Furkan Korkmaz Details ‘Street Fight’ at EuroBasket
In all of the years Furkan Korkmaz has played for the Philadelphia 76ers, the veteran sharpshooter hasn't built a reputation of being an enforcer-type of player.
But that doesn't mean the young veteran will back down from a heated moment.
Korkmaz proved that much over the weekend as he competed with the Turkish national team at the 2022 EuroBasket games.
In a matchup against Georgia, Korkmaz got into a heated altercation in the final seconds of the matchup. Clips of the heated on-court exchange surfaced on the net after it went down. Not too long after Korkmaz was ejected from the game, the Sixers veteran was reportedly attacked on his way back to the locker room.
"While Furkan Korkmaz was walking in the hallway to the locker rooms with our trainer, Georgia's players who were not in the active roster attacked him together with the ejected player and the police," said Turkish federation Vice President, according to EuroHoops.net. "There should not be an attack on the player that goes to the locker room. At the end of the match, 30 policemen each pushed us into a fight. We got into a fight with Georgia's official police."
After the dust settled, Korkmaz spoke to BasketNews, and described the incident as "like a street fight."
"When I was talking 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," Korkmaz explained. "We started throwing punches at each other. That's basically what happened. It was like a street fight. There was no talk or conversation. People just came at us and were trying to attack us."
Korkmaz claimed the on-court incident stemmed from his opponent talking trash as the game was winding down. The Sixers sharpshooter downplayed what happened on the court and described it as "part of the game."
Everything else beyond that was Korkmaz defending himself. "We reacted and tried to defend ourselves," Korkmaz continued. "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,"
In Omer Onan's public statement, the VP demanded security footage from the incident that took place. If the Turkish VP is not presented with the unedited footage, then the Turkish national team will leave the 2022 EuroBakset tournament early, ending Korkmaz's summer run overseas.
Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for All76ers, a Sports Illustrated channel. You can follow him for live updates on Twitter: @JGrasso_.
