Luka Doncic won’t play in next summer’s World Cup, and it’s all FIBA’s fault

Luka Doncic is the most exciting European basketball player in a generation, a crucial addition to the international scene as so many legends of decades past reach or near retirement. Doncic’s supremacy at EuroBasket 2017 heralded his rise with the Slovenian national team, as he teamed with Goran Dragic to claim the European crown. That triumph carried with it promises that we’d see Doncic’s exploits in major global basketball tournaments like the World Cup and the Olympics for years to come.

Except FIBA has ruined all that.

Doncic will not appear in the 2019 FIBA World Cup next summer, and he is highly unlikely to make the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, despite helping lead Slovenia to European gold in 2017. And it all goes back to FIBA’s inane qualification calendar reform.

We’ve written about this before. Early this decade, FIBA determined that instead of qualifying for global tournaments via offseason continental tournaments like EuroBasket, the FIBA Asia Championship, Americup and Afrobasket, teams would play regional qualifiers in multiple windows throughout the year. The reason was so that basketball fans in non-powerhouse countries could get visits from the best teams and biggest stars in the world. Instead of centralized tournaments drawing fans, FIBA would take the games right to the potential fans’ backyards.

But most of the qualification windows conflict with the seasons for the biggest leagues in the world, including the NBA and Euroleague. For example, this past weekend was a qualification window. USA Basketball played a couple of games over the past few days. No NBA players were involved. How could they be? They are being paid millions of dollars to pay basketball for their NBA teams — they can’t exactly take a week-long break to go join the national team for a couple of qualifiers.

Luckily, Team USA, led by Jeff Van Gundy and featuring several G League players, earned a split against Argentina and Uruguay and thus won and a bid to the World Cup. Phew! Can you imagine if Team USA didn’t qualify?

Did FIBA think it could convince the NBA and Euroleague to build windows into their schedules to accommodate the qualifiers? Well, that was a non-starter. Some top European players have managed to peel away for these games, but it’s rare and not a single notable NBA player has even broached the idea.

Now let’s get back to Doncic and Slovenia.

Before the advent of the new FIBA qualification system, Slovenia’s EuroBasket victory would have qualified the nation for the next World Cup. This time, it was essentially irrelevant for FIBA matters — more or less a trophy and nothing else. Slovenia had to qualify for 2019 like everyone else, including the United States. That required playing qualifiers against other teams from its continent in June, November, and February for two years.

Here’s what FIBA will be missing

Sipa USA-USA TODAY NETWORK

Thanks to their silly qualifying setup, FIBA won’t see Luka Doncic playing for Slovenia at the 2019 FIBA World Cup. Here’s what they’re missing.

• ELLENTUCK: Doncic is the most accomplished international prospect in decades
• PRADA: How Doncic is athletic in ways we don’t realize
• MAVS MONEYBALL: Doncic is the Mavs’ foundational piece
• WINFIELD: Doncic has the highlight reel of an obvious Rookie of the Year
• WINFIELD: Watch Doncic dominate Spain at Eurobasket 2017

The problem is that Slovenia’s top players, such as Doncic and Goran Dragic, are in the NBA and on Euroleague teams, making them unavailable for FIBA work. Just two players from the 2017 EuroBasket gold medal game played for Slovenia this weekend as the nation was eliminated from FIBA contention: Edo Muric and Vlatko Cancar. Muric has bounced around European basketball and doesn’t appear to currently have a team. Cancar plays for the 11th-place team in the Spanish league. (The Nuggets have his NBA rights.)

Slovenia was essentially punished for having NBA and Euroleague players. Now, FIBA won’t get to bring rising star Doncic to China this summer for the World Cup. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

This problem could get even worse because the bulk of Olympic spots go to teams who perform well at the World Cup. There are four wild cards spots determined a month before the Olympic tournament tips off. ForSlovenia to reach the Olympics, they’d have to get added to the field (yes, they would be a wild-card addition to the wild-card tournament) and then win their bracket. Because the wild card tournament is in the offseason of the NBA and Euroleague, they might actually have a chance at that! But it’s just that: only a chance.

FIBA could be selling Luka and the rising Slovenian power for the World Cup this summer, if not for its own foolish decisions. What’s ironic is that Doncic’s NBA boss, Mavericks franchisee Mark Cuban, has long wanted to destroy FIBA over his dislike of players he pays tens of millions of dollars risking their health for patriotism.

Alas, FIBA is instead destroying itself.