The Olympics are ending Sunday and basketball is ending this summer. The Orlando Magic are quietly back to work as one more plays international ball.
Mario Hezonja and the Croatian National Team are likely already home following their Olympic exit in the quarterfinals earlier this week. The rest of the players on the team have largely been enjoying their offseason.
The end of the major international tournament means basketball officially goes on a month-long hiatus before the finishing kick toward the beginning of the season.
There will not be any more basketball to break down for a while. Not on a national stage.
Basketball never sleeps though. The Magic’s players will be putting their work in individually. But there are still some competitive basketball tournaments taking place.
That starts with the Magic’s Nikola Vucevic and Montenegro. Yes, the international basketball tournaments are not over. Although this one will be increasingly difficult to get live video or information from.
Montenegro begins its qualification for the 2017 Eurobasket tournament. Vucevic will be the starting center, with Nikola Pekovic out recovering from an injury, for the six-game qualification set that will see Montenegro play the Slovak Republic, Georgia and Albania.
Eurobasket next year will take place in four countries — Israel, Finland, Turkey and Romania. The teams that qualified for the Olympics, including Croatia and France, plus the four host nations all qualified for the tournament already. The winners of the six groups in qualification will take up the next six spots. The final four spots will go to the four best second-place teams.
The pressure will certainly be on Montenegro to win their group and qualify for this prestigious tournament. They have had plenty of problems in the past. The former coach for Montenegro buried Vucevic on the bench.
But that appears to be resolved. Montenegro named a new coach and Vucevic returned to the team after a three-year absence.
And he has played well. In a recent friendly win over Macedonia, Vucevic record 19 points, 10 rebounds and five assists to lead Montenegro. Montenegro has gone 5-0 with wins over Hungary and Switzerland.
The team should be the favorites to win their group and qualify for Eurobasket next year. Vucevic will be a big part of that. He will have the freedom to dominate on offense. And, if we can watch any of the games, we can see how he does anchoring a defense. The games against Georgia should be especially interesting.
"“It is good that we have only picked up victories so far in preparations and it is very important to build self-confidence,” Vucevic said following Wednesday’s win. “I think that the team’s level has gone up a notch in each game and we played better every time from what we did in the game before.”"
Montenegro played Bosnia and Herzegovina and won, but finished second in the tournament after falling to Belgium in overtime on Friday. Vucevic scored 16 points in the tournament finale.
Montenegro will play its first game of qualification August 31. The final game is September 17.
That means Vucevic will be coming almost directly from national team play to Orlando for the beginning of training camp. The Magic have not announced an official date to start training camp yet, but it is expected to be around Sept. 26. Essentially Vucevic will have one week from the end of Eurobasket qualifying.
The other players on the Magic are slowly making their way back to Orlando.
Evan Fournier is back in town working out in and around the city along with at the Amway Center. He has been chronicling his adventures on Snapchat. Serge Ibaka and Stephen Zimmerman recently worked out together in the Orlando area.
— Serge Ibaka (@sergeibaka) August 19, 2016
C.J. Watson too is back in Orlando. He was part of a promotional video with YouTube star Pretty Boy Fredo, winning a bet on a 3-point contest:
https://twitter.com/OrlandoMagic/status/766664137644576768
It is not all fun and games obviously. There is a lot of work going on behind the scenes and behind closed doors as the team prepares for the season. More players will return to Orlando to get their work in with their new teammates in the coming weeks ahead of training camp.
There will be plenty of pick-up games played too as they learn how to play with each other before practices officially begin. This is an important, but often underreported time of the offseason.
The Magic still have at least one player in public international games to watch toward the end of the offseason.
Next: Orlando Magic Daily Mailbag: Basketball Jones
The basketball scene though is going quiet for just a little bit. In a little more than a month though, the season begins its official preparations.