Jusuf Nurkic Speaks Out On Travel Issues, Bosnia’s EuroLeague Situation

As he awaits the start of the 2022-23 NBA season, Portland Trail Blazers big Jusuf Nurkic has been creating chatter through his impressive play while representing his native country of Bosnia. Though, as noted by Donatas Urbanas of BasketNews, not everything has been going as swimmingly with Bosnia’s off-court situation.

Nurkic was outspoken in the report while discussing Bosnia’s travel situation, which left the 6-foot-11 big in an uncomfortable position throughout the flight. As Urbanas writes:

While some other national teams traveled to Cologne with charter flights, Bosnia and Herzegovina took a commercial flight with a layover.

2.13 m Nurkic, one of the bigger guys in the tournament, had a hard time finding any space to squeeze his huge body into an economy seat.

The difficult travel position left Bosnia in a situation unlike many of their competitors. Along with that, they weren’t granted the same amount of games to prepare for the competition. To their credit, they’ve responded well, including earning a win over a France that has the group feeling confident as the stakes raise.

Nurkic made waves through social media for his play in that very game, including this ferocious jam midway through the fourth quarter.

Even so, as Nurkic brought out in a lengthy quote, Bosnia’s situation could be even better. He elaborated on that when describing the situation surrounding his country’s government and their priorities.

“We have three levels of authority. All three have to agree on something. And if those three people are not in the communication, it’s really hard,” he continued.

“We didn’t have the camp we should have. It’s a shame because our country has the money. There’s no doubt about it. There’s not an issue between the people. But it’s just the government and politicians. They don’t want to work. On some level, they don’t really work on anything,” Nurkic expressed his disappointment.

Nurkic went onto further detail in the actual article. For now, the talented center will hope to play his role in guiding his team through the group stage. Earlier today, they were able to prove victorious over Hungary in their Group B opener, in which Nurkic tallied up 19 points to help fuel the win.