FIBA WORLD CUP 2019 | SPAIN are new WORLD CHAMPIONS

[Dtown84]

32 teams might’ve been too much. Is it that fun watching your country be walloped by 60 points? Basketball is pretty unforgiving. If you’re undersized or not athletic enough, or you can’t shoot at an elite level, then you will be crushed for 40min straight by any team with NBA/EuroLeague talent. That’s not even including chemistry and coaching. The “C” Team USA isn’t gonna have an easy tournament, even with star NBA players and Popovich.

But oh well, the tournament really does zip by. What is it, 2 weeks? I guess it doesn’t hurt to have more involved. Still surprised Slovenia was excluded.

Yeah while the blowouts are bad, the fact that the first round's over in less than a week means we don't have to suffer them long. The teams that got destroyed today can be eliminated as early as Monday.

[Dtown84]

32 teams might’ve been too much. Is it that fun watching your country be walloped by 60 points? Basketball is pretty unforgiving. If you’re undersized or not athletic enough, or you can’t shoot at an elite level, then you will be crushed for 40min straight by any team with NBA/EuroLeague talent. That’s not even including chemistry and coaching. The “C” Team USA isn’t gonna have an easy tournament, even with star NBA players and Popovich.

But oh well, the tournament really does zip by. What is it, 2 weeks? I guess it doesn’t hurt to have more involved. Still surprised Slovenia was excluded.

Yeah while the blowouts are bad, the fact that the first round's over in less than a week means we don't have to suffer them long. The teams that got destroyed today can be eliminated as early as Monday.

[saritasbora]

Friendly reminder that teams like
Croatia (Saric)
Slovenia (Doncic)
Latvia (Porzingis)
Finland (Markkanen)
are out
But teams like Angola,Korea,Jordan etc... are qualified for the tournament.
No wonder why NBA stars are not willing to attend this ****..

[Fable]

Friendly reminder that teams like
Croatia (Saric)
Slovenia (Doncic)
Latvia (Porzingis)
Finland (Markkanen)
are out
But teams like Angola,Korea,Jordan etc... are qualified for the tournament.
No wonder why NBA stars are not willing to attend this ****..

It's like Europe has way more competition between multiple strong teams than Africa and Asia where no one gives a **** about basketball because they have more pressing concerns like the Syrian war on their doorstep like Jordan.

[saritasbora]

Friendly reminder that teams like
Croatia (Saric)
Slovenia (Doncic)
Latvia (Porzingis)
Finland (Markkanen)
are out
But teams like Angola,Korea,Jordan etc... are qualified for the tournament.
No wonder why NBA stars are not willing to attend this ****..

It's like Europe has way more competition between multiple strong teams than Africa and Asia where no one gives a **** about basketball because they have more pressing concerns like the Syrian war on their doorstep like Jordan.

Well It's not like those countries are powerhouses of basketball but they have excuses for political reasons.

[Mickey8]

Friendly reminder that teams like
Croatia (Saric)
Slovenia (Doncic)
Latvia (Porzingis)
Finland (Markkanen)
are out
But teams like Angola,Korea,Jordan etc... are qualified for the tournament.
No wonder why NBA stars are not willing to attend this ****..

While I don"t like this stupid qualification FIBA format ,Croatia is to only to blame itself , they had their biggest stars Saric,Bogdanovic,Zubac,Zizic for some qualification windows and they failed, losing to Poland and Lithuania's B team . Other NT's just don"t have enough depth . Even Serbia could have been eliminated if it wasn't for the late game winner against Austria in the first qualifying round .

[tysanity]

I hate this North America-Europe way of looking.

As a country you will be better if children have examples to watch on TV.

As internationals federations, FIBA, FIFA, FIBV have the obligation to disseminate sports worldwide. And you do it improving chances of "not traditional" countries to be part of the biggest events.

That's why I hate when someone say that UEFA Euro is like the world cup without Brazil and Argentina.

People in Croatia, Slovenia will continue to play basketball regardless if they are in FIBA World Cup.

Maybe, because of 2019 FIBA WC, in 15 years we will see an International Basketball star from Angola, Jordan and another countries.

Cheers

Sent from my SM-G975F using RealGM mobile app

[THE J0KER]

Friendly reminder that teams like
Croatia (Saric)
Slovenia (Doncic)
Latvia (Porzingis)
Finland (Markkanen)
are out
But teams like Angola,Korea,Jordan etc... are qualified for the tournament.
No wonder why NBA stars are not willing to attend this ****..

It is not about single players, but about whole teams. What is the point to expand the number of teams from 24 to 32 if Europe stays at just 12, and most of the new teams go from Asia and Africa which even most successful teams barely ever reached even TOP16 phase!? Croatia is not just Dario Saric, they have 7 NBA players (including Bojan Bogdanovic), Slovenia is not just Doncic, don't forget Goran Dragic, and in Latvia, except KP they have Bertans and Kurucs. And what is the point to extend the number of African countries if FIBA creates qualification system which not only prevented European champion Slovenia to qualify but also by far strongest African team of all times, current Cameroon team with Embiid and Siakam (+Luc Mbah a Moute)!

Out of 8 today's games half are EUROPE vs AFRICA/ASIA, and results are 82-77, 101-62, 105-59, 108-62!? What else to say?

[peja_the_legend]

Stop mentioning Croatia please.For Gods sake they lost to Romania(!!) and Netherlands(!!!!) in the qualyfing rounds.And when the NBAers joined in some games they lost again.They got what they deserved

[Mickey8]

Its not about quantity of the NBA players certain NT have, quality is what matters the most ,also there are lots of good players playing in Euro leagues. Croatia didn't accomplish anything with all their NBA players being available, they havent made much of the difference for them , only Bogdanovic perform well constantly , Saric always unperformed , Bender,Hezonja,Zizic and Zubac ara marginal players in the NBA. As I said before on some other topic, Serbia in 2014 had zero NBA players but they went straight to the finals , while some other teams had 3,4 NBA players on their squad also in 2016 they had only the one, Jokic who just completed his rookie season.

[THE J0KER]

Stop mentioning Croatia please.For Gods sake they lost to Romania(!!) and Netherlands(!!!!) in the qualyfing rounds.And when the NBAers joined in some games they lost again.They got what they deserved

Its not about quantity of the NBA players certain NT have, quality is what matters the most ,also there are lots of good players playing in Euro leagues. Croatia didn't accomplish anything with all their NBA players being available, they havent made much of the difference for them , only Bogdanovic perform well constantly , Saric always unperformed , Bender,Hezonja,Zizic and Zubac ara marginal players in the NBA. As I said before on some other topic, Serbia in 2014 had zero NBA players but they went straight to the finals , while some other teams had 3,4 NBA players on their squad also in 2016 they had only the one, Jokic who just completed his rookie season.

It is not true. Qualifications for the last 16th Wilde Card spot at Olympics Games was NBA friendly, so Croats won that tournament in Italy to reach Rio-2016 despite home team played with Gallinari, Belinelli, and the home crowd, and Giannis played for Greece. But NBA-Croatia not just qualified for Rio by beating strong Greece and Italy teams, but won their Rio group beating Spain, Lithuania, and home team Brazil, and lose just -3pts vs eventual finalist Serbia in the tight quarterfinal. Croatia would be clearly TOP10 team at this championship even if all 32 teams playing with all their best players. Spain, Serbia, and Italy won their games today 101-62, 105-59, 108-62 with 40+ margin, so how anyone can say Croatia in full force don't deserve to be in China this summer instead of one of those semi-amateur level team? We can argue are they have a team to fight for medals or not at big tournaments, but to say they don't deserve to be part of TOP32 while they have World's TOP10 roster is very wrong.

[Grits n Gravy]

I hate this North America-Europe way of looking.

As a country you will be better if children have examples to watch on TV.

As internationals federations, FIBA, FIFA, FIBV have the obligation to disseminate sports worldwide. And you do it improving chances of "not traditional" countries to be part of the biggest events.

That's why I hate when someone say that UEFA Euro is like the world cup without Brazil and Argentina.

People in Croatia, Slovenia will continue to play basketball regardless if they are in FIBA World Cup.

Maybe, because of 2019 FIBA WC, in 15 years we will see an International Basketball star from Angola, Jordan and another countries.

Cheers

Sent from my SM-G975F using RealGM mobile app

You are completely right. When new zealand had a magical run at the 2002 world champs in indiana and finished 4th it was huge in growing the game and giving something other than rugby a chance. Its great to give smaller or less basketball crazy countries an opportunity to build and aspire to.

[Mickey8]

Stop mentioning Croatia please.For Gods sake they lost to Romania(!!) and Netherlands(!!!!) in the qualyfing rounds.And when the NBAers joined in some games they lost again.They got what they deserved

Its not about quantity of the NBA players certain NT have, quality is what matters the most ,also there are lots of good players playing in Euro leagues. Croatia didn't accomplish anything with all their NBA players being available, they havent made much of the difference for them , only Bogdanovic perform well constantly , Saric always unperformed , Bender,Hezonja,Zizic and Zubac ara marginal players in the NBA. As I said before on some other topic, Serbia in 2014 had zero NBA players but they went straight to the finals , while some other teams had 3,4 NBA players on their squad also in 2016 they had only the one, Jokic who just completed his rookie season.

It is not true. Qualifications for the last 16th Wilde Card spot at Olympics Games was NBA friendly, so Croats won that tournament in Italy to reach Rio-2016 despite home team played with Gallinari, Belinelli, and the home crowd, and Giannis played for Greece. But NBA-Croatia not just qualified for Rio by beating strong Greece and Italy teams, but won their Rio group beating Spain, Lithuania, and home team Brazil, and lose just -3pts vs eventual finalist Serbia in the tight quarterfinal. Croatia would be clearly TOP10 team at this championship even if all 32 teams playing with all their best players. Spain, Serbia, and Italy won their games today 101-62, 105-59, 108-62 with 40+ margin, so how anyone can say Croatia in full force don't deserve to be in China this summer instead of one of those semi-amateur level team? We can argue are they have a team to fight for medals or not at big tournaments, but to say they don't deserve to be part of TOP32 while they have World's TOP10 roster is very wrong.

One decent run at the Olympics doesn't mean they deserve anything. They had lost to the same Philippines in 2014 , they were embarrassed by Czech Republic and Russia in the consecutive Eurobasket quarter finals , those were one side beatings ,blow outs. As I said they had their best players last summer, if they defeated Lithuania B squad and Poland with those players ,they would have had probably qualified for this year World Championship, you cant claim that they are deserving to be in China, when they clearly blew their chances and there is no one else to blame but those NBA players.

[Pachinko_]

Nice games today, France-Germany probably the best one
Also Team USA, Giannis, Rui, Boomers, Lithuania are playing their first game
NZ will do a haka

Is Senegal any good?

[Pachinko_]

Sloukas is back from injury and playing for Greece tonight. He's badly needed considering our guard situation and lack of shooting.

[THE J0KER]

I hate this North America-Europe way of looking.

As a country you will be better if children have examples to watch on TV.

As internationals federations, FIBA, FIFA, FIBV have the obligation to disseminate sports worldwide. And you do it improving chances of "not traditional" countries to be part of the biggest events.

That's why I hate when someone say that UEFA Euro is like the world cup without Brazil and Argentina.

People in Croatia, Slovenia will continue to play basketball regardless if they are in FIBA World Cup.

Maybe, because of 2019 FIBA WC, in 15 years we will see an International Basketball star from Angola, Jordan and another countries.

Cheers

Sent from my SM-G975F using RealGM mobile app

You are completely right. When new zealand had a magical run at the 2002 world champs in indiana and finished 4th it was huge in growing the game and giving something other than rugby a chance. Its great to give smaller or less basketball crazy countries an opportunity to build and aspire to.

Team which not deserved to be at world big stage due to poor quality luckily get chance to compete and miraculously make big success there... Sorry, but things never work on this way in competitive sports. New Zealand never beat Australia to take FIBA Oceania gold, they have something like 15 silver medals in the row before this generation of Kiwi players finally beat Australia for Oceania gold back-to-back in 1999 and 2001. So, at the time (in 2002) they have already established themselves as the best team from the whole Asia-Oceania region. That New Zealand team would qualify at WC2002 anyway

Spoiler:

Stop mentioning Croatia please.For Gods sake they lost to Romania(!!) and Netherlands(!!!!) in the qualyfing rounds.And when the NBAers joined in some games they lost again.They got what they deserved

Its not about quantity of the NBA players certain NT have, quality is what matters the most ,also there are lots of good players playing in Euro leagues. Croatia didn't accomplish anything with all their NBA players being available, they havent made much of the difference for them , only Bogdanovic perform well constantly , Saric always unperformed , Bender,Hezonja,Zizic and Zubac ara marginal players in the NBA. As I said before on some other topic, Serbia in 2014 had zero NBA players but they went straight to the finals , while some other teams had 3,4 NBA players on their squad also in 2016 they had only the one, Jokic who just completed his rookie season.

It is not true. Qualifications for the last 16th Wilde Card spot at Olympics Games was NBA friendly, so Croats won that tournament in Italy to reach Rio-2016 despite home team played with Gallinari, Belinelli, and the home crowd, and Giannis played for Greece. But NBA-Croatia not just qualified for Rio by beating strong Greece and Italy teams, but won their Rio group beating Spain, Lithuania, and home team Brazil, and lose just -3pts vs eventual finalist Serbia in the tight quarterfinal. Croatia would be clearly TOP10 team at this championship even if all 32 teams playing with all their best players. Spain, Serbia, and Italy won their games today 101-62, 105-59, 108-62 with 40+ margin, so how anyone can say Croatia in full force don't deserve to be in China this summer instead of one of those semi-amateur level team? We can argue are they have a team to fight for medals or not at big tournaments, but to say they don't deserve to be part of TOP32 while they have World's TOP10 roster is very wrong.

One decent run at the Olympics doesn't mean they deserve anything. They had lost to the same Philippines in 2014 , they were embarrassed by Czech Republic and Russia in the consecutive Eurobasket quarter finals , those were one side beatings ,blow outs. As I said they had their best players last summer, if they defeated Lithuania B squad and Poland with those players ,they would have had probably qualified for this year World Championship, you cant claim that they are deserving to be in China, when they clearly blew their chances and there is no one else to blame but those NBA players.

If qualification games are so relevant, how you explain Serbia loses vs Germany (twice!?), Estonia, Israel... and all our NBA players participate at some point except Jokic?? In 2014 World Cup Croatia finished 2nd in their 6-team group, and finished #10 overall at the end playing without any single player with previous NBA experience, and that is proof for you that they are not TOP32 country now with Bogdanovic, Saric, Zubac, Hezonja, Zizic...?? I don't think.

[Mickey8]

I have mentioned above that even Serbia doesn't have great depth and if it wasn't for the late three point winning shot against Austria on the road, Serbia might have not qualified for this championship, still Serbia won games that they had to later on ,with some of their best players available in the couple of qualifying windows after the first phase . I am repeating again , Croatia had Bogdanovic,Saric,Zubac and Zizic last summer and they still managed to lose to Lithuania B squad and to Poland if they managed to win one of those game they might have made it to China, this qualifying system suck but it is same for everybody, Croatia's best players failed their NT its very simple to understand ,they don't deserve to be in this tournament no matter how much players they have in the NBA.

[durden_tyler]

32 teams might’ve been too much. Is it that fun watching your country be walloped by 60 points? Basketball is pretty unforgiving. If you’re undersized or not athletic enough, or you can’t shoot at an elite level, then you will be crushed for 40min straight by any team with NBA/EuroLeague talent. That’s not even including chemistry and coaching. The “C” Team USA isn’t gonna have an easy tournament, even with star NBA players and Popovich.

But oh well, the tournament really does zip by. What is it, 2 weeks? I guess it doesn’t hurt to have more involved. Still surprised Slovenia was excluded.

Hello, i am from a team who were walloped by a definitely better team (Italy-Philippines) and we're fine with it.

You have to remember that our squad is not regularly exposed to these kind of quality teams. This always help the long-term program-- sure it's embarrassing but part of the solution: gauging ourselves against top-tiered teams, and hopefully identifying the weaknesses (all ) and use it in our next tournament (say Asian Games, FIBA qualifiers, etc).

[Pachinko_]

Most of those countries have generation gaps simply because of their small size, it's very hard for a country like Lithuania/Latvia/Greece etc or even a bigger one like Italy to consistently produce a full squad that is strong in every position. If Greece for example had last decade's backcourt with Papaloukas/Diamantidis/Spanoulis to surround Giannis with they would be a force to be reckoned with. But sometimes all the stars align, looks like Serbia this summer might be such a case. Jokic/Bogdanovic/Bjelica with a bunch of quality role players can beat anybody in an elimination game.

Also someone mentioned before that for a lot of those Euro players the NBA is not the biggest stage, FIBA is. NBA is where they make their money, but they grew up watching their National Team heroes on TV, not NBA. What they really want more than anything is to return home holding The Cup or an Olympic medal, that's a huge incentive to them and it translates on the floor. Americans are more talented and deeper but to them none of this really matters, most of them look like they'd rather be spending their summer somewhere else. And I'm not blaming them either, they didn't grow up idolizing national teams and thinking about World Cups.

[UcanUwill]

I am one of those queers, whose really care about team uniforms. I used to be NBA LIVE modder back in mid 00s, used to recreate national team jerseys or design my own, and was always into it. Man, I was really hoping USA jerseys they played in friendlies were not final thing, but it looks like they are. They are terrible, what you guys think? DO you have favorite uniforms in this one?