Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo will play for the Greek national team at EuroBasket 2022 in September, Greek Basketball Federation President Vaggelis Liolios has confirmed.
Antetokounmpo hinted at the news himself on social media last week after he tweeted a picture wearing the Greek national team shorts with a caption of emojis that included a “soon” arrow and the Greek flag.
The news comes after the two-time NBA MVP and his team were eliminated from the 2022 Playoffs after losing to the Boston Celtics in the second round. The Bucks had won the 2021 NBA Championship with the small forward winning Finals MVP.
At the end of this season, the “Greek Freak” was selected to the NBA All-Defensive First Team for the fourth-straight year.
EuroBasket is a tournament which takes place every four years among the European national teams.
The upcoming competition was supposed to be played in 2021 but was postponed after the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo were delayed a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2022 tournament will take place from September 1-18, with group stage games in the Czech Republic, Georgia, Italy and Germany. The knockout stage will be held entirely in Germany.
Greece finds itself in Group C with Italy, Croatia, Ukraine, Great Britain and Estonia. Each team will play each other once in the group stage, with the top four teams advancing to the knockout rounds. The tournament then turns into single-elimination thereafter.
Lead by Antetokounmpo, the Greek national team will make its 17th consecutive EuroBasket appearance this year. The team took first place in 2005 and 1987. In the most recent tournament (2017), they lost to Russia in the quarterfinals.
Antetokounmpo’s last appearance with the “Ethniki” was during the 2019 FIBA World Cup, where the team failed to advance to the knockout stage.
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