After being selected with the No. 29 pick in the 2018 draft, swingman Dzanan Musa spent just two seasons in the NBA with Brooklyn before being waived and returning to Europe. He’s currently thriving with Rio Breogan in Spain, averaging 19.8 PPG on .504/.441/.776 shooting in 19 Liga ACB games (31.7 MPG) this season.
Asked during an interview with Israel Hayom about his fellow Bosnian, former NBA forward Mirza Teletovic said he’s confident that Musa, who is still just 22 years old, will return stateside sooner or later.
“Dzanan is a great talent, who has already done some beautiful things in his career,” Teletovic said, according to EuroHoops.net. “He may have gone to the NBA too soon and been burned, but I believe he will return to the U.S. soon because he just needed more experience and more games to deal with the players. He saw what he was missing and now he is working on it in Europe. … He must be patient and go step by step and he is guaranteed a bright future because he has the qualities of a leader and everything it takes to be successful.”
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the international basketball world:
- FIBA announced today in a press release that Russian teams and officials won’t be permitted to participate in any international FIBA competitions until further notice. Russia was off to a 3-0 start in the qualifiers for the 2023 World Cup.
- Euroleague Basketball announced on Monday that it has suspended the participation of all Russian teams in the EuroLeague (CSKA Moscow, UNICS Kazan, Zenit St. Petersburg) and the EuroCup (Lokomotiv Kuban). The organization will continue to monitor the situation and says that if things don’t improve, “all regular season games versus Russian teams will be annulled to configure the leagues’ standings.”
- Former NBA first-round pick Archie Goodwin has signed with Israeli team Maccabi Rishon, according to an announcement from the club (Twitter link). Goodwin, the 29th overall pick in 2013, appeared in 165 regular season games for Phoenix, New Orleans, and Brooklyn, but hasn’t played in the NBA since 2017. He had been playing in Ukraine this season, but recently left due to the Russian invasion.
Archie Goodwin is another guy who would thrive in the Big3. Hopefully he gets a spot in that league this summer… Musa & Rodion Kurucs were/are both really talented young Euro/former Nets forwards that I would love to see back in the league asap. The ridiculous level of talent across the world rn has me hoping we see a 2 team expansion (Seattle & either KC or MXC) at some point in the next 2,3yrs
Exactly, Sankara! The NBA NEEDS more teams because of the excessive amount of NBA talent that’s “wasted” overseas. If there were 40 teams, I feel like every team would have at least 5 players who should start in a 30 team league. There are Euroleague teams with 8-10 former NBA players. The only big problem is the international guys can’t sign NBA contracts during their Euro/Chinese/ etc contract, so NBA teams would have to wait, and end up not even signing them because they have to wait so long. This is something that I feel like needs to be changed.
I recall Musa as more of a guard like Joe Harris 6-6 even tho he is 6-9. He was improving.
Musa and Kurucs are both good enough to atleast be on two way contracts.
Right
Ukraina.