Brazilian trio still in doubt for FIBA Championship

Aug 1, 2007 - 9:10 PM RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Ticker) -- The participation of NBA players Nene, Anderson Varejao and Rafael Araujo at the FIBA Americas Championship remains in doubt.

The Brazilian Basketball Confederation (CBB) as of Wednesday had yet to pay insurance to each player's respective NBA teams.

The CBB has 13 days left to solve the problem if they want the trio to play in the tournament, which will be held in Las Vegas between August 22 and September 2.

Brazil will try to clinch one of two automatic berths at next year's Beijing Olympics. Phoenix Suns guard Leandro Barbosa and New Orleans Hornets forward Marcus Vinicius both have been cleared to play as the CBB already has paid their insurance costs.

But Nene of the Denver Nuggets, Varejao of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Araujo of the Utah Jazz still are waiting to see if they also can appear.

CBB president Gerasime Bozikis remains confident it will all be sorted out.

"We'll manage one case and then another one, but there is no Plan B," he said. "We count on all the players for the pre-Olympic tournament. Denver has not set the amount of money we have to deposit (for Nene), but although they haven't done that yet, I think we'll sort it in 48 hours' time.

"We'll solve everything in time."