State of the Union. Team Canada Basketball. (FIBA Americas Aug.31-Sep.15)

[frumble]

I'm guessing the team will be a mix of NCAA guys and non-NBA pros. Guys like Murray and XRM will probably be counted on by Canada Basketball.

You mean the June 2020 Olympic last-chance qualifying tournament team? Or the teams for the six qualifying windows for the 2019 Worlds? NCAA players won't be available for five of those - they will be on campus.

Murray will be in the NBA by then. If XRM is in Europe perhaps he will be in the guard mix for the Worlds qualifying windows.

[SpiderMunn]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95fyBx3vCvU[/youtube]

[tout court]

Does anyone know what the eff prompted FIBA to change its qualifying schedule? You'd think Steph Blather or whatever his name is had moved over from FIFA to FIBA.

But this is not European football here where leagues take breaks during qualifiers. Does anyone know what is going to happen in Europe during these qualifying windows?

I'd heard something about this and appreciate the clarification.

By the way, wasn't the last cut supposed to be announced today? Glad there is a bit of a save Hanlan movement on here, if nowhere else. It's amazing that even when stakes are so high coaching staffs can have their biases.

[frumble]

Does anyone know what the eff prompted FIBA to change its qualifying schedule? You'd think Steph Blather or whatever his name is had moved over from FIFA to FIBA.

I think the main rationale was to switch the basketball World Cup by one year to avoid competing with the soccer World Cup. That means basketball World Cup and Olympics will now be in back-to-back years, so they couldn't stick with current system of qualifying being in the summer before the tournament in question. They could have still stuck with something close to the current system:
Summer 2018, qualifying for World Cup.
Summer 2019, World Cup (with placement at Worlds determining some qualifying spots for Olympics)
Summer 2020, last chance Olympic qualifying for the remaining Olympic spots
Summer 2020, Olympics

But they decided to go with the 6 qualifying windows to try and increase exposure.

Here is what FIBA says the rationale is:

Benefits of the new system

Improved basketball exposure: More than 140 countries playing – 1,250 regular and meaningful games.

New interest for basketball: Regular official national team games in front of their home fans.

Player-friendly system with one free summer: Maximises the chance of having international stars in the flagship FIBA tournaments.

Opportunity for new countries and players to emerge through regular official games.

All-year regular visibility of the national team, not only in summer time – creating synergies with club competitions.

Improved structure of lead-up to flagship national team tournaments: Clear “Road to” the main FIBA competitions.

Enhanced potential for commercial and media partners to be associated with the national teams and the main FIBA competitions.

Development of National Federations, giving them own assets, new tools and more resources.

Increased media exposure and promotion for national team basketball – generating benefits across all FIBA Zones.

But this is not European football here where leagues take breaks during qualifiers. Does anyone know what is going to happen in Europe during these qualifying windows?

I'd heard something about this and appreciate the clarification.

FIBA has been vague on this, but I think they are hoping that the European, Asian, and Latin American leagues will be open to letting players take some time off from their club seasons to play qualifying games.

From FIBA FAQ:

Will the best players from the NBA and the Euroleague be available to play during the qualification windows?

The NBA players would be available during the windows outside the NBA season, i.e. in June (except for the players involved in the NBA Finals) and in September. FIBA will hold talks with other leagues worldwide to ensure the participation of the best players in the qualification process.
This new format maximises the chance of having the stars of the NBA and Euroleague as well as all leading international players participate in the main FIBA events (FIBA Basketball World Cup, Olympic Games and Continental/Zone Championships).


If the NBA players don’t play, the level of the games will not be good...

Of course it would be desirable to have the NBA players always playing. However, there are many other good players. Furthermore, the qualification games would provide a new platform to grow new talents: it’s a great opportunity to develop new stars. Additionally, a national team is a brand which creates interest.


If the national teams play most of the qualification games without their NBA players, the result might change and some great basketball nation might not qualify for the main events?

The same rules apply to all national teams, so it’s fair competition. Basketball powerhouses can count on enough good players to still qualify for the main event where they will be able to compete with their best team. In addition, the FIBA Basketball World Cup will feature in future 32 instead of 24 teams.

By the way, wasn't the last cut supposed to be announced today? Glad there is a bit of a save Hanlan movement on here, if nowhere else. It's amazing that even when stakes are so high coaching staffs can have their biases.

Yeah, I think it was widely reported that last cut would be made Friday.

This guy is now saying that it will be by end of weekend (I think hard deadline is 24 hrs before tournament starts, which would mean Sunday afternoon), and that he expects it to be Hanlan:

http://www.canhoops.blog.com

[tout court]

Per Wolstat looks as though Hanlan just got hacked, and not in the good way.

Thanks Frumble, as always, for the information regarding FIBA's rationale for changing the qualifying schedule. I'm not sure why the individual federations would have gone along with this. Maybe Belgium and Tunisia and most of the countries in the world that don't produce NBA players don't care, but I hope Canada Basketball was opposed.

As soon I see the word bs-word synergies I know some sports bureaucrat has been reading too many pop management books and I frankly hope the whole thing blows up in their face.

[frumble]

Wow. I guess I shouldn't be that surprised given the lack of opportunity he got at Marchand, but I am still very disappointed. I think Triano and staff are taking a significant and completely unnecessary risk. I don't think I have ever seen roster construction like this (4 guards, 1.5 SFs, and 6.5 bigs) at a FIBA event. I can't believe we are about to play 10 games in 12 days with a roster with only 4 guards.



Re qualifying change, I agree - Canada Basketball should have completely opposed this. It hurts us more than anyone. US has enough depth to send a D-leauge all star team and still qualify. And the Latin American teams are more likely to have their top players in domestic or European leagues that may work out an agreement with FIBA. We will lose our top 8 to 12 players. Puerto Rico, DR, Mexico, etc. will lose one to two each.

[curryking3]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95fyBx3vCvU[/youtube]

"Please use our free healthcare" when Wiggins dunks on you lmao... XD

And lol @Cojo being Drake XD

[jonny three time]

Re qualifying change, I agree - Canada Basketball should have completely opposed this. It hurts us more than anyone. US has enough depth to send a D-leauge all star team and still qualify. And the Latin American teams are more likely to have their top players in domestic or European leagues that may work out an agreement with FIBA. We will lose our top 8 to 12 players. Puerto Rico, DR, Mexico, etc. will lose one to two each.

Sure, but how do you make the argument for that? Canada isn't at some inherent disadvantage because of our geography or political structure or anything like that. Our disadvantage is simply an odd imbalance in our current talent makeup. For a country that has around 10 NBA players right now, we should have huge talent pool of "not quite" NBA talents to choose from. We don't though and it really comes down to chance more than some disadvantage we will always have.

Hopefully Team Canada brass can get the Rautins, Shepperd, Hanlan types to still show for those qualifiers despite not being on the main team and get guys like Kris Joseph back into the fold. Our 2nd tier talent isn't that bad, but we need everyone who's of that caliber to show up or its slim pickings for an entire rotation.

[tout court]

Hope Sacre can bring the ball up in a pinch.

What an asinine decision and I would derive more than a little schadenfreude if this blew up in Triano's face.

You can run all the Spurs' motion offence that you want but with stiffs like Sacre and Doornekamp there is no system that can overcome individual shortcomings.

As for Canada Basketball, the onus is still on FIBA to justify this change beyond the paltry rationale provided for a system that seemed to work fine for years. And from the results I can see from Afrobasket tourney this decision will mean the likes of Dieng, Aminu, etc will also not be able to play for their respective countries.

The closest parallel to this I can see is the stupidity the OUA has engaged in in the name of almighty synergies and in the process destroying the decades old conference system and the rivalries that existed and emerged from it. Now Sportsnet is showing even fewer games, attendance at the schools is still dismal, but hey, the OUA website can now stream McMaster v. Algoma in the middle of February. Well yippee yay yeah, I'm sure sunsets from Turks and Caicos are still drawing a larger viewership.

[frumble]

Sure, but how do you make the argument for that? Canada isn't at some inherent disadvantage because of our geography or political structure or anything like that. Our disadvantage is simply an odd imbalance in our current talent makeup. For a country that has around 10 NBA players right now, we should have huge talent pool of "not quite" NBA talents to choose from. We don't though and it really comes down to chance more than some disadvantage we will always have.

Hopefully Team Canada brass can get the Rautins, Shepperd, Hanlan types to still show for those qualifiers despite not being on the main team and get guys like Kris Joseph back into the fold. Our 2nd tier talent isn't that bad, but we need everyone who's of that caliber to show up or its slim pickings for an entire rotation.

I think Canada is at an inherent disadvantage for linguistic, cultural, and geographic reasons, and that it is not an odd imbalance in our current talent makeup. Most of our NBA players are fringe NBA players. We had only one NBA starter last season and arguably three rotation guys (Olynyk, Thompson, and Joseph (and even he was the 3rd PG)). The vast majority of our NBA guys are fringe NBA guys. Of the nine NBA guys on our FIBA roster, six were fringe - Sacre, Nicholson, Bennett, Ejim, Powell, and Stauskas.

Guys of that caliber face a difficult decision - be the 10th to 15th guy on an NBA roster, or play in a different league. The decision is influenced in part by language, culture, and geography. A guy from Europe, all else equal, is less likely to want to shuttle between Dallas and Bakersfield, living in a different culture thousands of miles from home, instead of playing in a top Euro league closer to home. For a guy like Powell, the equation is different. He has been in the US since he was 15, has no language or culture issues to deal with, and is a short flight from his family in Boston and Toronto.

I think the European and Latin American countries have their share of Powell- and Nicholson-like players, but they are more likely to be in non-NBA leagues.

You see the same thing in hockey - a lot of Euros that are good enough to be 4th line NHLers prefer to play in leagues closer to home.


In any case, while I think all that is true, it need not have been part of Canada's lobbying effort against the new system. Canada should have simply pointed out that the new system will reduce the talent available at the qualifying tourney and therefore the World Cup and perhaps the Olympics. It is bad for FIBA as a whole.

[tout court]

Moreover, if FIBA is so interested in brands, synergies and growing the game then the best way to do that is to maintain continuity for the 'casual' fan.

College basketball, and its stagnation, is a prime example of this in the era of "one-and-done" and at least a partial reason why Kaminsky/Wisconsin garnered such interest this past year was because we saw these players develop and had a sense that we were getting to know them over a multi-year span.

So Canada, the US, France et all are going to send one set of players to the qualifiers and then another group to the marquee events. It seems stupid to me if you want fans to feel connected to their teams/players and the game in general.

[SharoneWright]

Hanlan as a combo guard was sooo invaluable to this team. Kid's young. Can run all day. Take up minutes. Play both positions. Will defer to the bigger names.

But the Nash/Triano mutual admiration society seems to like the status of having X# NBA names on the team. They're not cutting Sacre... he's a Laker! Jay LOVES Doornekamp and for some reason needs Ejim on the team as a 4th power forward.

The fact that they've re-labelled Wiggins as a "W" on basketball.ca suggests they're gonna give him significant minutes at the 2. If so, is Jay suddenly going to give Ejim Wiggins' minutes at the SF spot? Something he's staunchly resisted until now? Dude must hate Hanlan at his natural position even more than he's shown himself to hate Ejim at the 3. And all for what? To have Wiggins and Doornekamp/Ejim on the floor together as opposed to any of Stauskas/Heslip/Hanlan and Wiggins on the floor together??? Like really?

I've hated the structure of Jay under Steve ever since it was announced. It's a mini-circle-jerk subject to no apparent criticism or outside perspective.

[curryking3]

Why do I get the feeling our team is going to perform horribly at FIBA by reading these posts....?

[bokbok]

Coverage runs Aug. 31 – Sept. 12 on TSN, beginning with the tournament opener featuring Cuba vs. Venezuela on Monday, Aug. 31 at 12:55 p.m. ET on TSN2. Canada’s preliminary round games are as follows (see below for complete broadcast schedule):

Canada Argentina – Tuesday, Sept. 1 at 3 p.m. ET on TSN4 and TSN5
Cuba Canada – Wednesday, Sept. 2 at 3 p.m. ET on TSN4 and TSN5
Canada Venezuela – Thursday, Sept. 3 at 6:55 p.m. ET on TSN4
Puerto Rico Canada – Friday, Sept. 4 at 6:55 p.m. ET on TSN4 and TSN5

Play-by-play commentating duties will be shared by Rod Black and Dan Shulman, alongside analyst Leo Rautins, with Jack Armstrong contributing analysis live from the TSN Studio.

http://www.basketball.ca/en/news-article/tsn-announces-fiba-americas-broadcast-schedule

Argentina is probably one of the better teams in this tournament, so Canada starts off immediately with a tough test. If they can beat Argentina convincingly I think it's a safe bet Canada is qualifying for Rio 2016.

[Alfred]

Oh nice, we'll have Dan Shulman doing commentary.

[arbsn]

Coverage runs Aug. 31 – Sept. 12 on TSN, beginning with the tournament opener featuring Cuba vs. Venezuela on Monday, Aug. 31 at 12:55 p.m. ET on TSN2. Canada’s preliminary round games are as follows (see below for complete broadcast schedule):

Canada Argentina – Tuesday, Sept. 1 at 3 p.m. ET on TSN4 and TSN5
Cuba Canada – Wednesday, Sept. 2 at 3 p.m. ET on TSN4 and TSN5
Canada Venezuela – Thursday, Sept. 3 at 6:55 p.m. ET on TSN4
Puerto Rico Canada – Friday, Sept. 4 at 6:55 p.m. ET on TSN4 and TSN5

Play-by-play commentating duties will be shared by Rod Black and Dan Shulman, alongside analyst Leo Rautins, with Jack Armstrong contributing analysis live from the TSN Studio.

http://www.basketball.ca/en/news-article/tsn-announces-fiba-americas-broadcast-schedule

Argentina is probably one of the better teams in this tournament, so Canada starts off immediately with a tough test. If they can beat Argentina convincingly I think it's a safe bet Canada is qualifying for Rio 2016.

Disagree... I think the first few games don't matter since 8/10 teams make it to the elimination round. The only 2 games that matter are Q finals and Semi finals

[bozothepope]

Can someone tell me why Canada Basketball isn't selling a #8 Wiggins jersey? Do they not like money?

[mojo13]

http://www.basketball.ca/en/news-article/tsn-announces-fiba-americas-broadcast-schedule

Argentina is probably one of the better teams in this tournament, so Canada starts off immediately with a tough test. If they can beat Argentina convincingly I think it's a safe bet Canada is qualifying for Rio 2016.

Disagree... I think the first few games don't matter since 8/10 teams make it to the elimination round. The only 2 games that matter are Q finals and Semi finals

You may want to reassess that. Per the 2013 fiba Americas Results from the first round carry over to the second round. There is no quarters final elimination games. Only semis. We need to be top four in the combined 2nd round 8 team pool and then win that one semi elimination game and we are in.

We were short one win in 2013 to making it to the semis and the WCs. Didnt matter if that win was in the first or second round.

[BilboBanginz]

So they should announce the 12 man roster today since the tournament is starting, right?

[Patman]

http://www.basketball.ca/en/news-article/tsn-announces-fiba-americas-broadcast-schedule

Argentina is probably one of the better teams in this tournament, so Canada starts off immediately with a tough test. If they can beat Argentina convincingly I think it's a safe bet Canada is qualifying for Rio 2016.

Disagree... I think the first few games don't matter since 8/10 teams make it to the elimination round. The only 2 games that matter are Q finals and Semi finals

3rd place game also matters if we lose in the semis and Brazil makes it to the Finals. Best case scenario is we face Brazil in the semis. We win, we're in the Olympics. We lose, we have one more chance.