Thursday, March 18th, 2010 at 10:00 am  |  20 responses

Bucks Don’t Want Andrew Bogut Playing in Worlds

Andrew’s employer tells the Journal Sentinel that they’re not too keen on him suiting up for Team Australia this summer: “Bucks general manager John Hammond said Wednesday he has ‘major concerns’ about center Andrew Bogut’s participation in the World Championships this summer in Turkey. Bogut is under pressure in his native Australia to play for his country in the international tournament, but the Bucks are worried about the 7-footer’s long-term health and protecting their five-year, $60 million investment. Bogut and the Bucks agreed to the five-year contract extension in the summer of 2008, and the current season was the first year of the deal. ‘We are going to support Andrew as he goes through this process,’ Hammond said before the Bucks played the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday night. ‘But we do have concerns. We’ve made a long-term commitment to Andrew and obviously he’s made a commitment back to us. We appreciate what he’s done for us at this point in his career and think he’s only going to get better and better. We want to continue to monitor his back and make sure he stays healthy.”‘

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  • Witness Posted: Mar.18 at 10:10 am
    Andrew Bogut: best offensive center in the East.

  • LDR4 Posted: Mar.18 at 10:24 am
    It makes sense for the organization to protect its investment, they just dropped a ton of money on him. His history of injuries is another concern. If he gets hurt playing for Australia (a team with no real shot at winning the Wrolds) and misses time and games with the Bucks it could cost the team financially and it could cost them wins. This is a team creepin on the come-up. Yes, I wish players could play for their national teams each time they were called upon but it is becoming less viable as players are considered commodity investments instead of just players.

  • Witness Posted: Mar.18 at 10:31 am
    If the Bucks can get a power forward to compliment Bogut and Jennings then watch out! A few months ago when Redd went down the team looked like it was headed no where. Now look at them!

  • T-Money Posted: Mar.18 at 10:42 am
    Eff that. There is nothing in an NBA contract preventing players to rep their country. What are they going to do, waive him?

  • smiles Posted: Mar.18 at 11:02 am
    knowing the ships take place in European vacation spot he’ll be there anyway, besides it’s only 5 games of group play and a few at best if they get out, so why not meet his old buddies and play some ball together I suppose it should’t be such a struggle, even with all the injury past of his

  • ti-sizzle Posted: Mar.18 at 11:08 am
    just look at what happened to yao ming. we dont want that to happen again now do we..?

  • Milanr Posted: Mar.18 at 11:09 am
    I think the NBA teams are being ridiculous. Sure they pay a lot of money for their players, but so do the football (soccer) teams and you don’t see any of them trying to stop their players playing in the World Cup this summer.

  • Darksaber Posted: Mar.18 at 12:06 pm
    Hmm, a little birdie wrote me yesterday to say how he’s looking forward to playing in Turkey. Bucks better talk to Andrew about this.

  • Ace Posted: Mar.18 at 2:32 pm
    I say go play for your country the world championships don’t happen every year, and you only live once. The Spanish national players still play for their county even when their NBA teams don’t want them too. The other international players should do the same. Reminds me of when Kaka the footballer was told not to play in the world cup for Brazil…insane.

  • JD Posted: Mar.18 at 4:23 pm
    Thats ridiculous, if he was American this would never have happened

  • albie1kenobi Posted: Mar.18 at 4:59 pm
    every time an athlete competes in sport, there’s a chance of injury, so i understand management’s concern. but then again, you can also hurt yourself slipping in the shower a la ghostface przybilla.

  • Jukai Posted: Mar.18 at 5:52 pm
    What’s ridiculous is people’s inability to understand the Bucks just paid 60 million dollars to a guy, and they want to protect that investment. Ridiculous that they have concerns about him playing? When he’s injury prone like that?
    And that’s crap that if he was American, this wouldn’t happen. Amare didn’t play in the worlds because the Phoenix training staff told him not to.

  • Andrew Posted: Mar.18 at 6:08 pm
    Australia may not have any real hope of winning the worlds, but that doesn’t stop players wanting to rep their country and try to get a result in the champs.

  • vanillagorrila Posted: Mar.18 at 7:13 pm
    Nobody missed amare in the worlds but bogut is the star of australia’s team, who else do the aussies have of note? Patty mills yeah whooo. I really doubt bogut cares, if he gets injured he still gets paid. The only thing that might keep him from it is if he thinks the bucks might have finally have a shot to be really successful next year and he takes it really seriously.

  • -Ardi Posted: Mar.18 at 8:01 pm
    @Witness: Hopefully the Bucks can land Greg Monroe. Then you’d have the two best passing bigs on the same team.

  • GQ Posted: Mar.18 at 8:38 pm
    Yeah, I know. Australia won’t win the world championships. But why deny us our star player? Australian b’ball is really struggling at the moment with a floundering national league. It would be a significant advantage to the profile of Australian b’ball to have Bogut support the national side and give an NBA connection.

  • Lazaruz Posted: Mar.19 at 7:31 am
    f_ck the haters. australia got a shot at worlds. at least at a medal.

  • therighttoremainsalient Posted: Mar.19 at 8:26 am
    Andrew doesn’t play out of control when he’s repping Oz, so it’s not a big drama.

  • Bucks Notch Up Another Impressive Win | onemansportsnetwork.com Posted: Mar.21 at 7:20 am
    [...] SLAM ONLINE | » Bucks Don’t Want Andrew Bogut Playing in Worlds [...]

  • Starbury Posted: Mar.23 at 11:38 am
    Australia needs him more than the Bucks. Really.

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