Macedonia heads for Vienna: Dimitrijević is back, Wright is under the boards

The men's basketball team completed its first camp at T Arena and already on 30 August travels to Austria for the second round of EuroBasket pre-qualifiers. Head coach José María Berrocal has 14 players available - almost a full squad, minus Jakimovski. The biggest news is the return of Nenad Dimitrijević and the arrival of centre Moses Wright, who fills the hole left by Ethan Happ's injury in the previous qualifiers against Estonia. "We have quality, but we have to show it on the court," Berrocal says. The sentence is short and accurate: quality that does not get confirmed in Vienna is not quality, it is a list of names.

Dimitrijević: "For me this is a last chance at a EuroBasket"

The point guard does not talk in diplomatic phrases. Nenad Dimitrijević said openly that playing at the next European Championship is for him a last chance to appear at a EuroBasket with Macedonia, and that he will give everything to get there. He says Austria play a fast, open tempo and are an awkward opponent, but that the team has eight to nine days to prepare. From Wright he expects a partnership under the boards. This is a rarity in Macedonian sport - a player who, instead of repeating platitudes, states plainly how much time he has left. The question is not whether Dimitrijević wants it; the question is whether the federation will give him a squad worthy of that statement.

France beat Serbia with a buzzer-beater, Jokić dominated again

The rematch between France and Serbia ended 91:90 in a packed arena in Orléans, with a buzzer-beater. Serbia went ahead four seconds from the end through Marko Gudurić, who scored a layup with a foul - but the French defence collapsed on Sylvain Francisco, left Jaylen Hoard completely alone and he settled it in the final second. Victor Wembanyama scored 18 points on 5/6 from the field and 8/9 from the line, added 5 rebounds and 2 blocks, but missed all four three-point attempts. Francisco collected 20 points, Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot 19. Nikola Jokić again kept Serbia in the game. The Balkans know this scene by heart: the best player on the floor, and the win ends up on the other side.

Valančiūnas opened up what everyone in Lithuanian basketball had kept quiet about

Lithuania captain Jonas Valančiūnas publicly attacked the running of the national federation and directly questioned the position of president Mindaugas Balčiūnas. The 34-year-old centre, who returned home to Žalgiris after a long NBA career, is not playing in the current qualifying window - despite the fact that between 2007 and 2024 he did not miss a single official FIBA tournament. The reason, he says, includes the organisational problems: "When everything is fine, you usually do not run from difficulty. And it was not all that fine with the national team." After the group with Italy, Iceland and Great Britain, Lithuania stand 3-3, fourth in Group J behind Turkey (6-0), Italy (5-1) and Serbia (4-2). Only three teams go to the 2027 World Cup in Qatar - which means they probably need five wins from the remaining six games. That is not a squad crisis. That is a crisis of the house.

The women's league flipped on appeal: Basket Kam and Pro Basket are back

Basket Kam and Pro Basket Kavadarci will play in the women's First League in the 2026/27 season after all. Both clubs initially failed to receive licences, then the Basketball Federation's arbitration commission upheld their appeals and the licensing commission found the conditions - including those on financial discipline - to be met. The league will number eight teams, among them Gevgelija as winner of the Second League. So the documentation that was missing in the first round somehow turned up in the second. That is good news for the clubs and bad news for the procedure itself: if a decision falls and reverses within a few days, the question is how much the original ruling weighs at all.