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

[SkyHook]

That's ridiculous. You want to penalize a 2M population country simply for following FIBA rules? Slovenia didn't lose a single game in that tournament and it for sure wasn't like that because of Randolph lol.

Yes I want to penalize. No matter the size of the country and its population, have enough self respect not to fall for the random american mercenary stuff. I have big respect for all the countries who go to war with their own, without adding any random mercs, win or lose. Slovenia with Randolph and Spain with Lorenzo Brown, there is no respect from me, these titles carry a big asterisk.

Americans themselves added a mercenary Cameroonian because of their lack depth at C, does the Paris gold have asterisk also?

This. Even Dream Team 1 & 2 are tainted as well with a Jamaican and a Nigerian respectively.

[SkyHook]

I love that my "other" pick at 10% of the vote is fairing much better than Serbia' at 38%.

[Mavrelous]

Yes I want to penalize. No matter the size of the country and its population, have enough self respect not to fall for the random american mercenary stuff. I have big respect for all the countries who go to war with their own, without adding any random mercs, win or lose. Slovenia with Randolph and Spain with Lorenzo Brown, there is no respect from me, these titles carry a big asterisk.

Americans themselves added a mercenary Cameroonian because of their lack depth at C, does the Paris gold have asterisk also?

This. Even Dream Team 1 & 2 are tainted as well with a Jamaican and a Nigerian respectively.

Who's the Jamaican?

[SkyHook]

Americans themselves added a mercenary Cameroonian because of their lack depth at C, does the Paris gold have asterisk also?

This. Even Dream Team 1 & 2 are tainted as well with a Jamaican and a Nigerian respectively.

Who's the Jamaican?

Ewing.

[-Luke-]

This. Even Dream Team 1 & 2 are tainted as well with a Jamaican and a Nigerian respectively.

Who's the Jamaican?

Ewing.

Parents emigrated to the US when Ewing was a kid though and had an US passport before he was drafted to the NBA, so I don't think anybody has a problem with him playing for the Dream Team (and he already played for the '84 team as an amateur).

[SkyHook]

Who's the Jamaican?

Ewing.

Parents emigrated to the US when Ewing was a kid though and had an US passport before he was drafted to the NBA, so I don't think anybody has a problem with him playing for the Dream Team (and he already played for the '84 team as an amateur).

I don't have a problem with him playing on the Dream Team. Just illustrating the absurdity of random, arbitrary exclusionary criteria when players are clearly in compliance with FIBA regs.

[peZt]

Your thoughts on Finland's Miikka Muurinen and how he projects to the NBA? To me he has a very promising outlook: young, athletic, good size, can shoot and defend, not scared of anyone.

He was already a projected lottery pick in 2027 before the tournament. Still has a year of high school left which is crazy. Though he is pretty old for a Junior, 18 already

[UcanUwill]

Valančiūnas was spot minutes player in this game, latvia plays 5 out. Valančiūnas honestly looks cooked, I do not know how can he still play in the NBA.

Cooked or used wisely? His +/- is 3rd is best on the team, only 5th last night, but he played with some silly lineups, with Marek (because they couldn't substitute him out) or with 2 PFs

I don't know man, you see how slow he is on defense, it is not about stats, NBA is still a different animal, we have plenty of stars who are good on offense but bad on D and therefore are not in the NBA, and Jonas is a center on top of that, I hope he can still find minutes in the NBA, but its tough,

[UcanUwill]

Your thoughts on Finland's Miikka Muurinen and how he projects to the NBA? To me he has a very promising outlook: young, athletic, good size, can shoot and defend, not scared of anyone.

I had no idea who he was, but he looks crazy good. Athleticism for a guy that tall is A tier.

[LuDux1]

"Lithuanian peasants and "two USSR coaches" took care of our "stars" with Giorgio Armani" Some obscure Latvian coach

[UcanUwill]

Also, Pačėsas is defensive mastermind

FTFY. Pačėsas is responsible for defense, according to Kurtinaitis

This completely changes my opinion of Pačėsas if true, I used to hate this guy since Prokom days. Anticipating what kind of defense Lithuania will play next is one of the most interesting things left for me here. They probably due to burning out, because so far, two for two when trying ridiculous stuff.

[Hugi Mancura]

4th foul on Jokic played a big role. FIN clearly tried to take him out and all their scoring in last 4 mins was on him or after plays targeting him.

More competitive games today probably being top contenders already had tough games (Germany until Q4). It's the magic of single game elimination.

Finland's tactic was to attack against Jokic from the beginning. Tactic was to try to tire him by forcing him to play defense. On the first attack after switch Markkanen got Jokic and it ended on a dunk attempt that failed, but Jantunen scored two three pointers on him quite early. Serbia never tried to counter this tactic and maybe it was a bad choice in the end. Jokic clearly wasn't happy defending finnish players behind three point line all the time.

[MMyhre]

Jokic just proving how overrated he is. Go drink more beers, cant even get in shape or beat the rank # 20 international team on one of the favorites. Slowly the hype will dwindle down when he keeps losing year after year... almost as if you will get punished in terms of results for being unprofessional? "Clear best player in the world" my ass.

[SpreeS]

Valančiūnas was spot minutes player in this game, latvia plays 5 out. Valančiūnas honestly looks cooked, I do not know how can he still play in the NBA.

Cooked or used wisely? His +/- is 3rd is best on the team, only 5th last night, but he played with some silly lineups, with Marek (because they couldn't substitute him out) or with 2 PFs

I don't know man, you see how slow he is on defense, it is not about stats, NBA is still a different animal, we have plenty of stars who are good on offense but bad on D and therefore are not in the NBA, and Jonas is a center on top of that, I hope he can still find minutes in the NBA, but its tough,

Did you see how bad Jokic was on defensive end with Finland? He was responsible for 12/14 pts in 4Q…He was attacked on almost on every possession.

[peZt]

This is the first Eurobasket I follow since maybe the mid 2010s. Because I usually only watch when we (Turkey) play and 2022 I only watched Turkey matches so my last real Eurobasket I followed also the other teams was 2017.
Is it just me, or has the level gone down drastically in european Basketball? Of course at the very top, you have more superstars than ever. But the average level of the players seems incredibly low.

We for example, have Sengun, Cedi sometimes when he is on is good, Larkin the same as Cedi but otherwise our roster is pretty god damn bad tbh. But yet, we belong to the favorites. Same goes for Germany, I dont think Germany starting Andi Obst and Daniel Theis, no matter how good role players they are, would be the best country 10-15 years ago.
It seems like the difference in quality between NBA level and the rest is bigger than ever, I dont remember NBA guys being so dominant before.

In the past the favorites used to have 7-10 really top quality players. Maybe not all NBA, but at least top EUroleague level. Now it seems to be enough to count as a contender if you have 1 Superstar, 2-3 Euroleage level players and the rest is unimportant.

Or maybe we were just blessed with the best european generation between the mid 2000s till mid 2010s and have a clouded judgement. The top teams from that era would probably wipe the floor with anyone at this tournament.
But really, I watch the games of Turkey and think to myself, man outside of Sengün our guys are so **** limited, our guard play is trash etc. And yet we are 6/6 and count as gold favorite lol

I remember the days of Hedo, Ömer Asik, Ilyasova and so on. Outside of 2009 and 2010, I wouldnt have counted that team as a top 4-5 team in Europe. Probably Top 6-7 on average. Yet, I feel like our team from 2010 would be the top favorite here

[Taikuri]

If I remember right, Finland has the third youngest team in the tournament, while Markkanen has more prime years to come. So the future does look good. Sasu Salin is the only one retiring in the neat future and there may not be a spot for Madsen soon, because Mustapha Amzil will take his spot, more than likely.

Sadly, Finland's youth teams were disappointing in this summer's EuroBasket competitions. U20 and u16 teams both finished 15th and got relegated to Division B while u18 team that was in Division B finished 18th and was nowhere close to a promotion.

There's some talent there like Ekwere, Amzil and Adler but there's a pretty big hole when it comes to bigs. Maybe Joseph Tala grows into a 7 footer? He's 6'7 at 15 so he might.

I did see those games. I'm not worried with the bigs, because our bigs in men's team are now better than ever and they are on average quite young. Muurinen is just 18 for example, youngest player of the Eurobasket tournament. Problem is the point guard position. Our coaches put Little into the starting five vs Serbia, which was a surprise move and reduced Maxhuni's minutes (he is a liability in the defensive end). This worked and Little played his best game ever in the national team. I assume that Finland will do the same against France/Georgia, in terms of point guard minute distribution.

Apparently there's a strategy for Finlands youth teams (boys/men only) where the main objective is to grow players in the men's national team, which is more important than the success in the youth tournament itself. As bizarre as it may sound, this is what they have been talking to the parents of many players. This affects the player selections for the youth teams, because sometimes they take players with most individual potential over players who would fit the team structure the best. It sucks for us spectators, but the deciders probably felt it's something that a small nation (population wise) needs to do. This strategy might be working, but you see this rollercoaster of results in youth games then. Perhaps sometimes new talent may be found in this way.

It's a whole different story with the youth girls' teams, who got two medals in a row last two summers. They build teams to win and that one age group just is very special in terms or talent and depth and they will probably get another medal next summer.

[Taikuri]

Slovenia's only title is an asterisk, because they wouldn't have won it without naturalizing Anthony Randolph.

That's ridiculous. You want to penalize a 2M population country simply for following FIBA rules? Slovenia didn't lose a single game in that tournament and it for sure wasn't like that because of Randolph lol.

Yes I want to penalize. No matter the size of the country and its population, have enough self respect not to fall for the random american mercenary stuff. I have big respect for all the countries who go to war with their own, without adding any random mercs, win or lose. Slovenia with Randolph and Spain with Lorenzo Brown, there is no respect from me, these titles carry a big asterisk.

I fully agree. They need to at least have the players play in the country's national league for few years, that's the first step, but even that's not enough. Poland got to the playoffs because of Loydd, who had no connection to Poland what so ever before the summer.

[Taikuri]

4th foul on Jokic played a big role. FIN clearly tried to take him out and all their scoring in last 4 mins was on him or after plays targeting him.

I can tell you that this indeed was what the Finnish commentator and broadcasting team was talking about all the time that it was deliberately done to target Jokic and try to tire him and take little bit of his offensive energy away. Also Jantunen especially did a very good defensive work on Jokic, despite of Jokic scoring 30. Big amount of the points were from free throws. Jokic got only 3 assists that game, which was a success and this was mostly because of Finland fouling him all the time.

[Taikuri]

Your thoughts on Finland's Miikka Muurinen and how he projects to the NBA? To me he has a very promising outlook: young, athletic, good size, can shoot and defend, not scared of anyone.

Bright future. Finnish commentator who is knowledgeable and has often inside information, said that Muurinen has just recently selected his NCAA university (for 2026-2027 season), but it's not announced yet. Maybe it comes right after the tournament. It was probably the reason, why Muurinen appeared in just one of the practice games this summer, to avoid injuries. Apparently and understandably so, all of the NCAA universities have wanted him.

[Archx]

Slovenia's only title is an asterisk, because they wouldn't have won it without naturalizing Anthony Randolph.

That's ridiculous. You want to penalize a 2M population country simply for following FIBA rules? Slovenia didn't lose a single game in that tournament and it for sure wasn't like that because of Randolph lol.

Yes I want to penalize. No matter the size of the country and its population, have enough self respect not to fall for the random american mercenary stuff. I have big respect for all the countries who go to war with their own, without adding any random mercs, win or lose. Slovenia with Randolph and Spain with Lorenzo Brown, there is no respect from me, these titles carry a big asterisk.

Dude, FIBA allows that. You have countries with multiple foreign coaches, players, etc... Not only in basketball, we're also talking here about other sports. It's wild how many national teams do this. You'd literally have to put an asterisk to 90% of competing teams in various sports and disciplines. This is just nonsense. And like i said, Slovenia dominated that tournament with Randolph and not because of him.