Haliburton is back after a whole lost season, and Turkey left Şengün at home with no explanation

Haliburton is back: „I am the source, I am healthy”

After a whole season missed with a torn Achilles tendon, Tyrese Haliburton has announced he is fully ready. He sustained the injury in game seven of the finals two years ago, the match in which Oklahoma took the championship ring. Without him Indiana went through the worst season in franchise history - 19 wins and 63 losses. „I saw a report saying ’sources tell me Tyrese will be healthy‘. I am the source. I am healthy right now, I feel great”, he told reporters. A player who has to speak up personally to correct his own medical file - that is the modern NBA, where an anonymous „source” is worth more than the man carrying the injury.

Şengün dropped from Turkey's squad, and Ataman is not saying why

The biggest name in Turkish basketball, Alperen Şengün, is not in Ergin Ataman's squad for the qualifiers against Lithuania and Iceland. No reason was given - not injury, not rest, nothing. The list is still strong: Adem Bona, Cedi Osman, Furkan Korkmaz, Ömer Yurtseven, Sertaç Şanlı, Ercan Osmani, plus naturalised Malachi Flynn. Turkey enters the second phase with six wins from six and is well placed for the 2027 World Cup in Qatar. The first game is against Lithuania on 28 August, with a trip to Iceland three days later. When a federation leaves a star out without a word of explanation, the silence is usually not accidental - it is a message aimed at somebody specific.

The EuroLeague is scrapping the round-robin: conferences from 2027/28

The 20-team format in which everyone plays everyone twice will be used for the last time in the 2026/27 season. Armani Milan general manager Christos Stavropoulos revealed the competition is planning expansion and the introduction of conferences from the following season. „We extended the decision on 20 teams and the round-robin system by another year, but this will definitely be the last one”, he said. Under the new system some clubs will no longer meet twice - „you lose something, you gain something”, as he admitted himself. More teams almost always means more fixtures, more television packages and less room in the calendar for domestic leagues. For Balkan clubs playing on two fronts, that is not a detail but a question of which line-up they can field on Sunday.

The under-16s beaten by Ireland 83:58 after a catastrophic third quarter

Macedonia's under-16 team began the play-offs for European Championship qualification in Division B with a heavy defeat to Ireland - 83:58. The first two quarters were relatively even and Ireland led by only 37:35, and then came the third quarter, which our side lost 25:8. Twenty-five to eight is not a tactical error - it is a period in which one team stopped playing. Earlier, in the group stage in Gevgelija, the team finished fourth with two wins and three defeats. The pattern is familiar: we play solidly until the opponent applies pressure, and then ten minutes are enough for everything to fall apart. The question rarely asked out loud is whether anyone is actually working on what happens in the heads of 16-year-olds when the first serious surge arrives.

Two years without Lazar Lečić, the man who laid down Macedonian basketball

Today marks two years since the death of Lazar Lečić (1939-2024), a coach who spent more than six decades in basketball, most of it devoted to KK Rabotnički - the club he called with particular affection „my Rabotnički”. He also coached Borac Čačak, Olimpija Ljubljana, Vojvodina, MZT Skopje, Greece's Aris and Nikolfert. With Aris he won the Greek championship and cup, with MZT Skopje the Macedonian Cup. He was part of the coaching staff of the Yugoslav national team that became world champion in Ljubljana and took European Championship silver, and as head coach of the Yugoslav youth selection he triumphed at the Balkan Games in Rijeka. He received the Medal of Merit for Macedonia, the „8 September” lifetime achievement award and the „11 October”. The „Rabotnički” sports hall carries his name today - and that is the right way to mark somebody who built a system, not just a career.