[Ed. Note: Lukas Kuba (@Luke_Mellow) is TAI's foreign bureau correspondent on all things Czech Republic/Jan Vesely/Tomas Satoransky-related. —Kyle W.]
After this previous Truth About It.net post about Wizards 2012 draft pick Tomas Satoransky playing for the Czech national team in an attempt to qualify for EuroBasket 2013 got the ultimate praise from Wizards owner Ted Leonsis (Big thanks, Ted!), I couldn’t resist writing another. Of course, you can’t find it anywhere else but here at TAI…
Our main man Kyle Weidie updated you on the Czech Republic’s game fourth of the EuroBasket qualification, where they easily defeated Turkey, 82-64. I can add that the Czechs played great in this game, getting contributions from up and down the roster. Hell, when you have someone named Jakub Kudlacek hitting all his shots (14 points in 16 minutes), there’s almost no way your team can be beat. Also, this game was sort of a coming out party for 19-year-old Czech center Ondrej Balvin, who defended Turkey’s Semih Erden in the low post. The 7-foot-1 kid is the best Czech big man prospect since George Zidek, and he has NBA potential (I think). It was really a fun game to watch, and the hometown Czech fans really got into it, even doing the wave (as you can watch here).
Two days later, the Czech team showed how tight their collective bond is. First, in the streets of Chomutov, they tomato-ambushed their assistant coach, Mike Taylor (who is an assistant coach with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers of the D-League); Taylor was celebrating his birthday. They then capped it off at a local ice hockey game by pranking Taylor with whipped cream in the face. Fun times.
Tags: czech republic, eurobasket, jakub kudlacek, jiri welsch, lubos barton, ondrej balvin, tomas satoransky
