OT : Eurobasket 2025

[sisibilio]

.

I also don't know how it works in some cases. Kyle Allman plays for Montenegro even though he has as much to do with Montenegro as you or I. But in the timeouts coaches and players speak their native language. Does Allman understand what they are saying?

In this case they ussually have a translator for such player if he needs It.

[Greek]

Since I was born in Limassol from. Greek father and a Cypriot mother, I know a few things . The arena is amazing up to the eurolegue standards. We have zero talent as a country, in general we are short, and everything here is all about football. Actually Paphos FC made the league face of champions league while is representing the smallest town here (just 90.00p) and got the 1st local championship just last year.

One big problem is the price of the tickets, the cheapest ticket for the game of Greece are starting from 40 euros, the rest from 20 25. Those prices are absurd if your goal is to promote basketball to the country who is also happening to be tiny, around 1M of population in total.

Sent from my SM-G996B using RealGM mobile app

[UcanUwill]

I am well on record, I hate naturalized players. I do not mind players with blood connection, I do not think most of them even count as naturalized, but due to FIBA rules sometimes they do. I hate guys like Brown, Nebo, Lloyd, Randolph playing for random teams, I have way more respect for teams that do not have these mercenary type of players, but very few nations are still openly against it. Like, I will just never respect last Spain gold, sorry, But I wont, end of story. I would rather see my nation lose than win medal with Lorenzo Brown, I am 100% serious.

In 00s, Russian giant clubs, when signing some Americans, they even included in their contracts that they should play for Russia if needed, and they were the ones pushing to eliminate naturalized player limit, they literally tried to turn FIBA into club Basketball, or at least their National team, that is like most pathetic loser move I have ever seen In FIBA politics ever. Just the fact naturalized player limit exist, I think is confirmation that they know it is wrong, if they didn't think that, why would they set the limit?

[RookieStar]

I wonder why GER never plays Franz and Tristan together. They always sub each other only...

[-Luke-]

I am well on record, I hate naturalized players. I do not mind players with blood connection, I do not think most of them even count as naturalized, but due to FIBA rules sometimes they do. I hate guys like Brown, Nebo, Lloyd, Randolph playing for random teams, I have way more respect for teams that do not have these mercenary type of players, but very few nations are still openly against it. Like, I will just never respect last Spain gold, sorry, But I wont, end of story. I would rather see my nation lose than win medal with Lorenzo Brown, I am 100% serious.

In 00s, Russian giant clubs, when signing some Americans, they even included in their contracts that they should play for Russia if needed, and they were the ones pushing to eliminate naturalized player limit, they literally tried to turn FIBA into club Basketball, or at least their National team, that is like most pathetic loser move I have ever seen In FIBA politics ever. Just the fact naturalized player limit exist, I think is confirmation that they know it is wrong, if they didn't think that, why would they set the limit?

Yes, it's absurd. If it's not ok, don't allow it at all. If it's ok, allow it without a limit.

[Bob8]

I am well on record, I hate naturalized players. I do not mind players with blood connection, I do not think most of them even count as naturalized, but due to FIBA rules sometimes they do. I hate guys like Brown, Nebo, Lloyd, Randolph playing for random teams, I have way more respect for teams that do not have these mercenary type of players, but very few nations are still openly against it. Like, I will just never respect last Spain gold, sorry, But I wont, end of story. I would rather see my nation lose than win medal with Lorenzo Brown, I am 100% serious.

In 00s, Russian giant clubs, when signing some Americans, they even included in their contracts that they should play for Russia if needed, and they were the ones pushing to eliminate naturalized player limit, they literally tried to turn FIBA into club Basketball, or at least their National team, that is like most pathetic loser move I have ever seen In FIBA politics ever. Just the fact naturalized player limit exist, I think is confirmation that they know it is wrong, if they didn't think that, why would they set the limit?

I believe it's pretty clear why they allow naturalised players, they want to give small or not basketball countries a little better chances. Not many countries are like Lithuania, where only 1 sport exists and all talent goes there. In the long term no small country will compete with multi cultural big nations as France, difference in talent pool is just too big, they do naturalisation just a lot sooner and on much bigger scale.

[UcanUwill]

I am well on record, I hate naturalized players. I do not mind players with blood connection, I do not think most of them even count as naturalized, but due to FIBA rules sometimes they do. I hate guys like Brown, Nebo, Lloyd, Randolph playing for random teams, I have way more respect for teams that do not have these mercenary type of players, but very few nations are still openly against it. Like, I will just never respect last Spain gold, sorry, But I wont, end of story. I would rather see my nation lose than win medal with Lorenzo Brown, I am 100% serious.

In 00s, Russian giant clubs, when signing some Americans, they even included in their contracts that they should play for Russia if needed, and they were the ones pushing to eliminate naturalized player limit, they literally tried to turn FIBA into club Basketball, or at least their National team, that is like most pathetic loser move I have ever seen In FIBA politics ever. Just the fact naturalized player limit exist, I think is confirmation that they know it is wrong, if they didn't think that, why would they set the limit?

I believe it's pretty clear why they allow naturalised players, they want to give small or not basketball countries a little better chances. Not many countries are like Lithuania, where only 1 sport exists and all talent goes there. In the long term no small country will compete with multi cultural big nations as France, difference in talent pool is just too big, they do naturalisation just a lot sooner and on much bigger scale.

Yet most teams that won gold has had naturalized player... Even USA did, but I mean their guy at least lived in the country for 10 years, but they still had one. Same with Spain, Slovenia etc. Out of top teams, only Serbs, Germans and French I believe do not have naturalized players. So if the idea is to help the little guy, it does not work as intended. Why should Spain have natuiralized player, so he would win them gold, yes. I do not get the whole idea behind it, lets hire a mercenary so if we win, our victory is tainted...

Basketball is not the only sport in Lithuania, we are better at strongmen than Basketball anyway, I am just sayint, it is very popular And we are not even good anymore, so is Latvia, but somehow we mange without Lorenzo Brown or even D'angelo Russell who wants to play for Lithuanian publicly cause his wife is Lithuanian. Country still didn't even consider it cause he has nothing to do with Lithuania beside the fact he sleeps with one.

[-Luke-]

I am well on record, I hate naturalized players. I do not mind players with blood connection, I do not think most of them even count as naturalized, but due to FIBA rules sometimes they do. I hate guys like Brown, Nebo, Lloyd, Randolph playing for random teams, I have way more respect for teams that do not have these mercenary type of players, but very few nations are still openly against it. Like, I will just never respect last Spain gold, sorry, But I wont, end of story. I would rather see my nation lose than win medal with Lorenzo Brown, I am 100% serious.

In 00s, Russian giant clubs, when signing some Americans, they even included in their contracts that they should play for Russia if needed, and they were the ones pushing to eliminate naturalized player limit, they literally tried to turn FIBA into club Basketball, or at least their National team, that is like most pathetic loser move I have ever seen In FIBA politics ever. Just the fact naturalized player limit exist, I think is confirmation that they know it is wrong, if they didn't think that, why would they set the limit?

I believe it's pretty clear why they allow naturalised players, they want to give small or not basketball countries a little better chances. Not many countries are like Lithuania, where only 1 sport exists and all talent goes there. In the long term no small country will compete with multi cultural big nations as France, difference in talent pool is just too big, they do naturalisation just a lot sooner and on much bigger scale.

Yet most teams that won gold has had naturalized player... Even USA did, but I mean their guy at least lived in the country for 10 years, but they still had one. Same with Spain, Slovenia etc. Out of top teams, only Serbs, Germans and French I believe do not have naturalized players. So if the idea is to help the little guy, it does not work as intended. Why should Spain have natuiralized player, so he would win them gold, yes. I do not get the whole idea behind it, lets hire a mercenary so if we win, our victory is tainted...

Basketball is not the only sport in Lithuania, we are better at strongmen than Basketball anyway, I am just sayint, it is very popular And we are not even good anymore, so is Latvia, but somehow we mange without Lorenzo Brown or even D'angelo Russell who wants to play for Lithuanian publicly cause his wife is Lithuanian. Country still didn't even consider it cause he has nothing to do with Lithuania beside the fact he sleeps with one.

Germany has Nick Weiler-Babb, but not in this tournament and also not in 2023. He may be one of the guys where it's accepted because he has a German grandmother (I think) and played in Germany for years.

[Bob8]

I am well on record, I hate naturalized players. I do not mind players with blood connection, I do not think most of them even count as naturalized, but due to FIBA rules sometimes they do. I hate guys like Brown, Nebo, Lloyd, Randolph playing for random teams, I have way more respect for teams that do not have these mercenary type of players, but very few nations are still openly against it. Like, I will just never respect last Spain gold, sorry, But I wont, end of story. I would rather see my nation lose than win medal with Lorenzo Brown, I am 100% serious.

In 00s, Russian giant clubs, when signing some Americans, they even included in their contracts that they should play for Russia if needed, and they were the ones pushing to eliminate naturalized player limit, they literally tried to turn FIBA into club Basketball, or at least their National team, that is like most pathetic loser move I have ever seen In FIBA politics ever. Just the fact naturalized player limit exist, I think is confirmation that they know it is wrong, if they didn't think that, why would they set the limit?

I believe it's pretty clear why they allow naturalised players, they want to give small or not basketball countries a little better chances. Not many countries are like Lithuania, where only 1 sport exists and all talent goes there. In the long term no small country will compete with multi cultural big nations as France, difference in talent pool is just too big, they do naturalisation just a lot sooner and on much bigger scale.

Yet most teams that won gold has had naturalized player... Even USA did, but I mean their guy at least lived in the country for 10 years, but they still had one. Same with Spain, Slovenia etc. Out of top teams, only Serbs, Germans and French I believe do not have naturalized players. So if the idea is to help the little guy, it does not work as intended. Why should Spain have natuiralized player, so he would win them gold, yes. I do not get the whole idea behind it, lets hire a mercenary so if we win, our victory is tainted...

Basketball is not the only sport in Lithuania, we are better at strongmen than Basketball anyway, I am just sayint, it is very popular And we are not even good anymore, so is Latvia, but somehow we mange without Lorenzo Brown or even D'angelo Russell who wants to play for Lithuanian publicly cause his wife is Lithuanian. Country still didn't even consider it cause he has nothing to do with Lithuania beside the fact he sleeps with one.

It's intended to help small countries but you can't prevent bigger nations to do the same, it's the same rule for everyone.

France has 50 bigs better than Omic or Tobey, so having naturalised player on a position where you don't have height at home hardly gives you advantage over other countries. Those players don't win you championships, but they allow you to have a shot, because you can't play basketball without bigs.

[Archx]

I am well on record, I hate naturalized players. I do not mind players with blood connection, I do not think most of them even count as naturalized, but due to FIBA rules sometimes they do. I hate guys like Brown, Nebo, Lloyd, Randolph playing for random teams, I have way more respect for teams that do not have these mercenary type of players, but very few nations are still openly against it. Like, I will just never respect last Spain gold, sorry, But I wont, end of story. I would rather see my nation lose than win medal with Lorenzo Brown, I am 100% serious.

In 00s, Russian giant clubs, when signing some Americans, they even included in their contracts that they should play for Russia if needed, and they were the ones pushing to eliminate naturalized player limit, they literally tried to turn FIBA into club Basketball, or at least their National team, that is like most pathetic loser move I have ever seen In FIBA politics ever. Just the fact naturalized player limit exist, I think is confirmation that they know it is wrong, if they didn't think that, why would they set the limit?

I believe it's pretty clear why they allow naturalised players, they want to give small or not basketball countries a little better chances. Not many countries are like Lithuania, where only 1 sport exists and all talent goes there. In the long term no small country will compete with multi cultural big nations as France, difference in talent pool is just too big, they do naturalisation just a lot sooner and on much bigger scale.

Yet most teams that won gold has had naturalized player... Even USA did, but I mean their guy at least lived in the country for 10 years, but they still had one. Same with Spain, Slovenia etc. Out of top teams, only Serbs, Germans and French I believe do not have naturalized players. So if the idea is to help the little guy, it does not work as intended. Why should Spain have natuiralized player, so he would win them gold, yes. I do not get the whole idea behind it, lets hire a mercenary so if we win, our victory is tainted...

On your list when it comes to ethnicity, basically only Serbs have their "own" players.

[UcanUwill]

I believe it's pretty clear why they allow naturalised players, they want to give small or not basketball countries a little better chances. Not many countries are like Lithuania, where only 1 sport exists and all talent goes there. In the long term no small country will compete with multi cultural big nations as France, difference in talent pool is just too big, they do naturalisation just a lot sooner and on much bigger scale.

Yet most teams that won gold has had naturalized player... Even USA did, but I mean their guy at least lived in the country for 10 years, but they still had one. Same with Spain, Slovenia etc. Out of top teams, only Serbs, Germans and French I believe do not have naturalized players. So if the idea is to help the little guy, it does not work as intended. Why should Spain have natuiralized player, so he would win them gold, yes. I do not get the whole idea behind it, lets hire a mercenary so if we win, our victory is tainted...

Basketball is not the only sport in Lithuania, we are better at strongmen than Basketball anyway, I am just sayint, it is very popular And we are not even good anymore, so is Latvia, but somehow we mange without Lorenzo Brown or even D'angelo Russell who wants to play for Lithuanian publicly cause his wife is Lithuanian. Country still didn't even consider it cause he has nothing to do with Lithuania beside the fact he sleeps with one.

Germany has Nick Weiler-Babb, but not in this tournament and also not in 2023. He may be one of the guys where it's accepted because he has a German grandmother (I think) and played in Germany for years.

I always assumed he was just German. But yeah, I understand those blood connections can be a stretch, but hey, your grandparents were german, fine, you pass. Some African teams like Nigeria is basically just that, entire team, and some fans really hate the double standards, but I understand that politics around the globe is different, and many people had to flee countries like Nigeria once, and if the children of those people want to play for Nigeria, thats perfectly fine.

I just really hate what teams like Poland, Croatia, Spain, Slovenia does, where their naturalized guy is just random Amaerican, have nothing to do with country at all. ANd it is not like, well he has a passport, many people have dual or triple citezenships, especially athletes who work around EU restrictions, IMO it does not make you valuable member of that national team when your passport is just business formality, yeah, legally it works, but it is not the spirit of the game.

[pepe1991]

During preparation for Eurobasket, Croatia played vs Hungary, who is part of Eurobasket, and beat them by 20 ( 85:65). Like 20 days ago.
After that Croatia beat Ukraine 82-71, and once again, Ukraine is at Eurobasket, Croatia isn't.

This is totally and utterly false. Neither Hungary, Ukraine or Denmark are in Eurobasket. Croatia is playing with the other special-needs teams of Europe, not with Eurobasket teams. Cyprus also isn't an Eurobasket team, but they got in as one of the hosts (as their Russian collaborators bribed enough FIBA officials to make that happen).

In qualifications for Euro basket, in groups of 4 teams:

Portugal qualified with 8 points -3rd spot
Turkey qualified with 9 points -3rd spot
Belgium qualified with 9 points- 3rd spot
Sweden qualified with 9 points - 3rd spot




Cyprus qualified with 0 wins- and 4th spot (host)
Finland qualified with 8 points- 3rd spot ( host, didn't beat anybody but Denmark- twice )



Amount of teams that didn't qualify from 3rd spot:
Croatia ( 9 points) ; North Macedonia ( 8 points).

4 teams from 3rd spot had both or either:
negative points differential OR
less points ( or same amount of points) as Croatia.
Croatia had 9 points and positive differential. Unlike any other 3rd spot member.


Fact that Croatia isn't qualified is only because of teams that participate in qualifications, but who can't be eliminated. And why i even need to explain how reta**ed that system is?



Original panel of hosts that applied for EB 2025:

Ukraine
Russia
Hungary
Finland
Latvia
Cyprus


BUT - Russia got suspended, Hungary didn't get it ( politics i guess), Ukraine didn't get due war and Poland got chance to host, despite not even applying.


Overall reality of situation is:
- teams need their D or F teams to qualify and majority of players who play qualifications don't actually play in tournament. This time around it's Croatia, next might be prime Luka watching it from home.
- qualifications are punchline of own joke
- participation in qualification despite being qualified makes as much sense as playing qualifications for nba league, without ability to be eliminated from it.
- joined hosting from countries that have no geological connection means fans can't travel or have full experience of watching that World Cup or Euro in soccer/football give.
- Latvia, in order to sell tickets and promote whole thing, spent more money on pre-Eurobasket tournament and costs of travel than it is actual price money for federation /Nation that wins tournament.
- viewership in arena has been brutal compared to 2022.

And finally, Cyprus qualification path and how whole thing is rotten:
2022 - first qualification round - dead last, 1-6- advanced
2022-2023- second qualification round, dead laast- 0-6 - advanced
Didn't play third phase- advanced
2024- 2025- dead last, 0-6 - advanced.

if host has to be part of Euro, and it's fine by me, it's normal in soccer and other serious sports, why in a hell are they dragged through all the qualifications if they can't be eliminated?

[BadaBoom]

I believe it's pretty clear why they allow naturalised players, they want to give small or not basketball countries a little better chances. Not many countries are like Lithuania, where only 1 sport exists and all talent goes there. In the long term no small country will compete with multi cultural big nations as France, difference in talent pool is just too big, they do naturalisation just a lot sooner and on much bigger scale.

Yet most teams that won gold has had naturalized player... Even USA did, but I mean their guy at least lived in the country for 10 years, but they still had one. Same with Spain, Slovenia etc. Out of top teams, only Serbs, Germans and French I believe do not have naturalized players. So if the idea is to help the little guy, it does not work as intended. Why should Spain have natuiralized player, so he would win them gold, yes. I do not get the whole idea behind it, lets hire a mercenary so if we win, our victory is tainted...

On your list when it comes to ethnicity, basically only Serbs have their "own" players.

I was afraid that my question would trigger answers like this one. Please stick to the national team subject and don't make it an "pure ethnicity" stuff, it's pretty disappointing to bring this on the table...

[Bob8]

Yet most teams that won gold has had naturalized player... Even USA did, but I mean their guy at least lived in the country for 10 years, but they still had one. Same with Spain, Slovenia etc. Out of top teams, only Serbs, Germans and French I believe do not have naturalized players. So if the idea is to help the little guy, it does not work as intended. Why should Spain have natuiralized player, so he would win them gold, yes. I do not get the whole idea behind it, lets hire a mercenary so if we win, our victory is tainted...

Basketball is not the only sport in Lithuania, we are better at strongmen than Basketball anyway, I am just sayint, it is very popular And we are not even good anymore, so is Latvia, but somehow we mange without Lorenzo Brown or even D'angelo Russell who wants to play for Lithuanian publicly cause his wife is Lithuanian. Country still didn't even consider it cause he has nothing to do with Lithuania beside the fact he sleeps with one.

Germany has Nick Weiler-Babb, but not in this tournament and also not in 2023. He may be one of the guys where it's accepted because he has a German grandmother (I think) and played in Germany for years.

I always assumed he was just German. But yeah, I understand those blood connections can be a stretch, but hey, your grandparents were german, fine, you pass. Some African teams like Nigeria is basically just that, entire team, and some fans really hate the double standards, but I understand that politics around the globe is different, and many people had to flee countries like Nigeria once, and if the children of those people want to play for Nigeria, thats perfectly fine.

I just really hate what teams like Poland, Croatia, Spain, Slovenia does, where their naturalized guy is just random Amaerican, have nothing to do with country at all. ANd it is not like, well he has a passport, many people have dual or triple citezenships, especially athletes who work around EU restrictions, IMO it does not make you valuable member of that national team when your passport is just business formality, yeah, legally it works, but it is not the spirit of the game.

I would imagine that Fiba and fans from Europe want to see players like Luka in Eurobasket. Slovenia has 0 bigs in last 10 years. It's a curse of 2 mio nation. There's really no need for Luka to come and play, if they can't even compete. In the name of the spirit of the game and without stars.

[UcanUwill]

On your list when it comes to ethnicity, basically only Serbs have their "own" players.

I was afraid that my question would trigger answers like this one. Please stick to the national team subject and don't make it an "pure ethnicity" stuff, it's pretty disappointing to bring this on the table...

I am liberal guy and I like things like glomalism. I all for multiculturalism, I am not proud that my country has no black people for example, all it means we just remnant of poor soviet system and no one ever wanted to migrate to our poverty country. Like my x colleague he is MAGA dude and he likes Serbia, cause ''they do not have black dudes''', and when he watches France, he calls them ''Africa''. he is one of those people. I really despise these views, but that said, we are not talking about that, we are talking about guys who get the passports weeks before tournament, just so they could help ''national team'', in quotes at that point.

I would imagine that Fiba and fans from Europe want to see players like Luka in Eurobasket. Slovenia has 0 bigs in last 10 years. It's a curse of 2 mio nation. There's really no need for Luka to come and play, if they can't even compete. In the name of the spirit of the game and without stars.

Well, somehow Luka is playing... Did Dirk needed naturalized guy to play for Germany? Teodosic said, if Serbia naturalizes random American, I am not playing. Players who all about national pride and national team do not need random foreigner for them to play the game, as with Teo, we see it can be opposite, and thats just asinine excuse. Yeah, Luka wont play if they dont get Nebo back right, he is just there to win medals not to actually help his country. If he wanted medals, he would have just joined Spain or Serbia as he could. If guy does not want to play for his country, a random foreigner who does not evne speak their langauge wont change his mind.

[Bob8]

Yet most teams that won gold has had naturalized player... Even USA did, but I mean their guy at least lived in the country for 10 years, but they still had one. Same with Spain, Slovenia etc. Out of top teams, only Serbs, Germans and French I believe do not have naturalized players. So if the idea is to help the little guy, it does not work as intended. Why should Spain have natuiralized player, so he would win them gold, yes. I do not get the whole idea behind it, lets hire a mercenary so if we win, our victory is tainted...

On your list when it comes to ethnicity, basically only Serbs have their "own" players.

I was afraid that my question would trigger answers like this one. Please stick to the national team subject and don't make it an "pure ethnicity" stuff, it's pretty disappointing to bring this on the table...

Because the rule was made to allow countries without millions of people with African or Caribbean heritage to compete. Basketball in Europe is marginal sport, you want your competition to be as good as possible.

[UcanUwill]

Czechs started strong, but Turks are taking over in the second.

[UcanUwill]

Germans scored over 100 again. Very little traction in this thread so far, outside of now arguing about naturalized hired guns.

[Bob8]

...

[-Luke-]

Tristan Da Silva looks taller than 6-8 to me, although it's hard to evaluate as Germany has multiple players with about the same height (both Da Silva brothers, Franz, Theis, Bonga, Thiemann).

Man, Orlando Magic really have a huge team.