FIBA World Cup 2023 : GERMANY are the new World Champions! (takes on the world and beats it for once...)

[Dino-Might]

What a great game so far.

[Message Boar]

Bogdanovic is so good, man.

[AdagioPace]

GODdanovic is on fire

[Anticon]

Incredible win for Canada. Really a perfect tournament except for that loss to Serbia. But that'll set them up well for the Olympics.

A US loss is a good thing for the program, it'll motivate one last Olympics for their 2003 to 2012 draft generation. Marked how much the top talent has fallen off from the US - only US first team all nbaers drafted from 2013 onwards are Tatum and Booker.

They'll be the favourite in 2024 but 2028 will be another story.

[Ball4life32]

Bogi so underrated. Hope he can stay healthy this season.

[IQ_baller]

Will be hilarious if USA ends up with no medal.

LOL. Embarrassing showout by the US team this entire tournament

[r0drig0lac]

Franz and Bonga doing their thing, but all Serbian players are just fundamentally perfect, a very difficult team to beat.

[-Luke-]

Serbia very disciplined. No surprise for a Sveti coached team.

[AdagioPace]

Schroeder with multiple decision-making farts in the last couple minutes. Nicht gut

[Buckets22]

Schroeders trash twin showed up for the game today...

[-Luke-]

Melo having fun.

[peZt]

It's crazy how much more fun watching FIBA is vs. the NBA without the constant calls, timeouts, ads etc.
Let's be honest, the NBA is a TERRIBLE product to watch and averaging less than 10 million viewers in a country as big as the USA is a testament to this. If the NBA wants long term growth, it should completely adapt the FIBA rules but they won't.

Not sure the NBA can become a 6-game season followed by a week-long single-elimination tournament based on national pride and playing for something bigger than yourself (and doesn't need to max its $ either).

It doesn't have to. But allowing more defense, reducing the amount of timeouts and ads would go a long way to improved ratings. Nobody, not even Basketball fans, want to sit through the last 5 minutes of a game that take up to an hour because of constant foul calls and timeouts every couple seconds.
But the NBA values short term ad money over long term growth

[-Luke-]

Calm down Jo. Taking threes from the logo.

[r0drig0lac]

Theis is a german Wes Unseld lol

[AdagioPace]

avramovic with a huge flop

[Wingy]

Congrats Canada, previously 0-7 vs USA and now this with bronze to boot!

And for Team USA, continue sending your B-Team and this is what you’ll be suffering!

There is no suffering, no one cares deeply outside of the players that did go. I don’t intend to be snide or snarky with that statement. There’s no loaded bitterness here like some Americans who respond to non-US fans with angst and a bad attitude. It’s just an emotionless, calm and objective statement of fact.

I’m an anomaly who ‘cares’ a lot more than the average American by following via this and other threads, box score watching, but I’m not even getting up and actually paying for a service to watch. Most care way less, and to think - I’m in a significant minority of being a passionate NBA fan who spends plenty of time on this site. Yet, I don’t even take the time to watch.

The average fan probably barely realized the event was happening til the team started losing. But that passes immediately as today is the first day of the NFL season. This is already forgotten for most fans.

So many have said the truth that we invest more in the Olympics. I assume that’s because of the original Dream Team setting the precedent from the start. Maybe if MJ/Magic/Bird & co first showed up at a World Cup it would be different?

Not until we start seeing consistent Greece 2004 results in the Olympics will the US care more. Even that would be amongst the more niche basketball-loving community.

I get why the stars don’t show up. They have too much at risk with their careers. It’s the epitome of capitalism. It’s very American. Ironic that the overwhelming majority of the “patriotic” chest beaters would do the exact same thing if they were in the players’ position.

I know this has pretty all been said at some point along the way. Just repeating it again from a fan that likes seeing the game grow globally. Better product, better quality. Cool seeing others get into the sport I love most. I’m all for US sports growing in popularity worldwide. Hopefully start stealing some of the talent pool from the football pitch! Don’t know if I’ll live to see it, but when the US starts beating world powers in football more than once a decade or so, now that will cause infinitely more suffering than any FIBA WC loss.

[Message Boar]

Great first half, hopefully the second half will be more of the same.

[SOUL]

That Jeff dude commentator has the craziest accent lol

[durden_tyler]

Such quality basketball from tipoff to halftime buzzer.

[durden_tyler]

Bogi so underrated. Hope he can stay healthy this season.

Or hope he gets traded. We'll never see this Bogdanovic with Trae Young at the helm. (Or Hawks in general)