34 official FIBA3x3 events in one month! And 58 planned for July. Check the official calendar if you don’t believe us. It’s impossible to keep up with all of them, but we can always try to do a retrospection on the full month, except WorldCup which we already summarized. Let’s go. Nobody said 3x3 is for the weak.
Maestro is back!
It is fantastic to see Dejan Majstorovic playing on the World Tour again, after a full year break. 38 years old, the most decorated active 3x3 player in the World* and top all time scorer** proved he still has it in the final game of Marseille Masters:
If you are 30+ or 40+, like the one writing these words, you understand how difficult is to get to the professional physical shape after one year break. Impressive!
*yes, this is correct:
5x World Cup winner (2016, 2017, 2018, 2022, 2023) and 2x MVP MVP (2017, 2022)
6x World Tour winner (2014, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2022, 2023)
4x EuroCup winner (2018, 2019, 2021, 2022)
Olympic bronze medalist (2020)
**this is also correct:
And here you can see young Maestro, actually 11 years younger:
We wish Dejan (and ourselves) at least 5 more years on the court!
Germans’ way to the top
Bonn’s historic, first win in Amsterdam is not a surprise, it’s just the next step made by Giessmann, Agyeman, Bekaime (these three played in all masters this year) and their colleagues. They played in four masters in a row: Zadar, Shanghai, Vienna and Amsterdam and here are their positions in each of them, respectively: 10th, 7th, 3rd, 1st. This is a pure definition of progress. They learn extremely fast and they fight. Especially Fabian Giessmann, who won the final for them in Amsterdam and in our opinion he did it simply because he wanted it so badly.
The season is (too) intense
We are following the Pro Circuit for almost a decade and have never saw so many injuries - it might be a coincidence, but also the sign that number of events is too big to handle them with proper recovery and preparation. Definitely something FIBA3x3 has to look into carefully. We don’t want any players to be hurt, and watching Worthy De Jong, Evaldas Džiaugys, Karlis Lasmanis, Leon Fertig and others in pain is… painful.
EuroCup Qualifiers
The second most important tournament of the year - European Championships - will be played in September in Belgium. The qualifications are complete and here is the full list of national teams competing soon in Antwerp:
It’s going to be fierce competition in both categories, Germans are our men’s pick this year (see above). We are not brave enough to choose women favorites.
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