is plying his trade for his native Slovenia. Pelinka praised Doncic’s improved fitness this summer while addressing reporters, per BasketNews. “He’s in great shape, really committed to working hard this summer,” Pelinka told reporters. “And to be able to watch that in person was worth flying over the ocean to be with him.”
Doncic affirmed his long-term interest in suiting up for Slovenia during the summers, while Pelinka seemingly endorsed that approach, according to Dan Woike of The Athletic. “It’s an easy choice,” Doncic said. “I always want to represent my country. Always did. No matter what. Obviously, if I’m injured, I’m not gonna play, but if I have nothing, I will always play.” Doncic has won EuroBasket before, beating Bogdan Bogdanovic‘s Serbia, 93-85, in 2017. During Doncic’s most recent EuroBasket run, in 2022, Poland upset Slovenia in the quarterfinal round. “We just wanted to make a statement to Luka that we support what he does for his country,” Pelinka said. “That’s really important to the Lakers when we have a player that’s the face of our franchise, just to show that support for him.”

Nuggets Notes: Jokic, Kroenke, Newcomers, Akinjo

August 27th, 2025 at 3:52pm CST by Luke Adams

Nuggets vice chairman and president Josh Kroenke was sitting courtside on Wednesday for Serbia’s first game of EuroBasket 2025 against Estonia, per Edvinas Jablonskis of BasketNews.com. Kroenke is the latest Nuggets executive to visit Nikola Jokic in Riga, Latvia this week, joining vice president of basketball operations Ben Tenzer and executive VP of player personnel Jon Wallace (story via BasketNews.com).

The three-time MVP treated the Nuggets’ contingent to a show, leading the way as Serbia rolled to a 98-64 blowout victory over the Estonians.

Jokic scored just 11 points, but was a +39 in 23 minutes of action and also contributed 10 rebounds and seven assists. He and the Serbians will be back in action on Friday when they face Portugal in the second matchup of the group-play stage of EuroBasket.

Here’s more on the Nuggets:

John Schuhmann of NBA.com expects Cameron Johnson and Bruce Brown to be defensive upgrades on Michael Porter Jr. and Russell Westbrook for the Nuggets and takes a closer look at some film to explore what sort of impact the newcomers could have. As Schuhmann notes, Denver ranked just 21st in defensive rating last season after placing eighth in 2023/24.
The Nuggets’ G League affiliate, the Grand Rapids Gold, completed a trade with the Wisconsin Herd, acquiring James Akinjo‘s returning rights in exchange for the rights to Will Richardson and a 2026 first-round pick (Twitter link). The deal suggests that Akinjo, a former Baylor point guard who has played in the G League since going undrafted in 2022, is a good candidate to sign an Exhibit 10 contract with Denver at some point before the season begins.
In case you missed it, we published our list of 2026 free agents by team on Tuesday. The Nuggets have nine players – six on the standard roster and three two-ways – who could reach free agency next summer.