Basketball Without Borders will have two Chicago Bulls big men, Cristiano Felicio and Lauri Markkanen, among the coaches at this year’s camp.
With a lot of the NBA’s attention turning to the 2020 NBA All-Star Game which will be hosted at the home of the Chicago Bulls at the United Center, there’s two players on this team that will be participating in another key event. The Bulls only have one representative when they’re set to host All-Star Weekend this year. That one participating is shooting guard Zach LaVine, who is taking part in the three-point shootout.
However, two other Bulls players that will be attempting to make an impact for the game of basketball away from All-Star Weekend is something to commend too. Power forwards Cristiano Felicio and Lauri Markkanen will reportedly be coaches at Basketball Without Borders while most of the hoops world will be watching All-Star Weekend.
The report that Felicio will be joining Markkanen as a coach at the Basketball Without Borders global camp from the Twitter timeline of K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago on Feb. 13.
NBA has added Bulls C Cristiano Felicio as coach for Friday's Basketball Without Borders global camp that Lauri Markkanen was already signed up for.
— K.C. Johnson (@KCJHoop) February 13, 2020
Basketball Without Borders is part of the NBA Global initiative. This part of the initiative began in 2001, and is a joint effort with FIBA. Some years saw the camps hosted in at least three or four different cities around the world.
The camp MVP at Basketball Without Borders last year is potential lottery pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, Deni Avdija. He was actually one of the camp MVP’s in each of the last two years of the event. Last year, the event was held in Charlotte, NC.
Notable former Bulls have coached at this camp before, including small forward Luol Deng and shooting guard Kyle Korver. Among the more notable former participants in the camp are Pascal Siakam of the Toronto Raptors, Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers, and Nikola Mirotic of the Bulls and Milwaukee Bucks.
Felicio and Markkanen are included among the coaches at Basketball Without Borders this year largely due to the fact that it’s being hosted in Chicago. Other coaches at the event reportedly will be Davis Bertans of the Washington Wizards, Tacko Fall of the Boston Celtics, and Siakam. The event will take place from Feb. 14-16.