OT : Eurobasket 2025 semifinals | Türkiye vs Greece | & | Finland vs Germany |

[Bob8]

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.

Teoman Alibegovic
Vinko Jelovac
Gregor F_u_c_k_a (although he chose to play for Italy)
Rasho Nesterovich
Mathaz Smodis
Primoz Brezec
Jurica Golemac
Erazem Lorbek
Gasper Vidmar

The point is, the population never seemed to stop them from having at least serviceable bigs before, and often they had very good ones, with several of them even being among the best in Europe (Alibegovic, Jelovac, Rasho, Lorbek, and even arguably the best in Europe (Smodis).

And although F_u_c_k_a didn't play for Slovenia, he was clearly the best big man in Europe in his time.

They had Rasho, Lorbek, and Smodis all in the same era.

So population doesn't explain the problem. And it's just so easy for them to naturalize all these bigs like they have been doing for so long now:

Mirza Begic
Alex Omic
Anthony Randolph
Mike Tobey
Jordan Morgan
Josh Nebo

They are getting totally ridiculous with it. It's just an open free agent center position for Slovenia's national team, for a big paycheck.

The fact that the last two EuroBasket championships were won by teams (Slovenia and Spain) that paid free agents ( Randolph and L. Brown) like pro clubs to get those titles is really a black mark on FIBA.

It shouldn't be allowed fir national teams to buy gold medals, and it's happened in two straight tournaments.

I was talking about last 10 years.

I don't know what happened, but there's nobody since Vidmar. My guess is that 2 mio population with very few migrants doesn't help.

Begic and Omic came in Slovenia as teenagers, I would say they're far more Slovenian as your Dorsey is a Greek.

[Mirotic12]

Country can give you a citizenship for whatever reason. Some are giving them more freely than others and Fiba made the rule only 1 such player can play. They could allow everyone to play.

What you and some others don't understand is that height is obstacle to play competitive basketball. Pool of players high enough is just too small for smaller nations. If you want to have competitive tournament and watch your biggest stars as long as possible you should give them something to compete with. It's still just 1 player and vast majority of them not exactly superstars.

I really doubt that France with far the most players with African and Caribbean heritage or Serbia with far the best basketball school should be afraid of a single naturalised player. When Jokic retires from NT, healthy France will be unbeatable anyway and I doubt very much that will do anything good to European basketball.

Country can give out those citezenships and some shamelessly do, that is the point of whole discussion. We know they can, we not arguing that they can't. we argue that its pathetic. I think I would still support my team if they did this, what else can I do, but I for certain would be far less of a fan and would never defend the practice.

I do not know man, I have complete opposite idea of what is bad for European basketball, I think Americans dominating freaking Eurobasket is whats bad for European basketball, it is just sad.

Which Americans are dominating Eurobasket?

Problem for European basketball is nobody watching it. Making games even less competitive won't help that.

Wayne Brabender and Nick Galis. So it happened a couple of times in 52 years.

Not exactly a common occurrence.

[Bob8]

Problem for European basketball is nobody watching it. Making games even less competitive won't help that.

I do not know how having random foreigners on teams just cause teams are not good enough according to you helps anything or is justifiable, it just breaks the spirit of entire thing. yeah, some countries are small and have no talent, tough sh*t, that does not mean it is ok to give random dude a passport, it is legal, but it does not mean it is not *****y. Some teams are stronger than others, thats just how it is and you should deal with it. Why do we even have tournaments with national teams then if teams are lead by bought mercenaries? We suck at Football, should they just give us prime Karim Benzema just cause we suck and it would be ''better'' if we were less bad, or better, just win the whole tournament lead by Karim Benzema playing for us, thats just even better., thats what national team competition is all about, Lorenzo Brown winning gold for Spain..

Which Americans are dominating Eurobasket

Jordan Loyd just won Eurobasket game less than 24 hours ago almost by himself, less than two weeks he was not Polish citizen and never would have been otherwise. Lorenzo Brown lead Spain to gold last time around,

Jordan Loyd didn't win anything and never will. Spain won because Serbia, Slovenia and Greece crashed out of tournament and not because Brown dominated Eurobasket. Spain winning was a pure luck.

To be honest they can give you prime Messi and Ronaldo and you will still suck. Do you understand what is equivalent for Randolph and Tobey in football? Some 3rd level Brazilian who plays in Kazakhstan not prime Benzema.

[Nuntius]

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.

Teoman Alibegovic
Vinko Jelovac
Gregor F_u_c_k_a (although he chose to play for Italy)
Rasho Nesterovich
Mathaz Smodis
Primoz Brezec
Jurica Golemac
Erazem Lorbek
Gasper Vidmar

The point is, the population never seemed to stop them from having at least serviceable bigs before, and often they had very good ones, with several of them even being among the best in Europe (Alibegovic, Jelovac, Rasho, Lorbek, and even arguably the best in Europe (Smodis).

And although F_u_c_k_a didn't play for Slovenia, he was clearly the best big man in Europe in his time.

They had Rasho, Lorbek, and Smodis all in the same era.

So population doesn't explain the problem. And it's just so easy for them to naturalize all these bigs like they have been doing for so long now:

Mirza Begic
Alex Omic
Anthony Randolph
Mike Tobey
Jordan Morgan
Josh Nebo

They are getting totally ridiculous with it. It's just an open free agent center position for Slovenia's national team, for a big paycheck.

The fact that the last two EuroBasket championships were won by teams (Slovenia and Spain) that paid free agents ( Randolph and L. Brown) like pro clubs to get those titles is really a black mark on FIBA.

It shouldn't be allowed fir national teams to buy gold medals, and it's happened in two straight tournaments.

I was talking about last 10 years.

I don't know what happened, but there's nobody since Vidmar. My guess is that 2 mio population with very few migrants doesn't help.

Begic and Omic came in Slovenia as teenagers, I would say they're far more Slovenian as your Dorsey is a Greek.

I don't see anything wrong with Omic, Begic or Dorsey.

[Mirotic12]

Problem for European basketball is nobody watching it. Making games even less competitive won't help that.

I do not know how having random foreigners on teams just cause teams are not good enough according to you helps anything or is justifiable, it just breaks the spirit of entire thing. yeah, some countries are small and have no talent, tough sh*t, that does not mean it is ok to give random dude a passport, it is legal, but it does not mean it is not *****y. Some teams are stronger than others, thats just how it is and you should deal with it. Why do we even have tournaments with national teams then if teams are lead by bought mercenaries? We suck at Football, should they just give us prime Karim Benzema just cause we suck and it would be ''better'' if we were less bad, or better, just win the whole tournament lead by Karim Benzema playing for us, thats just even better., thats what national team competition is all about, Lorenzo Brown winning gold for Spain..

Which Americans are dominating Eurobasket

Jordan Loyd just won Eurobasket game less than 24 hours ago almost by himself, less than two weeks he was not Polish citizen and never would have been otherwise. Lorenzo Brown lead Spain to gold last time around,

That isn't dominating. We have had this discussion several times before. But this whole "dominating" thing is just a trash talking nonsense from USA sports culture.

It's not based on actual reality, or the players actually "dominating". Those examples you gave are not close to domination, not even remotely so.

You always argue this point. But I will explain it again. There can't be hundreds of players dominating in Europe. Dominating means nothing more than a handful at most, and sometimes no more than a few.

Under the way you use dominating, literally hundreds of players are dominating in Europe, at any given time.

[UcanUwill]

Jordan Loyd didn't win anything and never will. Spain won because Serbia, Slovenia and Greece crashed out of tournament and not because Brown dominated Eurobasket. Spain winning was a pure luck.

Brown had dominant games during elimination. Spain win 1/8finals after OT where Brown scores 28 points and has 28 EFF. If he is not there, Spain don't make into top 8, but they did. They win semi by 5 and brown scores 29 points on 27 EFF. like what are we kidding, we know they did not give him MVP just cause they felt ashamed to do so.

Sorry man, I do not want to drag this any further, but in my personal opinion, this whole thing is basically a bout pride, and you do not gain pride by wins like that. Does Spain really think, wow, what what glory did we bring to our nation, because me, as huge FIBA fanboy, feel completely opposite, I pity them. If my team won gold cause of Lorenzo Brown and that was the story, I would have been ashamed.

But thats just me, I bet I am not the only one who feels like that, but there is no need to talk this further, we clearly have different views here.

[UcanUwill]

It is secodn Q and Lauri already has 22 points.

[Bob8]

Country can give out those citezenships and some shamelessly do, that is the point of whole discussion. We know they can, we not arguing that they can't. we argue that its pathetic. I think I would still support my team if they did this, what else can I do, but I for certain would be far less of a fan and would never defend the practice.

I do not know man, I have complete opposite idea of what is bad for European basketball, I think Americans dominating freaking Eurobasket is whats bad for European basketball, it is just sad.

Which Americans are dominating Eurobasket?

Problem for European basketball is nobody watching it. Making games even less competitive won't help that.

Wayne Brabender and Nick Galis. So it happened a couple of times in 52 years.

Not exactly a common occurrence.

Exactly, vast majority of Americans are more role players than stars.

[UcanUwill]

I really like Ataman, probably cause Basketnews shills hate him, but can that man shut up already about this whole NBA vs Euroleague thing, theres is new story about this every day for the past 3 days. how his Panathinaikos would beat NBA teams etc. Dude just looks desperate for attention at this point, man knows basketball, if he really watched NBA he would understand there is a gap there, like who are you kidding man. Maybe he really thinks he will talk NBA champ vs Euroleague champ championship game into existence.

[Mirotic12]

Teoman Alibegovic
Vinko Jelovac
Gregor F_u_c_k_a (although he chose to play for Italy)
Rasho Nesterovich
Mathaz Smodis
Primoz Brezec
Jurica Golemac
Erazem Lorbek
Gasper Vidmar

The point is, the population never seemed to stop them from having at least serviceable bigs before, and often they had very good ones, with several of them even being among the best in Europe (Alibegovic, Jelovac, Rasho, Lorbek, and even arguably the best in Europe (Smodis).

And although F_u_c_k_a didn't play for Slovenia, he was clearly the best big man in Europe in his time.

They had Rasho, Lorbek, and Smodis all in the same era.

So population doesn't explain the problem. And it's just so easy for them to naturalize all these bigs like they have been doing for so long now:

Mirza Begic
Alex Omic
Anthony Randolph
Mike Tobey
Jordan Morgan
Josh Nebo

They are getting totally ridiculous with it. It's just an open free agent center position for Slovenia's national team, for a big paycheck.

The fact that the last two EuroBasket championships were won by teams (Slovenia and Spain) that paid free agents ( Randolph and L. Brown) like pro clubs to get those titles is really a black mark on FIBA.

It shouldn't be allowed fir national teams to buy gold medals, and it's happened in two straight tournaments.

I was talking about last 10 years.

I don't know what happened, but there's nobody since Vidmar. My guess is that 2 mio population with very few migrants doesn't help.

Begic and Omic came in Slovenia as teenagers, I would say they're far more Slovenian as your Dorsey is a Greek.

I don't see anything wrong with Omic, Begic or Dorsey.

There isn't. Maybe I worded it poorly by listing them in two groups instead of three.
My point is that they went from Begic and Omic being the naturalized players, as guys that join a country when young, to signing free agent mercenaries, making national team spots like club free agency, and buying a gold medal.

It's a ridiculous example of what FIBA shouldn't be allowing.

[Bob8]

I was talking about last 10 years.

I don't know what happened, but there's nobody since Vidmar. My guess is that 2 mio population with very few migrants doesn't help.

Begic and Omic came in Slovenia as teenagers, I would say they're far more Slovenian as your Dorsey is a Greek.

I don't see anything wrong with Omic, Begic or Dorsey.

There isn't. Maybe I worded it poorly by listing them in two groups instead of three.
My point is that they went from Begic and Omic being the naturalized players, as guys that join a country when young, to signing free agent mercenaries, making national team spots like club free agency, and buying a gold medal.

It's a ridiculous example of what FIBA shouldn't be allowing.

Yes, you buy average C and gold is yours.

[Mirotic12]

Jordan Loyd didn't win anything and never will. Spain won because Serbia, Slovenia and Greece crashed out of tournament and not because Brown dominated Eurobasket. Spain winning was a pure luck.

Brown had dominant games during elimination. Spain win 1/8finals after OT where Brown scores 28 points and has 28 EFF. If he is not there, Spain don't make into top 8, but they did. They win semi by 5 and brown scores 29 points on 27 EFF. like what are we kidding, we know they did not give him MVP just cause they felt ashamed to do so.

Sorry man, I do not want to drag this any further, but in my personal opinion, this whole thing is basically a bout pride, and you do not gain pride by wins like that. Does Spain really think, wow, what what glory did we bring to our nation, because me, as huge FIBA fanboy, feel completely opposite, I pity them. If my team won gold cause of Lorenzo Brown and that was the story, I would have been ashamed.

But thats just me, I bet I am not the only one who feels like that, but there is no need to talk this further, we clearly have different views here.

Brown did not "dominate".

[UcanUwill]

Petrusev just hit guy in a stomach and got disqualified by NBA ref.

[UcanUwill]

Brown did not "dominate".

Sure bud, let play your semantics game again. He averaged 20.25 points, 9 assists, 22.75 EFF during elimination games. Yeah, thats not dominating alright... If Spanoulis ever had those numbers, which he didn't, you would tell us how he is better than LeBron again.

[Mirotic12]

I don't see anything wrong with Omic, Begic or Dorsey.

There isn't. Maybe I worded it poorly by listing them in two groups instead of three.
My point is that they went from Begic and Omic being the naturalized players, as guys that join a country when young, to signing free agent mercenaries, making national team spots like club free agency, and buying a gold medal.

It's a ridiculous example of what FIBA shouldn't be allowing.

Yes, you buy average C and gold is yours.

There is no way that Slovenia wins in 2017 without Randolph, or that Spain wins in 2022 without Brown.

It wasn't because they were "dominating" players (most certainly they were not), but because Slovenia and Spain had holes in those positions and roles.

So without purchasing them like free agents on the open market, as if it was a pro club competition, they don't win the gold medals. It's just that simple.

This is a big problem that FIBA has allowed to develop.

[Mirotic12]

Brown did not "dominate".

Sure bud, let play your semantics game again. He averaged 20.25 points, 9 assists, 22.75 EFF during elimination games. Yeah, thats not dominating alright

I am going to be straight and honest with you. When you claim that Lorenzo Brown, Lorenzo freaking Brown, was "dominant", you look absolutely downright silly and childish to anyone that has ever seen him play basketball.

[holdenwait]

Turkey with a solid start of 2-0 and Sengun being such a good leader early on. Promising for a medal run, fingers crossed.

[Bob8]

There isn't. Maybe I worded it poorly by listing them in two groups instead of three.
My point is that they went from Begic and Omic being the naturalized players, as guys that join a country when young, to signing free agent mercenaries, making national team spots like club free agency, and buying a gold medal.

It's a ridiculous example of what FIBA shouldn't be allowing.

Yes, you buy average C and gold is yours.

There is no way that Slovenia wins in 2017 without Randolph, or that Spain wins in 2022 without Brown.

It wasn't because they were "dominating" players (most certainly they were not), but because Slovenia and Spain had holes in those positions and roles.

So without purchasing them like free agents on the open market, as if it was a pro club competition, they don't win the gold medals. It's just that simple.

This is a big problem that FIBA has allowed to develop.

Slovenia doesn't have a big and won't have a big in Luka's era. Should they take advantage of the rules or not? Should Luka play competitive games and help the whole Eurobasket or not?

[Mirotic12]

I really like Ataman, probably cause Basketnews shills hate him, but can that man shut up already about this whole NBA vs Euroleague thing, theres is new story about this every day for the past 3 days. how his Panathinaikos would beat NBA teams etc. Dude just looks desperate for attention at this point, man knows basketball, if he really watched NBA he would understand there is a gap there, like who are you kidding man. Maybe he really thinks he will talk NBA champ vs Euroleague champ championship game into existence.

Ataman is the second biggest troll in EuroLeague. Everyone that follows the league knows that. He's 99% of the time an outlandish level troll.

With that being said, he is right about the NBA champions claiming to be "world champions" on their banners, shirts, hats, on championship rings, etc.

It's absolutely a ludicrous level of trolling by the NBA, and it's actually a supreme example of the ugly American phenomenon.

It's such a colossal level of trolling by the NBA, that even a hall of fame level troll like Ataman, seems reasonable by comparison.

[PaKii94]

Lauri's going off. 38 pts on 19 shots, 19 mins.....1 quarter left