mojo13 wrote:UcanUwill wrote:Kenter16 wrote:Pride
Will USA even participate, they only saw Americup as a qualifying tournament, and when they were qualified already, they didnt even participate in the past. Which I find crazy, because I dont get how teams from AMericas dont care for their continental award. I mean in Europe everyone cares about Eurobasket and being a champion of Europe, why dont you westerns dont care about that? Thats weird to me.
Why do Europeans care? That's weird to me....
Maybe the South Americans care about the AmeriCup. But USA/Canada really don't. I don't know why - perhaps because everyone knows who the best at bball is around here. The champ is already settled if the USA took the tournament seriously. Maybe there is limited intra country bball rivalries in the Americas. Less regional nationalism maybe? Europe still holds on to centuries long grudges...
The USA played the last AmeriCup (I think FIBA makes it mandatory now). They just fielded a squad of G-League players like they did for the WC Qualifiers. Those guys still enjoy putting on a Team USA jersey when they get a chance.
USA still went undefeated and won gold over Argentina - so whatever....
It wouldn't take Canada much to show up with a decent team and win the Americup if they want to kick things off right.
You find weird that fans and players care for continental championship? Come on... You raise a good point that in AMericas, everyone knows who is best, but I think sport culture is just different. In America basketball is NBA, and thats it. In Europe basketball is niche yes, but it has far more stand alone culture. A lot of European basketball fans arent even NBA fans, Euros learn to care about their local teams and national teams, where even in Canada I imagine if someone asked what you rather have, Raptors win NBA or Canada win gold, most people would choose NBA championship, and NBA technically is not even Canadian league. Everything outside NBA and college in Americas is beyond niche, most basketball fans aren't even aware Americup is a thing, everyones just busy watching NBA free agency at that time, where in Europe people wait all year to see their national team clash with other teams, it is just a different fandom of the game. Nikos Galis never came to the NBA, because he knew NBA team wouldn't allow him to play for Greece, he threw away NBA star career, and to American that would sound completely insane, but in Europe most people get it and would even do the similar thing.