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ISTANBUL (FIBA World Championship) - Turkey coach Bogdan Tanjevic this week named Hedo Turkoglu, Mehmet Okur and Serkan Erdogan in his preliminary squad for the FIBA World Championship in Japan but the three are big doubts.
Turkey, who will host the event in 2010, received a wild card for this year's tournament in Japan after crashing out of last year's EuroBasket 2005 in the elimination round.
At the press conference to name his squad, Tanjevic said the three players brought letters asking to be excused because of injuries.
"Serkan told me that he could play all season (only) after injections and has a severe injury problem," Tanjevic said.
"He can go under surgery for his knee. If he goes through with this operation, he won't recover for another six months."
As for Okur, Tanjevic revealed the Utah Jazz power forward/center brought a medical report with him from the United States.
"He has told he was injured all season," Tanjevic said.
"We will wait for another month and then we will decide."
Tanjevic is clearly frustrated by his dealings with Turkoglu of the Orlando Magic.
Turkoglu indicated weeks ago his preference to take this summer off.
"I told him that he can skip the first preparation period of 17 days and join the team on July 20th, but he said he cannot give any exact dates and will join whenever he feels fit," Tanjevic said.
"I then told him the offer I made to him is not valid anymore and he should join the camp on July 3.
"The reason I made this final decision is the respect I have for the other players in the camp.
"They behave like real sportsmen and accept their responsibilities. This situation has never happened before.
"If I had accepted him joining on July 20, that would be a first and would have been repeated later and other players would request such treatment as well.
"That would be a very negative thing to do. It wouldn't be nice to have something similar every year."
Others named in the preliminary group are Ibrahim Kutluay (Ulkerspor), Kaya Peker, Ermal Kurtoglu, Kerem Gonlum, Ender Arslan, Baris Ermis of Efes Pilsen
and Kerem Tunceri of Besiktas.
Banvitspor's Can Akin and Umit Turkoglu, Galatasaray's Fatih Solak, Turk Telekom's Mutlu Akpinar and Tofas' Ugur Kacaniku are in along with Fenerbahce's Omer Onan.
College players Engin Atsur of North Carolina State and Hilmi Dinc of Indiana have also been included.
Bora from Efes Pilsen, and Cenk Akyol, Oguz Savas, Ersan Ilyasova, Semih Erden, and Hakan Demirel from the Under-21 team are in.
Tanjevic will then trim his group to 16 players first, then 14, and will go to Japan with 12.
PA Sport
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