Muizha wrote:durden_tyler wrote:Muizha wrote:
Latvia (PORZINGIS!) and Croatia
Thanks!
Will Porzingis play though? i believe the Knicks did not allow him the last time around (Euros) did he commit already for the OQT?
I dont think NBA teams can prohibit a player to play for his national team (they can strongly advise though), but no he has not commited yet.
NBA teams are allowed to prohibit any of their players from playing for their national teams. It's a part of the original contract that the NBA signed with FIBA, and it is still fully in place. Every single summer NBA teams use this right and prohibit players from playing in a FIBA competition.
Even just last summer the Spurs prohibited Marjanovic from playing for Serbia, and claimed he was injured, even though he, his team, and all the doctors in Serbia said he was fully healthy.
The Spurs simply signed their letter banning him from FIBA and it was done.
This happens every single summer to numerous players. It never happens to American payers though, because that might cause a stir in US sports media.
Von Bismarck wrote:The group that will be held in Turin, Italy is a good one.
Croatia with Bogdanovic, Saric, Hezonja, Simon and probably Bender
Italy with Bargnani, Belinelli, Datome, Gentile and maybe Gallinari if he recovers by then
For Croatia, Bender has shown so far absolutely nothing in his career to indicate that he will be a factor. I don't see why he would even be mentioned.
Italy is very good, but let's not pretend that Bargnani, Gallinari, Belinelli, etc. don't play almost zero defense. Every single tournament so far that they have played in, these guys have failed in their lives because they simply refuse to play any defense. I'm not sure that will ever change.
lambchop wrote:Imo a lot depends on whether the teams come with their full rosters.
If france has everybody on board I expect them to beat a full canadian roster and qualify.
I think latvia will play against serbia. If serbia has all their guys, they should win that game.
Italy with all their guys playing should be able to defeat mexico. No disrespect to greece, but I feel like this next generation of players apart from the greek freak isn't as talented as spanoulis, diamantidis, bourousis, fotsis, papaloukas were years ago
It's not a disrespect to Greece. Their previous generation of players (Spanoulis, Diamantidis, Papaloukas, Zisis, Bourousis, Schortsanitis, Fotsis, Tsartsaris, Perpergolou, Papadopoulos, Printezis, Vasileiadis, Vasilopoulos, Mavrokefalidis, Pelekanos, etc.) was much better than their current generation (Antetokounmpo brothers, N. Calathes, K. Papanikolaou, Koufos, Bramos, Mantzaris, Sloukas, Giankovits, Pappas, Kavvadas, and so forth). In fact, I don't think it's even close.
The same with the previous generation Greece had earlier to that (Chatzivrettas, D. Papanikolaou, Dikoudis, Kakiouzis, Rentzias, and guys like that). Even they had players from that older generation like Kalampokis or Kalaitzis that were never a factor in their national team before, and would be better than so-called lead guards like Calathes, Mantzaris, and Sloukas are now.
However, I think with Spain's run definitely ending after 2016, the new Greek generation will have a chance for not better results as the previous generation, and probably not even as good (that would still be hugely hard to match), but they won't have to deal with playing Spain's golden generation era every single summer, like the last Greek generation did. So the current Greek generation is definitely worse, but it's going to be freed from having to face Spain's golden era. The last Greek generation actually coincided with Spain's golden generation and Argentina's golden generation, and at one point, I think it was something like 6 times in 7 years that Greece had to play against either golden era Spain or golden era Argentina in the elimination round, and then in the next year after that, they had to play against golden era France at the elimination round. The current Greek team is way less talented, but it's never going to face that same level of competition, year after year, for something like 8 straight years.
As for Latvia, I would not underestimate them.
Dairis Bertans
Janis Strelnieks
Janis Timma
Davis Bertans
Kristaps Porzingis
I am guessing that they would load their main unit up like that. That is a really, really athletic team, and they can run the floor and shoot the hell out of the ball also. I think they can give major problems to anyone. Serbia is better overall, but Latvia can definitely beat pretty much anyone, if they have a good day.
Von Bismarck wrote:Greece with Giannis, Koufos, Papanikolau, Calathes and Borousis.
For Greece, Calathes and Papanikolaou have never played well at all with the senior team. Koufos and Antetokounmpo have managed at best to be just average, and that might be giving them too much credit. Especially Koufos, who played worse last summer than Bourousis did for instance.
And Antetokounmpo's "improvement" is all from an NBA perspective. None of that travel and carry the ball all the time, and can't shoot from outside, so drive the ball one against five, and constantly try to be a one man fast break works in FIBA against any of the good teams. It works against very weak teams, but not against any of the good teams.
Greek fans and media were claiming Calathes would be the new leader of their national team because he spent 2 years as an NBA rotation player, but he came back to the national team and to his club team (Panathinaikos) even worse than he was before. With the same broken jumper and his ball handling got worse, due to the NBA being so loose with ball handling rules. Now he is pretty much universally considered the biggest bust in Euroleague, and Panathinaikos fans already wish him cut from the team.
Same thing with Papanikolaou, he came back a much worse player from the NBA, probably due to setting on a bench for most of the previous 2 years. And even before he left Spain, he was a bench rider basically in Greece's national team (he was like a 10-11 man in Greek NT). Before he went to the NBA, his role in Olympiacos and Barca was to stand and wait for 3 pointers to shoot. Teams left him open, but he still made them pay often. Now, he has the same role, except he can't even make a wide open 3 pointer anymore, and so he's basically a pure hustle and role player now, with no real offense ability other than some decent passing and dribbling skills for a guy his size.
So I'm not sure why any of these players need to be highlighted, except for Antetokounmpo. But it's not like he has ever shown anything but flashes in FIBA either. And many times Greece tried to feature him in games already.