EuroBasket 2022: Schedule, format, teams and NBA players to watch

Back-to-back reigning MVP Nikola Jokic, two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, three-time Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert and three-time All-NBA First Team guard Luka Doncic headline the NBA players participating in EuroBasket 2022 — the tournament to determine the basketball champion of Europe.

The 24-nation tournament tips off on Thursday and runs through Sept. 18 with games being playing in four host countries — Czech Republic, Georgia, Italy and Germany. Originally slated to take place in 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic forced postponement of the 2020 Olympic Games until 2021, which forced EuroBasket to push back to 2022.

Slovenia is the defending champion, winning their first EuroBasket in 2017 behind the play of Tournament MVP Goran Dragic and then 18-year-old wunderkind Doncic — a year before he joined the Dallas Mavericks as the third pick in the 2018 NBA Draft and went on to become one of the league’s brightest young stars.

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Tournament Format

The tournament begins with the group stage, which features four groups of six teams, and runs from Sept. 1-8. Each group will play a round-robin style tournament with each team playing the other five teams in the group. The top four teams in each group will then move on to the knockout stage of the tournament.

During the knockout stage, which will be held from Sept. 10-18 with all games played at the EuroBasket Arena in Berlin, the 16 teams will be slotted in a bracket based on their qualifying position from the group stage. They will then play single-elimination games, culminating in the championship game on Sept. 18.

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Groups and NBA Players

Not only will this tournament feature the winners of the past four NBA MVP awards (Antetokounmpo in 2018-19 and 2019-20; Jokic in 2020-21 and 2021-22) and four of the past five Defensive Player of the Year awards (Gobert in 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2020-21; Antetokounmpo in 2019-20), it will also feature more than 30 NBA players representing their home countries. France, the 2020 Olympic silver medalist, has the most NBA representation with five players on its roster.

Group A

• Belgium: no NBA players
• Bulgaria: no NBA players
• Georgia^: Goga Bitadze (Indiana)
• Montenegro*: no NBA players
• Spain: Juancho Hernangomez (Toronto); Willy Hernangomez (New Orleans)
• Turkey: Cedi Osman (Cleveland); Alperen Sengun (Houston); Furkan Korkmaz (Philadelphia)

Group B

• Bosnia and Herzegovina: Jusuf Nurkic (Portland)
• France: Evan Fournier (New York); Rudy Gobert (Minnesota); Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot (free agent); Theo Maledon (Oklahoma City); Frank Ntilikina (Dallas)
• Germany^: Dennis Schroder (free agent); Daniel Theis (Indiana); Franz Wagner (Orlando)
• Hungary: no NBA players
• Lithuania: Domantas Sabonis (Sacramento); Jonas Valanciunas (New Orleans)
• Slovenia: Luka Doncic (Dallas); Goran Dragic (Chicago); Vlatko Cancar (Denver)

Group C

• Croatia: Bojan Bogdanovic (Utah); Dario Saric (Phoenix); Ivica Zubac (LA Clippers); Mario Hezonja (free agent)
• Estonia: no NBA players
• Great Britain: no NBA players
• Greece: Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee); Thanasis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee); Tyler Dorsey (Dallas)
• Italy^: no NBA players
• Ukraine: Sviatoslav Mikhailiuk (free agent)

  Giannis Antetoukounmpo representing Greece.

Group D

• Czech Republic^: Tomas Satoransky (free agent)
• Finland: Lauri Markkanen (Cleveland)
• Israel: Deni Avdija (Washington)
• Netherlands: no NBA players
• Poland: no NBA players
• Serbia: Nikola Jokic (Denver); Nikola Jovic (Miami); Aleksej Pokusevski (Oklahoma City)

Notes

• ^ Host country for the group stage
• * Montenegro replaces Russia, which was disqualified from the tournament by FIBA following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

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Tournament Schedule

The action tips off on Sept. 1 with the group stage, followed by the knockout stage on Sept. 10. Check out FIBA.com for complete scores and stats.