Sarunas Jasikevicius: 'Playing in a FIBA tournament it's like taking a 20yrs step back'

Sarunas Jasikevicius, former Lithuanian basketball legend and now head-coach of Zalgiris Kaunas, had some very strong words against FIBA and his attitude. Jasikevicius is convinced that playing in a tournament organized by FIBA would mean a huge step back for the European basketball. Here's what he said in an interview with 15min.lt (translation via Eurohoops.net):

"FIBA has had all the opportunities for many years in order to develop basketball tournaments of the highest level, but what they did was kept at very low level. It’s through Euroleague that things began to drift to a good side. How can FIBA talk about sports principles if they sell wild cards in dumbest ways."

" wish that the great Europeans related to basketball, like Arvydas Sabonis, Dejan Bodiroga and Andrei Kirilenko expressed more aggressive opinions on the matter," said Jasikevicius. "But playing in a tournament organized like FIBA, would be the same as returning to 20 years back”.