International Coach Calls Out Jusuf Nurkic For Being Out of Shape

While the NBA offseason is coming to an end, many European NBA players are taking part in EuroBasket, an international tournament featuring the best players from all over Europe. One NBA player that has joined his home country is Bosnian center Jusuf Nurkic, who ended the 2024/25 campaign with the Charlotte Hornets after being acquired by the Phoenix Suns.

In 26 games played with Charlotte, Nurkic tallied 9 points and 7 rebounds per game, showing once again that the "Bosnian Beast" is capable of being very good at the NBA level. Unfortunately, things haven't been going to plan since arriving at the EuroBasket tournament, with the Bosnian coach calling Nurkic and the rest of the team out for their very poor conditioning.

"Nurkic is out of shape and can barely run."

That's an absolutely brutal assessment of Nurkic's situation by his coach, and while it may have been an exaggeration, it's certainly not a good look for the 30-year-old veteran. Heading into the tournament, Bosnia and Herzegovina were already seen as an underdog, but with the team reportedly not looking in great shape, there's a very good chance that they'll struggle to perform at a high level at EuroBasket.

At 30 years of age, with 590 regular-season NBA games under his belt, Nurkic is a player that knows how to get in basketball shape before the NBA season, so this shouldn't be a major worry. But to get called out like this ahead of an international tournament, it's not a great look.