You, a discerning basketball fan, surely know that EuroBasket 2025 will tip off on Wednesday and that Nikola Jokić, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Dončić are participating. You know that the tournament features 24 national teams, separated into four groups, and that 16 teams — the top four in each group — will advance to the knockout round, which begins on Sep. 6 in Riga, Latvia. Just as a point of reference, though, here’s the draw:
- Group A (in Riga, Latvia): Serbia, Latvia, Czech Republic, Turkey, Estonia, Portugal
- Group B (in Tampere, Finland): Germany, Lithuania, Montenegro, Finland, Great Britain, Sweden
- Group C (in Limassol, Cyprus): Spain, Greece, Italy, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus
- Group D (in Katowice, Poland): France, Slovenia, Poland, Israel, Belgium, Iceland
If you’d like to spice up your summer with some international basketball, you can watch every game on Courtside 1891, FIBA’s streaming platform. To whet your appetite, here are six pre-EuroBasket questions:
1. Since Jokić is playing, Serbia is the favorite, right?
Of course. And it’s not just because of the best player in the world. Bogdan Bogdanović loves stages like this, and Serbia’s roster is so loaded that Nikola Topić, the 6-foot-6, 20-year-old point guard who redshirted for the NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder while recovering from ACL surgery last year, didn’t make the cut.
Despite injury concerns heading into the tournament, Vasilije Micić, who signed with Hapoel Tel Aviv in July after spending last season with the Charlotte Hornets and Phoenix Suns, will play. So will Miami Heat forward Nikola Jović. All the guys you remember from last year’s Olympics (Aleksa Avramović, Nikola Milutinov, Marko Gudurić, Filip Petrušev, to name a few) will be back.
Serbia has size, smarts, spacing and a superstar. It deserves to be the betting favorite. In 2022, though, at the most recent iteration of EuroBasket, Italy dealt them a shocking loss in the Round of 16. Serbia has fared well at the two major tournaments since then, winning silver at the 2023 World Cup in Manila (without Jokić!) and bronze in Paris a year ago, but gold has eluded them. Let’s see if they can Sombor Shuffle their way to the top this time.
EuroBasket 2025 odds
(Via DraftKings as of Aug. 26)
- Serbia: +120
- Germany: +600
- France: +700
- Greece: +1100
- Spain: +1600
- Lativa: +1800
- Slovenia: +2000
- Turkey: +2200
- Lithuania: +2200
- Finland: +5000
2. Is Germany the biggest threat to Serbia?
On paper, definitely. Remember how 21-year-old Franz Wagner took off at this tournament three years ago? He’s significantly better now, and Germany has become a powerhouse. Germany took home bronze back then, won gold at the 2023 World Cup and lost the bronze medal game at the Olympics.
Wagner is a budding star and FIBA Dennis Schröder is a legend. Between Wagner, his Orlando Magic teammate Tristan da Silva and Isaac Bonga, there’s a lot of length and defensive versatility here. Wagner’s brother, Moe, is not on the roster — he tore his ACL last December — but Germany still has several reliable bigs (Daniel Theis, Andreas Obst, Johannes Voigtmann) and all of them can space the floor. The biggest difference between this team and the one that we’ve seen the last few years is the coach: Álex Mumbrú has replaced Gordon Herbert, who is now coaching Canada’s national team.
If Serbia and Germany win their respective groups, the two highest-ranked teams in Europe will be on opposite sides of the bracket and have a chance to meet in the gold medal game. This would be a rematch of the bronze medal game in Paris and the gold medal game in Manila. Everyone loves a rivalry.
3. What about France?
France may be the most intriguing team in the tournament. They have the third-best odds to win the whole thing, but I’m not sure what to make of the group they’ve put together. Neither Victor Wembanyama or Rudy Gobert are playing, and, since Paris served as the swan song for Nicolas Batum, Evan Fournier and Nando de Colo, Les Bleus are entering a new era.
We all wish Wemby were on the team. There has been a staggering amount of young talent coming out of France in recent years, though, and a bunch of those guys will play. Bilal Coulibaly projects to have a bigger role than he did last summer, and the top two picks of the 2024 NBA Draft — Zaccharie Risacher and Alex Sarr — will suit up for the senior team for the first time in a major tournament. Guerschon Yabusele, Isaïa Cordinier, Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot and Élie Okobo are the vets now, which is pretty weird.
At the Olympics, France was so stacked with centers that it benched Gobert. Now, with Mathias Lessort, Vincent Poirier and Moustapha Fall all hurt, the roster is extremely thin up front. Yabusele and Sarr are going to have a heavy lift, and Les Blues are calling upon 30-year-old center Mouhammadou Jaiteh for the first time in a decade. This is definitively not the team that won silver a year ago, and it’s not all that similar to the one that did the same thing at EuroBasket three years ago, either. France went 5-0 in exhibition games leading up to EuroBasket, though, and, according to Risacher, they’ve been “getting ready to go to war.”
Could Luka or Giannis steamroll everybody?
Dončić has won EuroBasket before! In 2017, Slovenia went 9-0 at the tournament, upsetting Spain in the semifinals and Serbia in the gold medal game. Dončić was 18 then, and Goran Dragić was the star of the show. That Slovenian team also featured Anthony Randolph, who has since retired. Aside from Dončić, only wings Klemen Prepelič and Edo Murić remain from that roster. Vlatko Čančar, the former Denver Nuggets forward who signed with Olimpia Milano this summer, is skipping this tournament.
You may be one of the most hardcore ball-knowers out there, but you’re not going to recognize most of Dončić’s teammates. If I were to tell you that one of them is named Luka Ščuka, would you believe me? Google him, if you must. He’s real, I swear.
(But what if I’m lying? Are you brave enough to risk feeling like an absolute fool in the event that some bozo made up “Luka Ščuka?” Would you forgive yourself for wasting three seconds investigating a supposed member of the Slovenian national basketball team named “Luka Ščuka” if he doesn’t actually exist? Well, good news: I’m not lying. You don’t need to look him up. Really.)
The point I’m making is that Slovenia is not a superteam. Dončić’s presence means that they should advance beyond group play, but they’ll be facing an uphill battle after that. That said, in a win-or-go-home scenario, Skinny Luka is a scary sight. The whole world has seen him take over games singlehandedly, and I want to watch him try to put this team on his shoulders.
In contrast, Antetokounmpo’s supporting cast is solid. Greece will ask a lot of him offensively, but they have international stars (or former stars, at least) on the roster, including Olympiacos’ Tyler Dorsey and a pair of 35-year-olds named Kostas (Papanikolaou and Sloukas). There’s also a 27-year-old named Kostas (Antetokounmpo), plus a third Antetokounmpo brother (Thanasis) and other players with whom you may be familiar from previous FIBA tournaments (Giannoulis Larentzakis, Dinos Mitoglou, Vasilis Toliopoulos, Panagiotis Kalaitzakis).
If there’s a Group of Death, Greece is in it. They have the fourth-best odds to win the tournament, though, and, with all the focus on Antetokounmpo’s dwindling chances of making another championship run with the Milwaukee Bucks, what if he does it with his national team?
Are any of the other teams interesting?
Yes! If you watch one game on Wednesday, make it Latvia vs. Turkey (at 11 a.m. ET). Kristaps Porziņģis is healthy again, and he’ll get to play in front of a home crowd alongside the Bertāns brothers (Dāvis and Dairis) and Rodions Kurucs, with Artūrs Žagars running point. Žagars is coming off a EuroLeague title with Fenerbahçe.
Alperen Şengün is Turkey’s biggest name, but you can expect Shane Larkin to create a lot of their offense, too. With Cedi Osman and Furkan Kurkmaz on the wing and Adem Bona and Ömer Yurtseven in the frontcourt, they have no shortage of players with NBA experience.
Five more teams worth mentioning:
- Spain’s Willy Hernangómez, who won EuroBasket MVP in 2022, is back, as is Juancho Hernangómez, but 24-year-old forward Santi Aldama is coming off the best season of his career with the Memphis Grizzlies and should be the focal point offensively. This is coach Sergio Scariolo’s last ride, and the team would surely love to send him off with a memorable run, but early signs aren’t great. Spain lost five of their six exhibition games.
- Lithuania won’t have Domantas Sabonis or Matas Buzelis. This is obviously disappointing, but it also means that Jonas Valančiūnas will be fully empowered to bully people on as many possessions as possible. His supporting cast includes ex-Knicks forward Ignas Bradzeikis, ex-Pistons wing Deividas Sirvydis and point guard Rokas Jokubaitis, who could still theoretically join New York one day.
- Georgia is going to beat the hell out of people. Goga Bitadze and Sandro Mamukelashvili in the same frontcourt? Sign me up. (Ex-Nets forward Tornike Shengelia is on the roster, too.)
- Italy will be led by Simone Fontecchio, who really should have gotten some minutes in the Pistons-Knicks series, dammit. Even more importantly, Danilo Gallinari, who just turned 37, will suit up for his national team for the final time.
- Finland won all four of its preparation games (two against Belgium, two against Poland) and Lauri Markkanen scored 40-plus points in two of them. Maybe he’ll be so dominant at EuroBasket that some NBA team is convinced to offer all of its future draft picks to the Utah Jazz for him.
Any other familiar faces?
Yes, all over the place: Deni Avdija (Israel), Nikola Vučević (Montenegro), possible 2025-26 Boston Celtics starting center Neemias Queta (Portugal), Vít Krejčí (Czech Republic), Pelle Larson (Sweden), Jusuf Nurkić (Bosnia and Herzegovina).
By the way, after a loss against Montenegro in an exhibition game, Bosnia and Herzegovina coach Adis Bećiragić said that Nurkić is “out of shape and can barely run.” That was two weeks ago. Is two weeks enough time for Nuckić to have gotten himself ready to battle against Europe’s best bigs? We’re about to find out!
