What happened to Argentina?

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What happened to Argentina? 

Post#1 » by Pachinko_ » Sun Aug 14, 2016 12:49 am

For the last 10-15 years we've been waiting for the next generation of talent to start coming through the ranks and keep Argentina at dominant force level

and we've been waiting
and waiting
...
nada.

Was the great batch of Manu, Scola, Nocioni, Oberto, Delfino etc a fluke?
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Re: What happened to Argentina? 

Post#2 » by Chicago76 » Mon Aug 15, 2016 5:22 pm

In soccer, the phrase commonly used to describe a bumper crop of talent at the national team level is "golden generation". Common recent examples would include England in the late 90s/early 00s, France in the same time frame, Portugal a bit after Figo came into the scene, Germany very recently, Spain during their 3 tournament run, and Belgium today. A Golden generation can be attributed to player pool luck, big clubs that develop some sort of player development strategy that proves to be revolutionary, money coming into domestic leagues that help player development/quality of league competition, etc. There are a lot of factors.

There are many differences between basketball and soccer in the rest of the world in particular. Soccer carries much more financial leverage in most of the world, which encourages the infrastructure and financial investment that sometimes creates these generations. It's probably not a coincidence that Argentina's economy was doing better in the mid 90s when a lot of these guys were getting formative training compared to the years following.

More importantly, soccer doesn't have the physical requirements of basketball. You clearly need to be an excellent athlete to play at the highest level, but you do not need to be extremely tall. At least half of all world class basketball players are 6-6 or taller. Depending upon what country we are talking about that could be a 1 in 70 male or a 1 in 800 male. The player pool is very, very tiny. Using Argentina vs USA as an example, based upon raw population, the USA has about 8x the player pool that Argentina does. If you correct for the number of 20 something males, the gap closes a bit because Argentina has more young people. The big difference though is average height and how that influences the number of tall people in the player pool.

All things considered, the U.S. has roughly 36 times the number of 20 something males who are 6-6 or taller of an Argentina. I don't think it is reasonable to expect any kind of player development consistency from probably any major basketball country in the world outside of the U.S. for this reason. Maybe Russia too if their investment was more consistent. There will be a lot of volatility. The Ginobili generation was a positive outlier. The current generation is a negative outlier. Their true quality is probably somewhere in between.
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Re: What happened to Argentina? 

Post#3 » by Pachinko_ » Thu Aug 18, 2016 11:32 am

I didn't really expect Argentina to have USA type talent production, just 2-3 good players in the span of 10-15 years. Usually what happens when you have a massive success at national level people get excited, kids start playing the sport, there is exposure and focus. You can see the excitement, Argentinians love and follow their team and everybody was nearly in tears at Manu's last game.
But are they not playing basketball?

Greece is going through a massive crisis as well for the last 8 years, yet during that time they have a draft pick every year including the Antetokoumbos, with 1/4 of the population of Argentina. The Greek league suffered because of the crisis because it takes many millions to keep high profile players, but the talent production does not require as big a financial investment. Basket, ball, gym, lots of passion for the game.
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Re: What happened to Argentina? 

Post#4 » by agustin1981-ARG » Thu Aug 18, 2016 5:55 pm

I´m from Argentina. My english is not excellent but I could explain.

Yesterday was a sad day four our country, because it was the last battle of our great basketball warriors with the national team.
Manu is historically maybe our best argentinian sportman....and these group of players made the most epics wins in the national sports ever.
But now, we dont have the quality of players to continue with such recent great succes over the last 10-15 years.
First of all we dont have big bodies...elite centers-power fowards and young players with the talent of Manu, Scola or Nocioni.
Years ago we have Oberto (former Spurs champions)....and anothers greats players (Delfino Hermann Sanchez all former nba players) and the roster was very deep.
Now, the youngs players are with no much international competitions under their shoulders.

My personal view is that the national bask team must nationalize any american player that is playing here in the local league. Of course here comes mediocre USA players to play...but someone with lenght and strenght could help us to play hard in the paint zone. The Arg Bask Asociation now have a scheme to find young tall persons to try to made basketball players.

Basketball here in Argentina is the second or third sport...not now, always. The problem maybe is the investment or without a really true scheme for the future. These is something that happend in all the country....we are like Greece in that terms. We have much very good players playing in Spain....now two young players are going to play with Dallas and San Antonio....but thats all. It will be very difficult and long years to have another Ginobili.
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Re: What happened to Argentina? 

Post#5 » by Chicago76 » Fri Aug 19, 2016 4:48 am

Pachinko_ wrote:I didn't really expect Argentina to have USA type talent production, just 2-3 good players in the span of 10-15 years. Usually what happens when you have a massive success at national level people get excited, kids start playing the sport, there is exposure and focus. You can see the excitement, Argentinians love and follow their team and everybody was nearly in tears at Manu's last game.
But are they not playing basketball?

Greece is going through a massive crisis as well for the last 8 years, yet during that time they have a draft pick every year including the Antetokoumbos, with 1/4 of the population of Argentina. The Greek league suffered because of the crisis because it takes many millions to keep high profile players, but the talent production does not require as big a financial investment. Basket, ball, gym, lots of passion for the game.


I think the problem that is difficult to grasp is how few people there are of a certain height in a given country.

For how rare it is to find a 6-6 or over guy by country:
https://tall.life/height-percentile-calculator-age-country/

To figure out how many 20 something males live in any country
http://populationpyramid.net/greece/2016/

Total number of 6-6 or over Argentine males who are in their 20s: 939
Same for Greece: 1343

Note these estimates are simplified. For a subset of the population of a certain ethnicity, height may be much more common. This would result in an underestimation of the number of tall people. This is almost certainly the case, but for the sake of discussion let's say its way estimated because there are a lot of Germans/Italians in Argentina and the real number is 2000.


Of 2000 people every ten years, half of those people probably can not walk and chew gum at the same time and/or have zero interest. That leaves 1000 people. Assume they all play the equivalent of HS level basketball. In the US, 1% of high school players progress to NCAA DI. For 6-6 and overs it's closer to 3%. For shorter guys, it's more like 1 in 250. You're down to 30 tall Argentines. Fewer than 5% of D1 players 6-6 and over even get at least a cup of coffee in the NBA. So of that 30, you would expect 1-2 every ten years...assuming they don't go to Europe...or that they're better than a short stint type of player that gets tossed on a roster because the coaches are familiar with him because he played at X University down the road and they need a body on a short term contract.

Talent ebbs and flows are in many ways down to luck. Especially when the odds of producing 1 decent player require a pretty large pool that itself is hard to find. That's why I used the soccer example. Soccer doesn't have the physical limitations that pro basketball imposes on its player pool. 90% of the population fits into the general physical makeup of the sport before you even begin to look at skill/athleticism rather than 1 in 100 or 1 in 1000 type people in basketball. This means that a tiny country like Belgium has a soccer pool that is hundreds of times bigger than Argentina's basketball pool. Yet Belgium in the last 30 years has shown very little consistency in their production of soccer players over time. About 30 years ago, they were good. Then the sucked for about 10-15 years. Now they are good again. They have many more potential players for that sport than Argentina does basketball, so you would think the talent stream would be fairly consistent, but it still varies quite a bit.

Then there's the problem of who these players are going up against if they are younger. They need competition to develop, but if competition is thin in the jr. ranks, then they need to get it playing grown men. Maybe they aren't physically ready. Or maybe because many of the best grown men who came up when Argentina was rising left for the US, they don't have elite sr players to learn from in practice. Someone who forces them to become better than they realized they could be.

Which brings us to Greece. Despite its smaller population, it still has roughly the same number of big kids who might be best suited to pro basketball. Their domestic sr. players aren't on average as good...at least not 10 years ago when the current mid-20s players were coming up. But they have the advantage of a)EU passports to allow players to move freely to other areas and b) proximity of other basketball regions whether or not they are in the EU. A selection of good Greek kids can play Serbs, Croatians, Turks, Russians, Lithuanians, Italians, Spaniards in tournaments. These are short/inexpensive flights of four hours or less. There are more opportunities for younger players to "find their level" to help them reach their potential. Where can Argentines go for competition within 4 hours of Buenos Aires by air?

There's also the issue of competition among other sports for shorter players suited for guard positions. Soccer is number 1 in Greece, but it's not nearly as crazy about the sport as the average soccer first country. Basketball is a strong #2. Argentina is soccer first, but much more crazy for the sport than the average soccer first country. Rugby is also big. And their pro basketball clubs don't occupy the same level of importance as they do in Greece.

The player pipeline in Argentina today is probably uncharacteristically poor, but the glory days were something of a fluke.
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Re: What happened to Argentina? 

Post#6 » by Frankie23 » Sat Oct 8, 2016 6:16 am

I think that for several years, teams stopped giving chances of meaningfull minutes to young players. That and a combination of lack of size/talent.

But a new generation is coming. So far, the most talented player is 18 years old Maximo Fjellerup. He's a 6'5 combo guard, lefty, NBA talent no question. Will be follow by Juan Pablo Vaulet, Jose Vildoza, Brussino, Garino, Deck. The bad thing for that incoming team will be the big guys.
After Vaulet was drafted last year and if Brussino makes the Mavs roster, that would mean a big push to scouts to pay attention to the Argentinian League as they both jumped to the NBA from there. Fjellerup could definitely be a first round talent, but a good scouting team could get him in the late 2nd if he declares early in the draft.

Argentina's Golden Generation were lucky cause they had the best players (argentinians) ever at each position, so the team was succesful. This new generation will have talent (and size) in the 1-2-3 position but no big could match the talent of a Scola/Oberto
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Re: What happened to Argentina? 

Post#7 » by Paul Overt » Wed Oct 12, 2016 7:35 pm

Frankie23 wrote:I think that for several years, teams stopped giving chances of meaningfull minutes to young players. That and a combination of lack of size/talent.

But a new generation is coming. So far, the most talented player is 18 years old Maximo Fjellerup. He's a 6'5 combo guard, lefty, NBA talent no question. Will be follow by Juan Pablo Vaulet, Jose Vildoza, Brussino, Garino, Deck. The bad thing for that incoming team will be the big guys.
After Vaulet was drafted last year and if Brussino makes the Mavs roster, that would mean a big push to scouts to pay attention to the Argentinian League as they both jumped to the NBA from there. Fjellerup could definitely be a first round talent, but a good scouting team could get him in the late 2nd if he declares early in the draft.

Argentina's Golden Generation were lucky cause they had the best players (argentinians) ever at each position, so the team was succesful. This new generation will have talent (and size) in the 1-2-3 position but no big could match the talent of a Scola/Oberto


I agree! I'm from Argentina, you forgot Ruben Wolkowyski from the golden generation!
The golden generation has their origins in the LNB of Argentina and with the crisis of 2001, all they group of player go to Europe. At 1999 anyone in Argentina never dream nor predict this group of players.

Maxi Fjellerup is really great,
Lucio Redivo (a 6'0 SG) is very talented too:




I like a lot Facu Campazzo (in spanish league call him: "the magician"):





Maybe we have some luck and Francisco Caffaro (a kid of 16 years old, 7'0 and really good footsteps in the paint) result great also:



Nicolás Franco seem good too (a C-PF of 6'9, 17 years old):

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Re: What happened to Argentina? 

Post#8 » by Paul Overt » Wed Oct 12, 2016 8:02 pm

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Re: What happened to Argentina? 

Post#9 » by Frankie23 » Thu Oct 13, 2016 5:07 am

Redivo and Campazzo don't have the height to play in the NBA.

And about the young kids, it will all be determined by how they work their bodies. I mean, if you watch some of the previous generation (Delia, Bortolin), they were skinny then, they are skinny now. Also, none of them with NBA athletic ability.
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Re: What happened to Argentina? 

Post#10 » by Paul Overt » Fri Oct 14, 2016 8:52 pm

An excellent Q&A with Sebastián Ginobili about this topic. Sebastián Ginobili is coach of Bahía Básquet (where Fjellerup, Redivo, Juan Pablo and Santiago Vaulet play), former coach of U19 national team and brother of Manu.

"¿Qué ves del recambio que va asomando en el equipo y del cuál sos parte de cierta forma porque varios de los que tenés en Bahía son parte del proceso?
-Creo que hay muy buen material en Argentina para hacer equipos competitivos. El problema es si lo vamos a comparar con la Generación Dorada, que no fue algo muy natural ni sencillo de lograr. Pero sí creo que podemos competir de muy buena manera a nivel internacional contra los mejores equipos. Los dos bases (Campazzo y Laprovittola) tienen cuerda para rato y cada vez compiten en un nivel superior que los va a hacer aún mejores. Son un poco los herederos de todo esto. Esperemos que Luis (Scola) siga un torneíto más para que pueda continuar transmitiendo lo que hace a los nuevos. Y seguramente Brussino con la experiencia NBA, Garino, Deck, Delía, Acuña… Hay un montón de jugadores que pueden dar un paso adelante en sus carreras, y a veces la explosión de los jugadores tarda un poquito más que otros. Me parece que hay un equipo balanceado y hay juventud un poquito más abajo que puede seguir mejorando nuestro nivel. Son camadas y esperemos que nos sigan dando alegrías como en el pasado, o incluso más.

-Lo bueno es que la mayoría de los chicos que nombraste ya están jugando en el exterior, algo clave para su desarrollo…
-Sí, es bueno y seguramente habrá más, van a volver a poner el ojo en Argentina. Luca Vildoza lo hará el año que viene y él será un jugador muy importante en el proceso que se viene. Hay que ver si Juan Pablo (Vaulet) puede dar un paso adelante… Hay jugadores de sobra para seguir trabajando y soñando. Por lo menos para armar un equipo para trabajar rumbo al futuro".

http://www.cabb.com.ar/web/ver-lo-que-genera-en-la-gente-hace-que-se-me-afloje-todo/
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Re: What happened to Argentina? 

Post#11 » by Paul Overt » Fri May 19, 2017 8:38 pm

Read on Twitter


Here a lovely article about Lucio Redivo: "The new Manu from Bahìa Blanca", http://www.laliganacional.com.ar/laliga/page/noticias/id/13810/title/El-nuevo-Manu-de-Bah%C3%ADa
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Re: What happened to Argentina? 

Post#12 » by Paul Overt » Fri May 26, 2017 8:27 pm

The basquetplus.com website made a selection of the top 10 Argentine prospects by position.

The 10 argentine PG of the future:

Luca Vildoza
Quilmes (MDP)
1,90
1995
José Vildoza
Libertad
1,90
1996
Fernando Zurbriggen
Obras Basket
1,86
1997
Facundo Corvalán
Bahía Basket
1,87
1998
Lautaro López
San Lorenzo
1,88
1999
Juan Ignacio Marcos
Peñarol (MDP)
1,87
2000
Francisco Farabello
Sport Club
1,88
2000
Marco Giordano
Regatas Corrientes
1,83
2000
Lucas Gallardo
La Unión (Formosa)
1,96
2001
Gastón Bertona
Unión de San Guillermo
1,76
2001

http://www.basquetplus.com/articulo/horizonte-celeste-y-blanco-los-mejores-proyectos-de-bases-del-pa%C3%ADs
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Re: What happened to Argentina? 

Post#13 » by Paul Overt » Sat May 27, 2017 7:48 pm

The list keep going with SG, the top 10 of argentine prospects, borns between 1995-2001.
http://www.basquetplus.com/articulo/horizonte-celeste-y-blanco-los-mejores-proyectos-de-escoltas-del-pa%C3%ADs

Iván Gramajo
Ferro
1,95
1996
Máximo Fjellerup
Bahía Basket
1,96
1997
Ayán Carvalho
Temple
1,94
1997
Santiago Vaulet
Bahía Basket
1,94
1998
Lisandro Fernández
San Lorenzo
1,94
1998
Cristian Cardo
San Lorenzo
1,98
1999
Leandro Bolmaro
El Ceibo
2,00
2000
Julián Eydallín
Talleres de Galvez
1,95
2000
Juan De La Fuente
Quilmes
1,95
2000
Bautista Lugarini
Bahía Basket
2,01
2001
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Re: What happened to Argentina? 

Post#14 » by baldur » Sun May 28, 2017 1:44 pm

tell me which ones are potential prospects who are capable of making the nba and lasting in the nba, mate. i appreciate your effort but you can make it more attractive to draw people's attention.
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Re: What happened to Argentina? 

Post#15 » by Paul Overt » Sun May 28, 2017 6:51 pm

baldur wrote:tell me which ones are potential prospects who are capable of making the nba and lasting in the nba, mate. i appreciate your effort but you can make it more attractive to draw people's attention.


The next player to go to NBA is probably Facundo Campazzo, several teams are interested (Rockets, Thunder, Hawks, Pacers and Bucks, see more here: http://www.lanacion.com.ar/2016485-un-nuevo-pretendiente-los-equipos-de-la-nba-que-estan-interesados-en-facundo-campazzo ). He was recently awarded as the most spectacular player in the ACB league




Then later will probably get to the nba: Gabriel Deck and Lucio Redivo. Gabriel Deck (SF/PF, 22 years old, 6 ft 7 in) was recently named in the ideal team of the Liga de las Américas.


Deck was awarded also as best argentine player in the LNB ( http://basquetplus.com/articulo/deck-el-mejor-nacional-de-la-201617-en-la-liga-nacional ) and was in the ideal team of the LNB league ( http://basquetplus.com/articulo/deck-que-la-nba-se-fije-en-m%C3%AD-es-un-halago-pero-no-me-saca-de-foco ).

Lucio Redivo (SG, 23 years old, 6 ft 0 in) is a great scorer, with a very quick first step and very fast release of the shot. Also Redivo has tremendous passion for work ( http://www.laliganacional.com.ar/laliga/page/noticias/id/13810/title/El-nuevo-Manu-de-Bah%C3%ADa ). And he also was in the ideal team of the Liga de las Américas ( http://basquetplus.com/articulo/redivo-y-deck-dentro-del-quinteto-ideal-de-la-liga-de-las-am%C3%A9ricas ) He is probably going to Spain first and then to NBA.

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Re: What happened to Argentina? 

Post#16 » by Paul Overt » Sun May 28, 2017 7:37 pm

Paul Overt wrote:The basquetplus.com website made a selection of the top 10 Argentine prospects by position.


Two more list of prospect by position.
The top 10 SF argentines borns between 1995-2001
http://basquetplus.com/articulo/horizonte-celeste-y-blanco-los-mejores-proyectos-de-aleros-del-pa%C3%ADs

Gabriel Deck
San Lorenzo
1,97
1995
Juan Pablo Vaulet
Bahía Basket
2,01
1996
Leonardo Lema
Atenas
2,00
1998
Luca Valussi
Obras Basket
1,98
1998
Leandro Cerminato
San Lorenzo
1,99
1998
Juan Hierrezuelo
San Lorenzo
2,07
2000
Tomás Pereyra
Boca Juniors
2,00
2000
Máximo Milovich
Obras Basket
2,01
2001
Juan Cruz Scacchi
Echagüe
2,00
2001
Ignacio Varisco
Echagüe
2,02
2001

The top 10 PF argentines borns between 1995-2001
http://basquetplus.com/articulo/horizonte-celeste-y-blanco-los-mejores-proyectos-de-ala-pivotes-del-pa%C3%ADs

Erik Thomas
New Orleans Privateers
1,96
1995
Ariel Ramos
Bahía Basket
2,02
1995
Enzo Rupcic
Instituto
2,03
1997
Maximiliano Andreatta
Harcum CC
2,07
1998
Nicolás Nogués
CB TerrAlfas
2,04
2000
Andrés Bodach
Regatas Corrientes
2,04
2000
Tomás Pereyra
Boca Juniors
2,00
2000
Franco Piasco
Texas Elite
2,01
2000
Fausto Ruesga
Olimpo
1,99
2000
Tomás Chapero
Bahía Basket
2,06
2001


.
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Re: What happened to Argentina? 

Post#17 » by Paul Overt » Sun May 28, 2017 7:58 pm

baldur wrote:tell me which ones are potential prospects who are capable of making the nba and lasting in the nba, mate. i appreciate your effort but you can make it more attractive to draw people's attention.


The most interesting players and the most probably come to the nba (borns between 1995-2001, Lucio Redivo is 1994) (to me) are:

PG
Luca Vildoza
José Vildoza
Facundo Corvalán


SG
Máximo Fjellerup
Santiago Vaulet
Bautista Lugarini


SF
Gabriel Deck
Juan Pablo Vaulet
Máximo Milovich


PF
Tomás Chapero
Tomás Pereyra
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Re: What happened to Argentina? 

Post#18 » by Paul Overt » Fri Jun 16, 2017 12:34 am

Right now, A game between Argentina vs Venezuela - Group A - FIBA U16 Americas Championship 2017
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Re: What happened to Argentina? 

Post#19 » by Paul Overt » Wed Jun 21, 2017 11:23 pm

Six Argentine players, (Scola, Campazzo, Garino, Fjellerup, Amigo y Ayan Carvalho) were in New York to train together.

http://www.basquetplus.com/articulo/coparon-la-gran-manzana-seis-argentinos-se-entrenaron-en-new-york
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Re: What happened to Argentina? 

Post#20 » by Paul Overt » Wed May 20, 2020 8:07 am

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