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

[durden_tyler]

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.

Condolence.

[UcanUwill]

This scene has aged worse than Homer's sandwich

Watch on YouTube

[the_other_guy]

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.

Because its all about money and entertainment, not actual basketball and winning.

[-Luke-]

Avramovic probably following Schroder to the toilet at halftime.

[Ball4life32]

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)

Yeah playing with a guy who has elite playmaking analytics and has led the nba in assists since he entered the league doesn’t help at all. Plus Bogi is only shooting 40% in his career in Atlanta playing with him on high volume…. better than when he was on the Kings.

Read on Twitter

?s=12&t=s-VghZKjedcplqZ1jnnlwg

But Bogi has been hurt every season in Atlanta. If he’s healthy he should be playing more than Hunter unless Hunter makes a jump, even if it’s not the best fit defensively. Hawks made their run a couple seasons ago with Huerter and Bogi starting at the wings.

[aminiaturebuddha]

Everyone trying to come up with a cool reason the USA lost (B team, cohesiveness, wrong stars, choking etc.) there's really one simple thing here. Defense.

USA had zero problems on offense. They let the tournament in scoring and put up over 100 on all their strong opponents. No one stopped this team. They generated plenty of assists and threes. You can't realistically expect more from a team, offensively, in a tournament setting like this. This was a powerful, unstoppable offense, with a ton of variety. They could have taken care of the ball a little bit better, but turnovers weren't an awful problem (they were middle of the pack

But the USA also gave up 110 points to Lithuania, 113 to Germany, and 127 to Canada. They wanted to play a tiny switching defense that allowed them to stay fast and skilled on offense. But the switching scheme was very lazy, the players didn't play with a ton of effort, and the personnel was wrong for that scheme. Opponents with good ball handlers (Canada and Germany especially) got to pick their matchup with 1 screen. You want Austin Reaves or Haliburton? Have at him! They'd also allow their only source of rim protection get switched onto the perimeter, so there was never strong help behind the point of attack. If the US wants to be lazy and switch like that, they need a secondary rim protector on the court as much as possible. You can't just give the opponent whatever they want all the time and expect them not to score a ton on you. This tournament was complete neglect of that side of the ball.

From a Canadian perspective, this game today against the US was way easier at the offensive end than it was against Serbia, Brazil, Slovenia or Spain. The US plays good pesky defence in full court or on the perimeter, but it just felt like there was way more space inside for drives and interior passing than there was against other teams.

Part of that is because the US were doubling Shai so far from the basket, which left the top of the key open for another Canadian player to operate (usually Brooks), but it was also partly because their switches were predictable, and they didn't collapse or play the obvious passing lanes when Canada got a momentary advantage, as other teams did throughout this tournament.

So yep, totally agree. For the US to win gold at the Olympics, they're going to need to play much better defence - partly a factor of personnel and partly scheme.

[Wingy]

Condolence.

You got me! But, it’s that I care more about other posters acting like an ass when I’m trying to have a decent human conversation than the US team’s losses. Carry on.

That’s how little we give a damn.

[Phreak50]

USA had zero problems on offense. They let the tournament in scoring and put up over 100 on all their strong opponents. No one stopped this team.

3 teams did stop them.

You add in defensive players and lose offense.

They were also pretty average from 3 against Canada at 37%. Pretty similar against Lithuania as well.

The Germany game was textbook offense from their opponents. USA get some nice assists but when the pressure is on they simply relied on Edwards, Reeves, Haliburton to shoot off the dribble, contested threes.

So no, they don’t get whatever they want on offense.

Some silly turnovers against Canada as well.

The guys that played simply thought they could show up. They had no discipline or desire on d. No team d fundamentals.

That’s also on the coach. He can say it’s not 1992 as much as he wants but Kerr simply didn’t have these guys ready on defense.

[-Luke-]

Good defense.

[OkcSinceSGA]

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

[Calvin Klein]

This scene has aged worse than Homer's sandwich

Watch on YouTube

TBH this is Zombie Simpsons and should not be considered worthy of anything.

[AdagioPace]

Voigtmann is turning into Kraut Jokic before our eyes

[-Luke-]

Voigtmann/Theis > Duncan/Robinson


Just kidding.


Or am I?

[SOUL]

Lot of things to praise about FIBA but the amount of whining is insane lol.. I thought NBA was bad

[Buckets22]

Voigtmann is turning into Kraut Jokic before our eyes

Where does he stand on the horses question? This is the clincher.
Germany trying to build up a lead.

[Tripod]

Condolence.

You got me! But, it’s that I care more about other posters acting like an ass when I’m trying to have a decent human conversation than the US team’s losses. Carry on.

That’s how little we give a damn.

Except we all know this place would be flooded with "beat you with our B team" had the US won gold.

The US by far was missing the most talent. But a bunch of that talent is also older in Lebron, KD, Curry, and Butler. The guys we saw this tourney, or looking around, are just not on their levels. So once they are gone, the gap narrows further.

And that's OK. It's a global game. It's good for basketball. Just like hockey not being always dominated by Canada.

[Dirk]

Maxi made a really poor poor decison.

[WestGOAT]

Very impressed with Bogdanović, but how does he play when Jokic is also playing? Can he do a good Jamal Murray impression? From what I've seen he likes playing fast and not sure how compatible that is with Jokic.

Can any Serbian fans elaborate on this?

.

[r0drig0lac]

Dennis and the kids running away

[-Luke-]

German playing defense like Serbia now.