Philadelphia 76ers guard Furkan Korkmaz found himself in the middle of a scuffle and an altercation on Sunday at EuroBasket 2022 when playing for his native country of Turkey.
He got into an on-court scuffle with Georgian forward Duda Sanadze that led to Korkmaz being followed into the tunnel by Georgian players and security personnel.
To clear the air, Korkmaz talked to BasketNews:
“You saw a little part of what happened on the court,” Korkmaz began his statement. “We got into each other face to face, and he started talking (expletive) to me. I’m not gonna let anyone talk (expletive) to my face.”
“In the game, yeah. It’s part of the game. You talk something and say something back, but the thing he said wasn’t something I’ll let slide. I reacted as a human being, as a player and as a man,” Korkmaz added.
It was revealed the three Georgian players who followed Korkmaz into the tunnel were Sanadze, former NBA player Tornike Shengelia and current Indiana Pacers big man Goga Bitadze.
Korkmaz then detailed what happened in the tunnel to BasketNews:
“When I was walking to the tunnel, our conditioning guy was with me. As soon as we walked out of the tunnel and were trying to reach the locker room, I saw three Georgian players alongside two security guys running at us. We started throwing punches at each other. That’s basically what happened,” Korkmaz said.
“It was like a street fight. There was no talk or conversation. People just came at us and were trying to attack us. Of course, we reacted and tried to defend ourselves – exactly what we are going to do as men. I also think it’s a security problem. But I don’t know if it’s a security problem or if they just showed tolerance to their players.
We understand that they’re at home, but this is unacceptable. What happens on the court is fine, but we should talk more about what happens off the court,” Korkmaz continued.
It appears that Korkmaz is OK, but it remains to be seen what happens moving forward. Hopefully, he can continue to play safely and not worry about anything else like this happening again.
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