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Message: [QUOTE="awhom111, post: 4746780, member: 8683"] EuroBasket and all of the other continental events are every other year with the World Cup and Olympics filling the two other years of each four year cycle. As you mentioned in an earlier post, qualifying games for EuroBasket are played during the November and February national team breaks that most top division leagues in Europe observe. Meesseman did not sign in the WNBA this season, both to participate in Belgium's entire training camp and to be available for the start of the season for her club team Fenerbahce (since she is not an American citizen, the lower tax rate in Turkey means that playing there is even more relatively financially beneficial to her). Obviously Meesseman is a big enough star that Belgium would accommodate her if she asked to wait until the prioritization-compliant window to report, but among resourced national federations, you are generally considered a bad teammate if you are not at least physically there and team chemistry is important at EuroBasket. Italy had some controversy this summer when the federation allowed Lorela Cubaj to skip part of training camp to try to keep her WNBA roster spot. Hungary's coach knew that Dorka would be risking her WNBA contract to play in EuroBasket so there was an understanding that they will wait until November to call her up to the squad. [/QUOTE]