After being waived by the Clippers earlier this month, veteran point guard Milos Teodosic looked like a strong candidate to return to a team in Europe if he didn’t draw immediate NBA interest. Now, it sounds like Teodosic may not play for an NBA team or for a European club for the rest of the season.
According to a report from Nikola Stejkovic of Serbian outlet MozzartSport.com (Twitter links), Teodosic is expected to suit up for Serbia’s national team in the upcoming World Cup qualifiers, then plans to sit out the rest of the season to prepare for the 2019/20 campaign (hat tip to Emiliano Carchia of Sportando).
Serbia, which has a 6-4 record in qualifying matches for the 2019 World Cup so far, has games against Estonia and Israel in the coming days. The squad is in position to secure a spot in this fall’s event, assuming it can hold off Georgia (5-5) and Israel (4-6) in the standings.
As for Teodosic, while his focus is on international play for now, the longtime EuroLeague star is still just 31 years old and presumably has several good years left in him. In a season and a half with the Clippers, he averaged 8.0 PPG and 4.0 APG with a .420/.378/.811 shooting line in 60 games (21.4 MPG). He saw his role dwindle this season due to a crowded backcourt rotation in Los Angeles.
Based on comments he made in the fall, Teodosic sounds prepared to return to the EuroLeague going forward, after having given the NBA a shot. Having played for CSKA Moscow (Russia) and Olympiacos (Greece) in the past, the veteran guard was said to be drawing interest from Anadolu Efes Istanbul (Turkey) earlier this season, though he figures to have multiple suitors in the offseason.
Way to go Clips, for hanging on to a player you had no plans for.
Agree with you x%sure, poor form of the Clips, since summer it always looked they didn’t want him, but they didn’t let him go, no a nice way to do business, but what you do comes around, so…
He was way behind the pace, in terms of his physical abilities.
If it took him X amount of years to round out his game in readiness for the League, he was probably that same number of years too late to make any kind of an impact.
An old Ricky Rubio, essentially – crafty and talented, but not best served by the NBA style.
The Clips gave Teodosic $6mil twice, so somebody disagrees.
Wasted un-utilised talent