Eurobasket 2022 Finals : SPAIN are European champions!!!

[FlorentinoPerez]

I’d like to see Yabusele take another crack at the NBA. He’s gotten way better since he left and the league better suits his skillset.

These FIBA tournaments, even the EuroBasket, which is clearly the highest level FIBA tournament, as it is obviously a better level overall than the Olympics and World Cup, but even still, it's without any doubt much worse than the EuroLeague level.

Poland, Italy, Spain, Finland - teams like that having good results in this EuroBasket, and not one of them could even sniff making the EuroLeague playoffs. I doubt if Poland's national team could even win a single game in a EuroLeague season. I honestly think they would go 0-34 in EuroLeague, and they are in the medal round at EuroBasket.

Every summer you have a list of 2-3 players you are high on based on play from these FIBA tournaments, and you talk about how they should be in the NBA, and every summer, we have this same discussion about that, about how in European club basketball, that those same players, are nothing more than an average players, or in some cases, worse than that.

I remember for example you were talking about Gabriel Deck like that, based on his FIBA play with Argentina, and how he should be in the NBA. Well, NBA scouts that are so lazy all they can do is look at a FIBA tournament, and are too lazy to look at whole seasons of play in clubs leagues, and against better competition, must also think the same. Deck was signed to the NBA.

I remember at the time of the FIBA play, saying how Deck was like an average EuroLeague player, and how for most of his time at Real Madrid, he barely even contributed to the team. I also remember saying NBA scouts were clowns, if they thought he was even in the top 10 number of small forwards they should look at from EuroLeague, and that I was sure it made no sense why they even were interested in him. No surprise that he did nothing in the NBA, because he never did jack squat in Real for the most part.

Yet, because he "looks good with Argentina", he was suddenly in the NBA.

Yabusele, if you watch against much better competition in the EuroLeague, you can see that he is a chucker, he has a low basketball IQ, he has terrible shot selection, he loves to stand at the 3 point line and shoot wild bricks, if the shot is contested. He had good production on Real Madrid last season, but somehow he just doesn't seem like a top quality EuroLeague player to me. Way too many bad decisions, bad mental plays, bad shot selections for me.

As for Ponitka, he had a great tournament with Poland. Now all of a sudden, it's why isn't he in the NBA? I've seen him for years in EuroLeague. He's a player I do really like, but in all honesty, he was mostly just a solid player in EuroLeague, in his career. I honestly don't even remember him doing all that much when he played in the 2nd tier EuroCup.

I dont know man, your right about a bunch of things, but Deck and Yabusele were key contributors for Real last year, maybe the two most important players alongside Tabares

[LuDux1]

Also how in the world did they manage to get Slovenia, France, Germany and Lithuania in one group? What kind of stupid ranking system do they have?

"Each of the four hosts was granted the right to select a partner federation for commercial and marketing criteria. These teams would automatically be placed into the same group as their chosen partner country."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroBasket_2022#Draw

[Mirotic12]

I was super exited for Okobo + James combo in Monaco, but I don't know, he looked really bad so far, he will probably find his mojo back in club basketball, but people expected Decolo replacement, and he is not that at least so far.

The two biggest chuckers, ball hoggers, and hero ballers in all of Europe, as your team's backcourt? Certainly an interesting experiment. I've always liked Mike James, because he's a really fun player to watch, but at the toughest games, against the best teams, he has choked his entire career.

That style of basketball doesn't work against good teams.

[Mirotic12]

I dont know man, your right about a bunch of things, but Deck and Yabusele were key contributors for Real last year, maybe the two most important players alongside Tabares

I know a lot of people are enamored with Deck.

His positives:

He's extremely physical, strong, and very athletic. He has good size for a 3. He's a very good rebounder. He runs the floor very well. He's a very good post player.

Negatives:

The above is the entire basketball ability that he has. He's basically, if I had to make a comparison - a poor man's version of Andres Nocioni. If you just simply use him to run the floor, rebound, and post smaller players, then he can be very effective and efficient. But his overall level and offerings as a player are limited.

I should add that I do like Deck as a player. Because he's extremely tough and physical, and he will bully a team into submission, if they let him play one to one around the basket. But, to me he's basically like a specialist kind of player.

Yabusele is an interesting player. He's a big that can shoot the 3, he can defend, and he's one of those players that seems to be able to score in bunches at times. It's just that for me personally, I don't like players like him, because his basketball IQ and decision making, to me, are just horrendous.

[sunsbg]

Lol, I wrote it's walk over for France, but 40+ pts difference win in a semi...

[lt175]

That said, beside Sabonis, to me, Ellie Okobo is probably the most disappointing player in a tournament.

I would say that Okobo is clearly by far the most disappointing player.
At least Sabonis had some good games. His first two games were really bad but after that he was pretty solid.
Okobo never found his place in the French Team even as a back up.
That´s really weird because he has the ballhandling, the shot, the creativity for at least be a solid bench player.
He´s still 24 and other french players had difficulties finding their place with Vincent Collet as coach. Nando De Colo for example had to wait Eurobasket 2015 to be a strong player for France even if he was already a really good player in Europe for years.
With Okobo, I´m really surprised because he was pretty good in the warm up games I saw.

I was super exited for Okobo + James combo in Monaco, but I don't know, he looked really bad so far, he will probably find his mojo back in club basketball, but people expected Decolo replacement, and he is not that at least so far.

Okobo is 24, it´s difficult to replace a great player like De Colo who has so much experience.
And there´s also the fact that Okobo has to share the ball with guys like Heurtel, Fournier, Yabusele. It´s not so easy to find your place. And Vincent Collet never was the type of coach that trust his young talents. I remember how hard it was for De Colo to find a place in this team behind Tony Parker.
Collet didn´t take Fournier for the Olympic Games in 2016 which is still unbelievable.
As for Okobo at Monaco, well that´s a curious choice I would say with Mike James on the team.^^

[jezzerinho]

Esp-Ger is the Brown/Schröder show. Great game.

[Alonzo_Morning]

Great game so far

[lambchop]

Spain is getting 2 point buckets every single time down the floor. We will see if Germany can continue with the hot shooting. Brown looks unstoppable once again. More proof that you dont have to be a good NBA player to be a FIBA stud.

[elillo]

Rudy on a mission

[lambchop]

Without Dennis Germany is prett useless to be honest. No one can create anything against this level of defense, not even Franz who looks like a deer in headlights out there.

[jezzerinho]

Garuba hoovering everything up as Germany try to claw back.

[bravor]

Okobo is 24, it´s difficult to replace a great player like De Colo who has so much experience.
And there´s also the fact that Okobo has to share the ball with guys like Heurtel, Fournier, Yabusele. It´s not so easy to find your place. And Vincent Collet never was the type of coach that trust his young talents. I remember how hard it was for De Colo to find a place in this team behind Tony Parker.
Collet didn´t take Fournier for the Olympic Games in 2016 which is still unbelievable.
As for Okobo at Monaco, well that´s a curious choice I would say with Mike James on the team.^^

I am pretty well placed to answer to this assertion.


He took over our team (Le Mans) as an headcoach and he finished couple of times 1st in the regular season with one of the best game (on both ends) in the league
At that time, he was successful with rookie bets (Hollis Price started his pro career here), prospects like Nicevic, and some local (who were limited at that time).
Then as our team asked, he did a great job (with other staff member) developing young prospects like Koffi/Amagou, plus one that was from insep (Bokolo). He ended champion in 2006 by giving responsabilities to the young kids (Besok was in the team and before his good play offs show up was coming from the bench) and relying on smart american players (who were undersized at sf and pf btw, especially campbell).
The year after, Batum became a pro and he started in EL at 17. We also had Aaron Cel (who also started in EL during one game but it has more to do with early foul trouble, as he had to give minutes at the C spot) and another wing (J. Leloup) who could not have lots of minutes because of Batum (and the other american wing).
Then he is the one who launched A. diot as well as a pro, even though he had the worst luck ever with injuries and Antoine only took off 4 years later with Strasbourg (under Collet...).

He did the same job in Strasbourg, with little less success (they did not have really elite prospects), but he still had success with Ntilikina.

As for the national team, he has always been better with the bigs than with the wings/backcourt anyway. BUT, he is a coach that want some defensive stops and at least two decent defenders in his line up.
When you have Parker and De Colo, its kinda tough to consider adding Fournier in the line up. De Colo started with the nt as the sg spot, its only lately that Collet gave him the pg responsabilities (we had Diot when injuries were giving him a break or guys like heurtel as back up).

Considering that most of his players are far from being perfect (unless i am mistaken, i dont see fans rioting at their franchise/club house to push for bringing in the Fournier/Gobert and alike...), he does a much better job than people give him credit. he just had the worst luck ever as a coach to have to face spanish golden generation for so long.
Even if he's far from being perfect. He took ages to run the pick n pop for example, and he is so focus on the big/big relation that sometimes you have to bear with some experimental tall ball (like the Poirier/Gobert or even Poirier/Fall frontcourt). He wants player to control the tempo and hates up tempo games, but he's still by far the best french coach we ever had.
Just need to remember when he took over the ball hog Parker teams where Parker was doing his fat stats with poor results as everyone knows (or should). Things changed when he added the young talent from our golden 88/89 generation (+ De Colo).

Ah, he is still Levallois's coach and he will have Wembanyama, Traoré, Besson, even Coulibaly as young prospects. I guess if some young kids (and their agent..) think Levallois is a good option, there must be some reasons...

[lambchop]

Dennis with 19 points and 5 assists in the first half. I still think they will need Wagner to contribute SOMETHING in order to beat Spain.

[Mauro Pedrosa]

These games have a blistering pace. Great game so far

[Saint_Killa]

It still haunts me to this day that Dennis didn`t take those 84 mil...

[Dirk]

These games have a blistering pace. Great game so far

Do you have your Wagner jersey on?

[samwana]

It still haunts me to this day that Dennis didn`t take those 84 mil...

i guess he has nightmares about that as well

RealGM mobile app

[minami]

Qué grande Willy, vamos!

[Audi]

Without Dennis Germany is prett useless to be honest. No one can create anything against this level of defense, not even Franz who looks like a deer in headlights out there.

He'll be ok

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