Re: Who is to be blamed for USA failure in FIBA world cup?
Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2019 2:51 am
Spens1 wrote:Pennebaker wrote:Superstars do not refuse to represent their country. They do so with much enthusiasm and honor at the Olympics.
The issue is that basketball is trying to mimic soccer but nobody cares about a FIBA world cup and you cant force anyone to care just because you've created it.
The only country that has had multiple superstars drop out is the U.S, everyone else has had most of their teams come out (and the only one from an international team that i can tell that dropped off was Simmons for Australia and he got crucified for it as well).
International ball has long been more important to international players vs Americans. Americans think the most important basketball tournament in the world is the NBA playoffs and secondarily the Olympics. FIBA barely registers.
And other countries dont have countless superstars. Greece, for example, has one. So Giannis has more pressure on him to represent being their one guy. If Greece had 20 superstars I'm pretty sure a nice chunk of them would take some time off.
Really its not that big of an issue. Still nobody in the US cares about this tournament.