Andrea Trinchieri revealed he was surprised by the news of D'Angelo Russell possibly playing for Lithuania, but challenged both Lithuania and Serbia to produce more local players if they don't want to go the naturalization route.
D'Angelo Russell's intention to represent the Lithuanian national team shocked the international basketball world on Friday. The head coach of the biggest Lithuanian team, Zalgiris Kaunas, reacted to the matter.
After the win in the EuroLeague against Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens, Andrea Trinchieri was asked about the unexpected news.
"Of course, it caught me off guard," he said. "If D'Angelo said that, I'm happy for him and maybe happy for the national team if they're willing to do it. But this is a political thing. I don't want to get into it."
Lithuania has been reserved about naturalizing basketball players and chose to go the local players route instead. Lithuania is one of only a handful of countries in Europe that haven't had a naturalized player on the national team roster.
"I believe there are two countries, Lithuania and Serbia, and I've coached in both, that didn't want to explore this thing about bringing a foreign player to help build a better roster or giving a passport to a player to help where you are short. It's not [whether] I'm in favor or not. It depends on what you want," Trinchieir said about the situation with naturalized players.
"Both Serbia and Lithuania are countries with a lot of basketball pride. In my opinion, where I think basketball is the main sport, and it is. I'm good with the thing they say, 'No, we're going to do with our players.' On the other end, if you want to do it, you have to push the basketball world of Lithuania to produce more players. The thing is there. I believe the production of domestic players is not the same [as it was] in the past, not in Serbia nor in Lithuania.
"It's a political decision. If you want to keep [it that way] and be proud that you're going to play only Lithuanian players or only Serbian players, I'm very good with that, but then we have all to think what we have to do to have more choice in picking the players for the national team. Producing young talent."
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