Doctor MJ wrote:chudak wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:
Keep getting rewarded? This is his first Olympics as head coach. There is no "keep" here.
Why did he get named head coach in the first place? Aside from his NBA success, he was top assistant to Pop, who surely had a big say in who should get the gig next.
Now, you may well be thinking, "It's his first Olympics, but he was the coach for the team in the World Cup and they lost! Should've been fired then!". To which the answer is:
The FIBA World Cup does not matter to Americans.
That's why the big stars don't show up to the World Cup.
That's why Team USA generally operates making 4-year decisions at a time (3-years in this case because Covid).
That's why other nations are more likely to win the World Cup than the Olympics.
(…and that's without question part of why other nations are looking to convince themselves that the World Cup matters more than the Olympics.)
I understand this sentiment in general, especially from US NBA fans.
https://bestdiplomats.org/most-popular-sports-in-the-world/If we look at the most popular sports in the world football (soccer) is definitely no 1.
Not many people care about olympic soccer as it never has the biggest stars, as there are various restrictions stopping them from playing.
“ In order to avoid competition with the World Cup, FIFA have restricted participation of elite players in the men's tournament in various ways: currently, squads for the men's tournament are required to be composed of players under 23 years of age, with three permitted exceptions.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_at_the_Summer_OlympicsNBA players were also not competing in Olympics until 1992 and when it comes to national team competitions USA pretty much only cares about Olympics
So I understand that not having the biggest players on the stage makes the competition less important.
For most non US people FIFA World Cup, FIBA Word Cup are world championships in their respective sports with the Olympics FIBA tournament considered a part of a larger event and they care about them the same amount as Olympics (wouldnt say more)
For most non US basketball national team fans an Olympic basketball gold medal and a FIBA Word Cup gold medal would be equaly important
And with USA always having some star holdouts and still always being the favourite a casual european fan sees no difference
I appreciate your civil tone and your willingness to acknowledge my view point.
Things I'd note:
1. The IOC stopped allowing the best association football players (>23) to play at precisely the same Games as they court the best basketball players in the world. Why did they do this? Because they couldn't compete with the FIFA World Cup but the FIBA World Championship (later rebranded "Cup") was not seen as a comparable threat. The IOC it should be note was founded by Europeans and the 1992 games was played in Europe.
So something I would maintain that I really folks just need to get right with:
If you think that the FIFA World Cup and FIBA World Cup are roughly equal in stature within their sports, you're just wrong. Were things otherwise, the IOC would have treated the two sports similarly in 1992.
(Of course you could argue that the IOC was just plain confused when they did this, but what I'm getting from folks here in general is a lack of awareness of the context of those 1992 decisions, so I don't really think folks here are qualified to argue they know better what the IOC should have done 30+ years ago.)
(And to the notion possible rebuttal that 1992 is no longer relevant to how the two tourneys are seen today, I'll acknowledge that things can change, but literally anyone bringing up the U23 aspect of association football in the Olympics is elevating the significance of those 1992 decisions to the current discussion, even though they probably don't realize it.)
2. I would suggest that you don't actually know how big of a deal it would be to win the Olympic Gold Medal in basketball compared to winning the FIBA World Cup, because if you're a 21st century fan and you're not American, you've never experienced this (winning both tourneys). I would suggest that the next time a non-USA Gold Medalist occurs, the star of the team will probably be a considerably bigger deal than Dennis Schroeder is now.
Just consider what it would mean to beat this Team USA with LeBron/KD/Curry and all of the top American talent. You don't think that would be bigger bragging rights than beating Team USA's with less star power?
3. Casual European fan sees no difference between Olympics basketball Gold and FIBA World Cup chip. So, I can't claim to know better than anyone else about this, but I would say this:
The Olympics in general are a much, much, much bigger deal than the FIBA World Cup.
This doesn't necessarily mean that winning the Olympic gold medal in basketball is worth more than winning the World Cup of course, because basketball is just one event in the Olympics, but when we're talking about casual fans in general, they're far more aware that the Olympics are happening than the FIBA World Cup is happening. If there is any nation on earth where this isn't true, I'd be quite surprised.
And since basically everybody knows that basketball is a part of the Olympics, that means implicitly people are more aware that Olympic basketball is happening when it is happening than they are aware of the FIBA World Cup when its happening.
Is it possible that while more people are aware of Olympic basketball than World Cup basketball, the passion of that minority that pays attention to the World Cup of basketball that it in some way surpasses Olympic basketball? Yes, it's theoretically possible.
But,
a - I'd be really curious to seem some objective data that supports this.
b - I think almost by definition this would be based on non-casual fan support, since as casual fans of sport will always be more familiar with the Olympics.
I see what you stated as more of point of view than fact, but hey I could be wrong.
I understand the sentiment that Olympics are a bigger event than the world cup, but pretty much all non US people I know treat the world cup and the olympics basketball tournament as the same
Too many other sports and medals at the same time during the olympics and you feel like a part of something bigger for sure as you have a 100 more people from your nation competing for medals
I am fine with the US citizens not thinking about it the same way about a single sport tournament like the FIBA world cup being worth less in the same way americans would not care that I dont care about american football and in the same way someone from India does not care that I dont care abour cricket.
In terms of the context of the 1989 decision that gave NBA players the right to play in the Olympics they were allowed because both FIBA and IOC got worried that they will end up with NBA players playing at Goodwill games that tried to compete with the Olympics like ABA tried to compete with NBA
FIBA didnt like the NBA because it was not under FIBA jurisdiction like most national leagues. They have a similar problem with Euroleague today.
Olympics tournament is also a FIBA tournament while Goodwill games were not and if Goodwill games won than both Olympics and FIBA would lose on the most prestigious event
The reson why FIFA didnt do the same for Olympic football (soccer) was that it wanted to keep the FIFA World Cup as the undisputed no 1 event for football and it did not face similar competition otherwise we would see the best football (soccer) players there too
“ Prior to the 1992 Olympics, FIBA rules specifically prevented NBA players from participating in Olympic tournaments, and only amateurs were eligible for the U.S. Olympic teams, which were composed of collegiate and, at times (especially in the 1950s), AAU players. Other countries used their best players from their domestic professional leagues.[8] In the 1988 Summer Olympics, the Americans lost to the USSR and settled for bronze, their worst finish in the history of the tournament.[9]
On 7 April 1989, at a special congress in Munich following the 1988–89 FIBA European Champions Cup finals, FIBA delegates voted, by a margin of 56 to 13, to allow professional basketball players to participate in its international events, including the World Cup and the Olympics. The decision led to professional players, particularly those from the United States' National Basketball Association, dominating the sport at the highest levels of international competition. The change also warded off competition from the Goodwill Games, the biggest rival of the Olympics at the time, which was seeking to bring professional players into its basketball events.[10][11][12] The Amateur Basketball Association of the United States of America (ABAUSA, renamed USA Basketball after the vote) voted against it due to "colleges and high schools that make up most of [ABAUSA's] constituency [opposing] it." The Soviet proposal to limit the national teams to only two NBA players for the first few years was then unanimously rejected.
USA Basketball asked the NBA to supply players for its 1992 roster;[15] the league was initially unenthusiastic about this idea.[8] In early 1991, Sports Illustrated labeled the forthcoming American roster as the "Dream Team" on the cover of its February 18 issue.[16][15]
“
Come on, you can do better...
