Klemen Prepelic on why Slovenia is stepping up for Luka Doncic at 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup: “We want Luka always to be here with us”
In an exclusive interview with Olympics.com ahead of the 2023 Basketball World Cup, Prepelic spoke about the force of Doncic, the infamous Tokyo 2020 Nicholas Batum block and why Slovenia has its sights set firmly on Paris 2024.
Basketball
Klemen Prepelic doesn’t mince his words.
“Everything changed with Luka [Doncic] coming into Slovenia Basketball,” the 30-year-old tells Olympics.com from the lobby of his hotel in Malaga.
Slovenia are in Southern Spain fine-tuning their 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup preparations with back-to-back warm-up games against USA and Spain.
And with Doncic headlining their roster, they will boast the tournament’s biggest star when the competition begins on 25 August.
The Eastern European country has long been a nation deemed to have punched above its weight on basketball’s big stages.
In 2017, the nation, with a population of 2.1 million, rocked the world order when it clinched gold at EuroBasket. Prepelic was a part of the team led by NBA veteran Goran Dragic, who captured the crown.
Even though that victory was secured with what he concedes was probably a more robust team “on paper” still now, no one dares ignore Slovenia.
“With the presence of Luka, they always count us as one of the favourites for winning medals in the biggest competitions,” he says matter-of-factly.
And it isn’t an exaggeration.
Doncic, 24, has already forged a formidable reputation for stepping up internationally.
The ‘unguardable’ guard, often showered in plaudits in the NBA where he plays for the Dallas Mavericks, has an unmatchable knack of carving out space for himself before punishing the opposition with his prolific shot-making ability.
On his Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020, he posted 48 points against Argentina, tying for the second-highest total in men’s Olympic basketball history at the Games.
At EuroBasket a year later, Doncic achieved a similar feat against France, dropping 47 points in a group game, the second-most in the tournament’s history.
“He's a great person. A huge competitor. Obviously, on the court, he makes everybody better,” Prepelic says describing what it’s like to play alongside the superstar.
“He takes the maximum out of us. And of course, the excitement is even bigger when he's with us. He's a really funny guy, a family person, kind. He really knows how to treat people around him; that everybody feels comfortable and important.”
The profound respect Prepelic has for Doncic and his decision to take the time out to play for his country where other big-name players like Nikola Jokic have opted out of their national duty, is reflected when the Slovenian talks about the final five minutes of preparation the team goes through before stepping out on to the court.
“Just knowing to represent your country and being able to be on the biggest stage is a big motivation for all of us,” Prepelic begins.
“Then, another reason to give the maximum in every practice and every game on a daily basis is Luka, because we want Luka always to be here with us and we want him. And he as a competitor, is a guy that always wants to win every single game. Obviously, we have to be on the right level every day. So, personally between each other, we don't need to say many things.
“We just know that we have to go out as hard as we can and do as best as we can.”
Klemen Prepelic: Qualiyfing for Paris 2024 "one of the main goals of the summer"
Doing the best that they can, Prepelic hopes will bring Slovenia at least a medal at the World Cup.
He also believes it might help them obtain a ticket to Paris 2024, which is available for the top two finishing teams from Europe.
“This is one of the main goals of the summer, is qualification to the Olympic Games,” Prepelic says outlining his side’s ambitions.
“These are goals that we set high because of the presence of Luka and obviously, for our country. We have really been there on the biggest stage for the last five or six summers and I think we kind of deserve this credit.
“But we will have to show every day and every night that we have to be better than every opponent that comes to the court.”
The caveat Prepelic adds, that Slovenia will have to constantly prove their worth, speaks a little to their experience of Tokyo 2020, where the country competed for the first time in the men’s basketball tournament.
The build-up, Prepelic remembers, was already special: “We won the first two qualifiers in Lithuania when everybody expected us to collapse there in front of 15,000 people in Kaunas. But with the amazing performance of Luka, I think that was one of the first triple-doubles in the Olympic qualifiers, we managed to get a very solid win against Lithuania. And I think with this qualification at the Olympic Games, suddenly everybody started to count us as a favourite for a medal.”
But then came the semi-final against France, where Nicholas Batum’s late heroic block on Prepelic’s final sot denied the Slovenians passage to the final. It was a moment of euphoria for the French, who would go on to take silver, and heartbreak for Slovenia, who finished in fourth.
“You cannot always win, and everything cannot be positive,” Prepelic says opening up on the match-defining moment that he was on the wrong side of.
“Sometimes you have to fall to raise yourself again. And in the national team jersey, you have a lot of nice and beautiful moments and that was that's for sure, the worst one that I have. But at the end of the day, the play was right. The play was the best we could take out of this. And unfortunately, the physicality of Batum was there, and he managed to block the shot and get the win.
“[Because of] the block by Batum on me personally we missed the final game by four maybe five centimetres, and obviously, it was hard for us.”
Nicolas Batum blocks the shot of Klemen Prepelic of Team Slovenia to win the Olympic semi-final at Tokyo 2020.
Prepelic knows that delivering the standard that has become expected of Slovenia won’t be easy at the World Cup.
A late injury to Vlatko Cancar, one of the country’s best players, has made the hill still to climb even steeper.
But, the father-of-two, spurred on by pride for his country, pride for his team-mate and pride for the occasion, says he will give it his all when the time comes:
“Being able to represent my country as an athlete, it's something huge and we cannot take it for granted. It's hard work behind that, and I will keep on pushing.”