VITORIA (FIBA EuroBasket 2017) - Adam Hanga is one of the most exciting players in the Spanish Liga Endesa and Europe, a 1.99m shooting guard who serves as captain of Baskonia. A second-round pick in the NBA Draft in 2011, Hanga has remained in Europe and improved year on year his all-round game.

The 27-year-old from Budapest will be able to show a huge audience just how much he has improved when he plays for Hungary at FIBA EuroBasket 2017. Hanga put his team on the road to qualification when he poured in 32 points in the team's first qualifier this summer, a 96-77 victory at home over Great Britain.

The Hungarians won all six of their qualifying games. They will play Group Phase games in Romania, after being chosen as a partner federation by that country for the tournament. Hanga has spoken to FIBA.com.

Has it sunk in yet that for the first time in a long time, Hungary will be one of the teams at EuroBasket?
It was one of the goals of my career. Obviously the national team was not at EuroBasket for nearly 20 years, so it's a really big thing for us and I'm really glad that I was part of the team, finally. The last two or three years, I wasn't able to play because of my injuries, and also I played well (this summer), so it was a double win.

What's the pressure going to be like in Romania?
We're going to prepare well for the European Championship. It's going to be a different thing. We're going to face the best teams and I think there is a little bit more pressure on us now. It's one thing to be at a European Championship and now, we have to show that we deserve to be there. We don't want to lose all the games by 20 or 30 points so we have to be really focused. I have a really long season before that so hopefully I can stay healthy and help the team.

Did it help Hungary's confidence heading into this summer to know that teams like Finland and the Netherlands had been recent participants? The Netherlands were also very competitive at the tournament last year.
No, we have been playing against these teams like Finland before, like three or four times and it was really close. But no, we weren't thinking about that. We were thinking about ourselves and just going game by game in qualifying, our game. I really enjoyed our summer.

The biggest thing for Hungary, other than having all the players remain healthy, is to be ready to go from the first day of training camp?
Yes. Now we know that we're going to play in Romania and hopefully a lot of fans are going to come and be with us and support us and for sure, they're going to come. But we need to be focused. Our goal has to be that we're going to make the next round. That has to be our goal. This is going to be good for Hungarian basketball because now, everyone is going to see what we can do in European competition.

FIBA