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Steve007 Franchise Player
Joined: 21 Jul 2006 Posts: 13228
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Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2019 12:51 am Post subject: |
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Quote: | Ten days into the tournament, the U.S. is averaging just 87 points per game, only eighth best in the 32-team field. Frankly, it's remarkable that the team ranks as high as that, with a woeful 20th in field goal percentage at just 42.6% and 18th in 3-point percentage at 32.8%. With the closer 3-point line in FIBA play, that is a disappointing number to say the least. |
Quote: | The Americans have been one of the World Cup's best defensive teams, giving up just 64 points a game on a very impressive 36% shooting. |
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Aeneas Hunter Retired Number
Joined: 12 Jul 2005 Posts: 31763
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Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2019 8:48 am Post subject: |
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So we qualified for the Olympics. No matter what happens in the last three games, we won't need to worry about that. I'm ambivalent toward international competitions just in general, but at least we won't have to deal with the angst of a qualifying tournament. |
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Aeneas Hunter Retired Number
Joined: 12 Jul 2005 Posts: 31763
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Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 7:15 am Post subject: |
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Nobody wrote: | Steve007 wrote: | jonnybravo wrote: | Aeneas Hunter wrote: | From what I've read, it sounds like Turkey choked this one away.
When and if we crash out of this tournament, I wonder whether this will generate the same level of angst as before. I'm not sure that it will. Some people will freak out, but I think a lot more people will just shrug this time around. |
The stakes aren't as high as say the Finals or Olympics but this might be among the all time worse choke jobs. Missed 4 free throws in overtime. Fouling a 3 point shooter at the end of regulation while up 2. |
I think this tournament is taken more seriously by a lot of the fans of other countries. On YouTube it seems like I’m seeing a ton of comments from European fans, with most of them rooting for the US to lose. They keep saying Serbia is going to destroy the US. But many of them thought Greece would beat the US and that didn’t happen. |
Serbia just got their behinds handed to them by what seems like a rejuvenated Spanish team. It was 20-13 Serbia after Q1 and then the wheels came right off. They might be one of the favourites to win, but I doubt they destroy the US. |
Serbia just lost its quarterfinal against Argentina. That’s who we play if we beat France. The other side of the bracket will be Spain vs. Australia/Czech Republic. |
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Nobody Star Player
Joined: 13 Sep 2008 Posts: 5737 Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia
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Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 10:05 am Post subject: |
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Steve007 wrote: | Nobody wrote: | Steve007 wrote: | jonnybravo wrote: | Aeneas Hunter wrote: | From what I've read, it sounds like Turkey choked this one away.
When and if we crash out of this tournament, I wonder whether this will generate the same level of angst as before. I'm not sure that it will. Some people will freak out, but I think a lot more people will just shrug this time around. |
The stakes aren't as high as say the Finals or Olympics but this might be among the all time worse choke jobs. Missed 4 free throws in overtime. Fouling a 3 point shooter at the end of regulation while up 2. |
I think this tournament is taken more seriously by a lot of the fans of other countries. On YouTube it seems like I’m seeing a ton of comments from European fans, with most of them rooting for the US to lose. They keep saying Serbia is going to destroy the US. But many of them thought Greece would beat the US and that didn’t happen. |
Serbia just got their behinds handed to them by what seems like a rejuvenated Spanish team. It was 20-13 Serbia after Q1 and then the wheels came right off. They might be one of the favourites to win, but I doubt they destroy the US. |
I think it’s a lot of wishful thinking on their part. They are tired of seeing the US easily win this tournament (and in the Olympics too) and will root for any team that plays the US. |
I see a lot of that back home also. I take no pride in rooting against the US, in fact I usually pull for them, at leaast when my country doesn't play (which is the case this year). I grew up watching the NBA and it translated to international competition. |
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Nobody Star Player
Joined: 13 Sep 2008 Posts: 5737 Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia
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Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 10:07 am Post subject: |
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Aeneas Hunter wrote: | Nobody wrote: | Steve007 wrote: | jonnybravo wrote: | Aeneas Hunter wrote: | From what I've read, it sounds like Turkey choked this one away.
When and if we crash out of this tournament, I wonder whether this will generate the same level of angst as before. I'm not sure that it will. Some people will freak out, but I think a lot more people will just shrug this time around. |
The stakes aren't as high as say the Finals or Olympics but this might be among the all time worse choke jobs. Missed 4 free throws in overtime. Fouling a 3 point shooter at the end of regulation while up 2. |
I think this tournament is taken more seriously by a lot of the fans of other countries. On YouTube it seems like I’m seeing a ton of comments from European fans, with most of them rooting for the US to lose. They keep saying Serbia is going to destroy the US. But many of them thought Greece would beat the US and that didn’t happen. |
Serbia just got their behinds handed to them by what seems like a rejuvenated Spanish team. It was 20-13 Serbia after Q1 and then the wheels came right off. They might be one of the favourites to win, but I doubt they destroy the US. |
Serbia just lost its quarterfinal against Argentina. That’s who we play if we beat France. The other side of the bracket will be Spain vs. Australia/Czech Republic. |
Quite a shocker. They got schooled by Facundo Campazzo, who plays backup PG for Real Madrid when Llull is injured (and who is mostly known for his reckless play), and a 39-year old Luis Scola, who hasn't played a meaningful game in 2 years. |
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Steve007 Franchise Player
Joined: 21 Jul 2006 Posts: 13228
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 4:04 am Post subject: |
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US team is in big trouble. France up 10 early in the second half and this might even turn into a blowout the way it is going.
Edit: US team finally bringing some defense into this game.
Last edited by Steve007 on Wed Sep 11, 2019 4:46 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Steve007 Franchise Player
Joined: 21 Jul 2006 Posts: 13228
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 4:45 am Post subject: |
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France is really going to win this. |
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Aeneas Hunter Retired Number
Joined: 12 Jul 2005 Posts: 31763
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 5:04 am Post subject: |
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Well, at least we got Olympic qualification out of the way. |
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yinoma2001 Retired Number
Joined: 19 Jun 2010 Posts: 119487
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 6:15 am Post subject: |
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At least they won't have to go to the White House to celebrate a FIBA championship. _________________ From 2-10 to the Western Conference Finals |
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lakersken80 Retired Number
Joined: 12 Aug 2009 Posts: 38803
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 6:19 am Post subject: |
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History repeats itself once again. Bring your C-level squad to a major competition and expect C level results. |
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TDRock Retired Number
Joined: 27 May 2010 Posts: 49282 Location: LA to the Bay
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 6:29 am Post subject: |
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So I just read we got bounced already. Not our best tourney to put it nicely... |
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adkindo Retired Number
Joined: 16 Jun 2005 Posts: 40345 Location: Dirty South
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 8:10 am Post subject: |
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lakersken80 wrote: | History repeats itself once again. Bring your C-level squad to a major competition and expect C level results. |
honestly, I wish we would take this same group to the Olympics....just not ready to get behind the narrative of all the guys that did not have time for USA basketball this summer to take the role as the hero's to save the day in 2020. It appeared all the French NBA players had time to represent their country for World Cup. |
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Aeneas Hunter Retired Number
Joined: 12 Jul 2005 Posts: 31763
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 9:48 am Post subject: |
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I don't know about comparing foreign players to American NBA players. For NBA players from France or Serbia or Spain, the World Cup and the Olympics are the only opportunity to connect with your home country. I can see why it would be more important to them. For American NBA players, national team duty is a side show. |
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vedanta Starting Rotation
Joined: 27 May 2009 Posts: 947
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 10:13 am Post subject: |
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Aeneas Hunter wrote: | I don't know about comparing foreign players to American NBA players. For NBA players from France or Serbia or Spain, the World Cup and the Olympics are the only opportunity to connect with your home country. I can see why it would be more important to them. For American NBA players, national team duty is a side show. |
Well, I don´t think that is the case anymore, and also I don´t think that those guys who could enjoy some well needed summer rest wanted to attend the World Championship just to have fun. They wanted to compete. They just were not good enough, and there was a reason for it.
I am from Spain, and after years and years of watching FIBA and NBA basketball I have an opinion about both kind of styles: obviously most of the greatest physical talents are in the NBA, but this distance is getting shorter at a huge rate. Plus, and this is the most important thing, and a good lesson to be learnt from the NBA: Synergy. Spain almost beat (and would have done it without the refs bias in Beijing) two of the three most powerful teams of all time (USA team in 2008 in Beijing and 2012 in London), with only Pau Gasol as a superstar, and only three or four NBA players, none of them stars.The rest were average players who could never play in the NBA. But they knew to behave like one individual force, with no egos, no ISO ball, no "time for our star to take over", etc. FIBA teams are much, much more than the sum of their individualities, which is usually not the case in the NBA. |
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lakersken80 Retired Number
Joined: 12 Aug 2009 Posts: 38803
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 11:07 am Post subject: |
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Aeneas Hunter wrote: | I don't know about comparing foreign players to American NBA players. For NBA players from France or Serbia or Spain, the World Cup and the Olympics are the only opportunity to connect with your home country. I can see why it would be more important to them. For American NBA players, national team duty is a side show. |
The FIBA tournament doesn't have the publicity of the Olympics, so I think this loss will fly under the radar. I don't think it will be an emergency situation like the aftermath of the Athens 2004 disaster where they ended up getting the best players to show up for the 2008 Olympics. |
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yinoma2001 Retired Number
Joined: 19 Jun 2010 Posts: 119487
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 11:29 am Post subject: |
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You know every top American player will be jumping at the chance to join the 2020 Olympics team. Lots of endorsement/marketing opportunities; less so for FIBA with all the downsides of injury/fatigue.
It's interesting to see who the post-LBJ/KD, etc. USA team will be. Those guys simply dominated international play. Now we have guys like Giannis/Jokic/Embiid who are non American players who are in the top 12 in the NBA. Could a team in 2024 take down the USA Olympic team? It's not so far fetched, but thankfully, you won't see a team with Giannis/Jokic/Embiid on it as they would be dispersed. But the world talent in terms of team ball is catching up again. _________________ From 2-10 to the Western Conference Finals |
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Aeneas Hunter Retired Number
Joined: 12 Jul 2005 Posts: 31763
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 1:11 pm Post subject: |
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yinoma2001 wrote: | You know every top American player will be jumping at the chance to join the 2020 Olympics team. |
It will be interesting to see how it unfolds. I won't be surprised if we see guys begging off again. When the top players are making $30M+, will they still be jumping at the chance to play on Team USA? It's fun to think of a team with, say, Towns, Davis, Leonard, Harden, and Curry, but I suspect that it will be tough to get those guys to sign on. |
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Steve007 Franchise Player
Joined: 21 Jul 2006 Posts: 13228
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 2:38 pm Post subject: |
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vedanta wrote: | Aeneas Hunter wrote: | I don't know about comparing foreign players to American NBA players. For NBA players from France or Serbia or Spain, the World Cup and the Olympics are the only opportunity to connect with your home country. I can see why it would be more important to them. For American NBA players, national team duty is a side show. |
Well, I don´t think that is the case anymore, and also I don´t think that those guys who could enjoy some well needed summer rest wanted to attend the World Championship just to have fun. They wanted to compete. They just were not good enough, and there was a reason for it.
I am from Spain, and after years and years of watching FIBA and NBA basketball I have an opinion about both kind of styles: obviously most of the greatest physical talents are in the NBA, but this distance is getting shorter at a huge rate. Plus, and this is the most important thing, and a good lesson to be learnt from the NBA: Synergy. Spain almost beat (and would have done it without the refs bias in Beijing) two of the three most powerful teams of all time (USA team in 2008 in Beijing and 2012 in London), with only Pau Gasol as a superstar, and only three or four NBA players, none of them stars.The rest were average players who could never play in the NBA. But they knew to behave like one individual force, with no egos, no ISO ball, no "time for our star to take over", etc. FIBA teams are much, much more than the sum of their individualities, which is usually not the case in the NBA. |
Marc Gasol was on the 2008 and 2012 teams and he wasn’t a star but he was pretty damn good. Ibaka was on the 2012 team. Is any country as good as those Spain teams? |
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Steve007 Franchise Player
Joined: 21 Jul 2006 Posts: 13228
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 2:46 pm Post subject: |
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yinoma2001 wrote: | You know every top American player will be jumping at the chance to join the 2020 Olympics team. Lots of endorsement/marketing opportunities; less so for FIBA with all the downsides of injury/fatigue.
It's interesting to see who the post-LBJ/KD, etc. USA team will be. Those guys simply dominated international play. Now we have guys like Giannis/Jokic/Embiid who are non American players who are in the top 12 in the NBA. Could a team in 2024 take down the USA Olympic team? It's not so far fetched, but thankfully, you won't see a team with Giannis/Jokic/Embiid on it as they would be dispersed. But the world talent in terms of team ball is catching up again. |
Around a decade ago there were guys like Nowotzki, Yao Ming, Ginóbili and the Gasol brothers playing for other countries. The 2002 and 2004 US teams struggled in international play and a 2006 team with Lebron, Wade, Bosh, CP3, Dwight, Carmelo, etc. didn’t look great and lost in the semifinals. That team had a lot more major stars show up including the big 3 that would win titles in Miami.
Has the gap really closed that much? Or is it just that there are more countries that can play basketball at a higher level? |
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Kobesystem Starting Rotation
Joined: 29 Dec 2018 Posts: 641
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 4:24 pm Post subject: |
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Fake max players
Fake leaders.... |
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audioaxes Franchise Player
Joined: 26 Apr 2004 Posts: 12573
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 5:07 pm Post subject: |
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Feel bad for these players. They rep'd the USA when so many declined and had very little fan fare through the process. If you win, people would barely notice and shrug it off as "well you were supposed to win" If you lose you become an easy punching bag to mock for years to come. (Lebronze?) _________________ (bleep) Kawhi |
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Aeneas Hunter Retired Number
Joined: 12 Jul 2005 Posts: 31763
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 6:24 pm Post subject: |
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Steve007 wrote: | Has the gap really closed that much? Or is it just that there are more countries that can play basketball at a higher level? |
Both. On the first point, imagine a Ryder Cup style series with the other team featuring Jokic, Gobert, Giannis, and Siakam in the paint, and Wiggins, Simmons, Rubio, Dragic, Gallinari, Mills, and Schroder on the perimeter. I am probably forgetting a few, and I am not counting guys like Horford and Towns (who I forgot is actually Dominican). We would have big problems in that series. This would not have been true twenty years ago. There were international stars, from Hakeem to Mutombo to Dirk and Nash, but never that much depth of quality.
On the second point, the major international powers are mostly the same countries as before, but now we are seeing rising teams like Turkey and the Czech Republic. |
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lakersken80 Retired Number
Joined: 12 Aug 2009 Posts: 38803
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 6:25 pm Post subject: |
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Kobesystem wrote: | Fake max players
Fake leaders.... |
I wouldn't even put the blame that much on the players on the FIBA team.....
When you know you have superstar players (afterall who wants to risk their health on a tournament that means very little to their career), but they don't want to be bothered and want to rest up for the NBA season, this is what you get....a team composed of very young NBA players, little to no chemistry, and a poor result as expected. |
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PRLakeShow Franchise Player
Joined: 07 Oct 2016 Posts: 10460
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 6:38 pm Post subject: |
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It's always been crazy to me how some international teams can hang with, sometimes very rarely, beat USA. It's a team full of NBA stars regardless if it's All-NBA guys, All-Stars or just role players vs. Maybe one or two NBA players and a bunch of unknowns. Well at least unknown to us.
I don't know. Maybe the talent gap is not as huge between the NBA and let's say the Spanish league. I remember a guy named Juan Carlos Navarro. Only played a year in the NBA. By all accounts this guy is a "scrub" yet when it came to international ball this guy was a stud. How does that happen? Why didn't this guy stick in the NBA? |
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audioaxes Franchise Player
Joined: 26 Apr 2004 Posts: 12573
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 8:42 pm Post subject: |
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part of it is the style of play allowed in FIBA/Olympics. THe advantage of raw athleticism is tempered due to defenses being able to pack the paint.
In many games it becomes a matter of who shot the ball better where any team can have a good or bad game doing.
Case in point is the redeem team... a top 2/3 all time greatest collection of talent on a team. That team had some dream-team style blowouts, fueled by tons of transition points. But in the Gold Medal game when Spain slowed the pace down and took extra care of the ball, the game went to the wire. _________________ (bleep) Kawhi |
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