{"id":874293,"date":"2026-08-28T07:44:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T07:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/874293\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T07:44:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T07:44:19","slug":"aleksej-pokusevski-views-nba-return-as-realistic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/874293\/","title":{"rendered":"Aleksej Pokusevski Views NBA Return As &#8216;Realistic&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking to <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/meridiansport.rs\/intervjui\/aleksej-pokusevski-partizan-2\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Milun Nesovic of the Serbian outlet Meridian Sport<\/a>, former NBA first-round pick <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/p\/pokusal01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.hoopsrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-08-27_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Aleksej Pokusevski<\/a> says he thinks he has a \u201crealistic\u201d chance at making it back to the league, as <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eurohoops.net\/en\/nba-news\/2001994\/aleksej-pokusevski-on-greek-passport-and-return-to-the-nba-i-believe-this-is-something-realistic\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Stefan Acevski of Eurohoops<\/a> relays.<\/p>\n<p>A slender seven-footer from Belgrade, Serbia, Pokusevski was selected 17th overall in the 2020 draft. He spent three-and-a-half seasons with Oklahoma City before being traded to Charlotte in February 2024.<\/p>\n<p>The 24-year-old finished out the 2023\/24 campaign with the Hornets, but has been out of the NBA the past two seasons, suiting up for KK Partizan prior to <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hoopsrumors.com\/2026\/08\/international-notes-pokusevski-winston-carr-martin-gillespie.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">signing<\/a> with Lokomotiv Kuban in Russia earlier this month.<\/p>\n<p>Pokusevski acknowledged he\u2019ll need to continue to improve his game to have a shot at making it back to the NBA. He averaged 7.5 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.9 assists on .391\/.304\/.702 shooting in 168 career outings (20.4 minutes per game) and didn\u2019t make a major impact in the EuroLeague either of the past two years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI went to the NBA early and played a lot. I was both good and bad,\u201d Pokusevski told Meridian Sport. \u201cThere was a bit of everything.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter that, I came to the EuroLeague, to Partizan, where I wasn\u2019t the happiest with how everything went and how it ended. I\u2019m certainly considering a return to the NBA. I don\u2019t like to think about unrealistic things, but I believe this is something realistic, especially considering my age.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere will be time to reach that level. I don\u2019t think about the NBA every day, but it\u2019s on my mind. I need to take steps every day, not just to get to the NBA, but to reach a level where I can play good basketball with the right status, whether in Lokomotiv or some EuroLeague team. Of course, I want to be in the NBA, but that can only be achieved naturally and with good decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While his representatives talked to multiple EuroLeague teams this summer, including some in Greece, Pokusevski said he was focused on landing with a club that would enable him to play a significant role. He believes he\u2019s found that with Lokomotiv, which is coached by Tomislav Tomovic, a former professional player and coach from Serbia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaking to Milun Nesovic of the Serbian outlet Meridian Sport, former NBA first-round pick Aleksej Pokusevski says he&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":874294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[42559,49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-874293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-aleksej-pokusevski","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}