For the record, I am not suggesting that this shouldn't concern fans. It is not good news that this is bothering him. I am less concerned than many other scenarios and I am glad he is not playing. At this point in his career, he should not ever play in these things. Most USA veterans skip this or play for one run and then move on. Latvia of course does not have as many options as USA does.
I think playing through the summer absolutely wears these players down at best, and at worst, they suffer career threatening injuries. All players, and especially a player like Porzingis, need the entire summer to rest and heal.
I find the whole club vs country debate fascinating. It happens a lot more in soccer because they have a lot more international games, FIFA World Cup qualifiers, European Cup qualifiers, the Copa America, and the pride and importance to players of representing one's country is very high, not just for the marquee teams like Brazil, England, France, Argentina but also for the small teams like Iceland, Senegal, South Korea etc. I'm sure a lot of our European, Latin American and Asian members here are familiar with this debate as it's been ongoing in that sport in particular for such a long time, and because the money involved is comparable if not greater to what is involved with NBA players and teams.
Soccer has had to deal with this for years - because the clubs obviously pay the player's wages, and some of these players are getting paid (and are worth) millions of their clubs, just like NBA players are. Nothing annoys a club that is either in a fight for a championship, or a fight to avoid relegation, more than having to release one of their best players to their national team to play in some friendly or qualifier on the other side of the world. Even worse when they pick up a serious injury and miss out on playing for their club for months. But can you really tell someone like Lionel Messi that he can't play for Argentina because Barcelona (or PSG, or even Inter Miami now) want to wrap him up in cotton wool? Right now Inter Miami's current success in the MLS after being one of the worst teams is 100% due to Messi, they're now in the final of the Leagues Cup after hardly having won anything all season. Or can Bayern tell Harry Kane not to play for England's minor games because they just paid over $127 million USD for him? Or maybe someone like Erling Haaland, would Manchester City stop him from playing for Norway, when without him they would struggle to qualify for the European championships?
But from the clubs' perspective, they've shelled out a lot of money for these players, and then they risk picking up injuries playing in a competition outside that which they are getting paid for. Like Kristaps and the FIBA world cup...obviously for Latvians this is a huge competition, and Kristaps is a big part of their team. Same with Slovenia, take Doncic out of their team and it's a huge loss. It's different for Team USA, we have so much depth that we could probably field five competitive teams in the competition, same as the bigger soccer teams like Spain, England, Brazil...but the national pride that many non-Americans have in representing their country is different to the way we see it here. In the US the pinnacle of achievements for fans are our domestic competitions, the NBA championship, the World Series...for international players they usually consider playing for their country to be the ultimate achievement, it's what stirs their blood, hearing their anthem and seeing their flag raised up above the others.
So I can kind of see both sides...as a Celtics fan I would love for none of our players to play in the FIBA World Cup, especially since it's kind of a secondary competition to the Olympics anyway, and I'm sure if the teams could forbid their players from participating in it they would, but I can understand why players would risk their health playing for their national team, and I'm not sure how you could tell them not to, if it's such a big thing for them. I'm not sure what the solution is. Soccer has had to deal with this type of club vs country issue for decades now and they haven't really been able to tell players not to play for their national teams.
Now from a homer point of view...I'm not Latvian and so am pleased by Kristaps not playing. Sucks to be him and sucks to be a Latvian fan though, I sympathize
