According to the French website Franceinfo.fr, San Antonio Spurs guard Nando De Colo was withheld from practicing with the French national team Thursday due to an undisclosed injury.
However, De Colo is still expected to play in France's first exhibition game on Friday against Finland.
While the first warm-up match at Eurobasket 2013 is scheduled on Friday, Nando De Colo remained in care on Thursday, according to AFP.
[T]he nature of the injury has not been revealed by the French team's staff. This setback should not prevent him from participating in the (exhibition) game against Finland.
Though it's just presumably a minor injury for De Colo, it's a reminder that with seven Spurs players about to begin playing international basketball to represent their countries, there's always the risk of injury just before a new season in the NBA begins.
Livio Jean-Charles, the Spurs' first round pick of the 2013 NBA draft, recently injured his knee in FIBA play and will miss up to six months.
The Spurs will have to be aware of half their roster (7-of-14 players) taking part in FIBA play in the next two months as Tony Parker and Boris Diaw are also playing with France in the Eurobasket, while Marco Belinelli will play with Italy. Patty Mills and Aron Baynes will be representing Australia in the FIBA Oceania tournament while Cory Joseph will be playing for Canada down south in the FIBA Americas tournament.
Minor injury or not, this may not sit well with Spurs fans who feel international players should rest up in the offseason over putting their bodies through more rigors the month before training camp is to begin.
Still, there is the other side of the coin where fans can see why the Spurs' foreign players take pride in representing their home country.
So where do you fall Spurs fans? Do you agree with these players suiting up in the offseason or not?
