Olympic Qualifiers 2016

[Von Bismarck]

The group that will be held in Turin, Italy is a good one.

Croatia with Bogdanovic, Saric, Hezonja, Simon and probably Bender

Greece with Giannis, Koufos, Papanikolau, Calathes and Borousis.

Italy with Bargnani, Belinelli, Datome, Gentile and maybe Gallinari if he recovers by then

and a lot of other good players on each of these 3 teams.

[lambchop]

The group that will be held in Turin, Italy is a good one.

Croatia with Bogdanovic, Saric, Hezonja, Simon and probably Bender

Greece with Giannis, Koufos, Papanikolau, Calathes and Borousis.

Italy with Bargnani, Belinelli, Datome, Gentile and maybe Gallinari if he recovers by then

and a lot of other good players on each of these 3 teams.

Gentile is also out for 8 weeks. He should be fine by then, but it still sucks for italy. Injuries have stopped them from participating at the big tournaments

[Dr Music]

How will the FIBA suspensions affect the qualifying tourney? From what i read it seems it will ban the Teams from Europe.

[Mirotic12]

Latvia (PORZINGIS!) and Croatia

Thanks!

Will Porzingis play though? i believe the Knicks did not allow him the last time around (Euros) did he commit already for the OQT?

I dont think NBA teams can prohibit a player to play for his national team (they can strongly advise though), but no he has not commited yet.

NBA teams are allowed to prohibit any of their players from playing for their national teams. It's a part of the original contract that the NBA signed with FIBA, and it is still fully in place. Every single summer NBA teams use this right and prohibit players from playing in a FIBA competition.

Even just last summer the Spurs prohibited Marjanovic from playing for Serbia, and claimed he was injured, even though he, his team, and all the doctors in Serbia said he was fully healthy.

The Spurs simply signed their letter banning him from FIBA and it was done.

This happens every single summer to numerous players. It never happens to American payers though, because that might cause a stir in US sports media.

The group that will be held in Turin, Italy is a good one.

Croatia with Bogdanovic, Saric, Hezonja, Simon and probably Bender

Italy with Bargnani, Belinelli, Datome, Gentile and maybe Gallinari if he recovers by then

For Croatia, Bender has shown so far absolutely nothing in his career to indicate that he will be a factor. I don't see why he would even be mentioned.

Italy is very good, but let's not pretend that Bargnani, Gallinari, Belinelli, etc. don't play almost zero defense. Every single tournament so far that they have played in, these guys have failed in their lives because they simply refuse to play any defense. I'm not sure that will ever change.

Imo a lot depends on whether the teams come with their full rosters.
If france has everybody on board I expect them to beat a full canadian roster and qualify.

I think latvia will play against serbia. If serbia has all their guys, they should win that game.

Italy with all their guys playing should be able to defeat mexico. No disrespect to greece, but I feel like this next generation of players apart from the greek freak isn't as talented as spanoulis, diamantidis, bourousis, fotsis, papaloukas were years ago

It's not a disrespect to Greece. Their previous generation of players (Spanoulis, Diamantidis, Papaloukas, Zisis, Bourousis, Schortsanitis, Fotsis, Tsartsaris, Perpergolou, Papadopoulos, Printezis, Vasileiadis, Vasilopoulos, Mavrokefalidis, Pelekanos, etc.) was much better than their current generation (Antetokounmpo brothers, N. Calathes, K. Papanikolaou, Koufos, Bramos, Mantzaris, Sloukas, Giankovits, Pappas, Kavvadas, and so forth). In fact, I don't think it's even close.

The same with the previous generation Greece had earlier to that (Chatzivrettas, D. Papanikolaou, Dikoudis, Kakiouzis, Rentzias, and guys like that). Even they had players from that older generation like Kalampokis or Kalaitzis that were never a factor in their national team before, and would be better than so-called lead guards like Calathes, Mantzaris, and Sloukas are now.

However, I think with Spain's run definitely ending after 2016, the new Greek generation will have a chance for not better results as the previous generation, and probably not even as good (that would still be hugely hard to match), but they won't have to deal with playing Spain's golden generation era every single summer, like the last Greek generation did. So the current Greek generation is definitely worse, but it's going to be freed from having to face Spain's golden era. The last Greek generation actually coincided with Spain's golden generation and Argentina's golden generation, and at one point, I think it was something like 6 times in 7 years that Greece had to play against either golden era Spain or golden era Argentina in the elimination round, and then in the next year after that, they had to play against golden era France at the elimination round. The current Greek team is way less talented, but it's never going to face that same level of competition, year after year, for something like 8 straight years.

As for Latvia, I would not underestimate them.

Dairis Bertans
Janis Strelnieks
Janis Timma
Davis Bertans
Kristaps Porzingis

I am guessing that they would load their main unit up like that. That is a really, really athletic team, and they can run the floor and shoot the hell out of the ball also. I think they can give major problems to anyone. Serbia is better overall, but Latvia can definitely beat pretty much anyone, if they have a good day.

Greece with Giannis, Koufos, Papanikolau, Calathes and Borousis.

For Greece, Calathes and Papanikolaou have never played well at all with the senior team. Koufos and Antetokounmpo have managed at best to be just average, and that might be giving them too much credit. Especially Koufos, who played worse last summer than Bourousis did for instance.

And Antetokounmpo's "improvement" is all from an NBA perspective. None of that travel and carry the ball all the time, and can't shoot from outside, so drive the ball one against five, and constantly try to be a one man fast break works in FIBA against any of the good teams. It works against very weak teams, but not against any of the good teams.

Greek fans and media were claiming Calathes would be the new leader of their national team because he spent 2 years as an NBA rotation player, but he came back to the national team and to his club team (Panathinaikos) even worse than he was before. With the same broken jumper and his ball handling got worse, due to the NBA being so loose with ball handling rules. Now he is pretty much universally considered the biggest bust in Euroleague, and Panathinaikos fans already wish him cut from the team.

Same thing with Papanikolaou, he came back a much worse player from the NBA, probably due to setting on a bench for most of the previous 2 years. And even before he left Spain, he was a bench rider basically in Greece's national team (he was like a 10-11 man in Greek NT). Before he went to the NBA, his role in Olympiacos and Barca was to stand and wait for 3 pointers to shoot. Teams left him open, but he still made them pay often. Now, he has the same role, except he can't even make a wide open 3 pointer anymore, and so he's basically a pure hustle and role player now, with no real offense ability other than some decent passing and dribbling skills for a guy his size.

So I'm not sure why any of these players need to be highlighted, except for Antetokounmpo. But it's not like he has ever shown anything but flashes in FIBA either. And many times Greece tried to feature him in games already.

[Von Bismarck]

You don't understand this, you don't understand that. Well, maybe it's not supposed for you to understand. I'd go with that if I was you.

[Mirotic12]

You don't understand this, you don't understand that. Well, maybe it's not supposed for you to understand. I'd go with that if I was you.

Bender, Papanikoloau, Calathes, Koufos, none of them are good players. So there is no need to highlight any of them. If you don't like that, sorry.

[Von Bismarck]

You don't understand this, you don't understand that. Well, maybe it's not supposed for you to understand. I'd go with that if I was you.

Bender, Papanikoloau, Calathes, Koufos, none of them are good players. So there is no need to highlight any of them. If you don't like that, sorry.

No, that's you and your twisted logic. In case of Bender, I highlighted him cause he will be a TOP 5 pick on the draft and people will want to see him. Papanikolau, Calathes and Koufos are good players by European standard no matter what you say.

[Mirotic12]

You don't understand this, you don't understand that. Well, maybe it's not supposed for you to understand. I'd go with that if I was you.

Bender, Papanikoloau, Calathes, Koufos, none of them are good players. So there is no need to highlight any of them. If you don't like that, sorry.

No, that's you and your twisted logic. In case of Bender, I highlighted him cause he will be a TOP 5 pick on the draft and people will want to see him. Papanikolau, Calathes and Koufos are good players by European standard no matter what you say.

No they are not. Koufos is at best average. The other two are below average, especially Calathes. Most people that watch European basketball would even say Papanikoloau is a limited player, and that Calathes is a bad Euroleague player.

[franckyvinvin12]

Bender, Papanikoloau, Calathes, Koufos, none of them are good players. So there is no need to highlight any of them. If you don't like that, sorry.

No, that's you and your twisted logic. In case of Bender, I highlighted him cause he will be a TOP 5 pick on the draft and people will want to see him. Papanikolau, Calathes and Koufos are good players by European standard no matter what you say.

No they are not. Koufos is at best average. The other two are below average, especially Calathes. Most people that watch European basketball would even say Papanikoloau is a limited player, and that Calathes is a bad Euroleague player.

All the players you mention played in the Greek national team at Eurobasket, a team that performed well and wasn't far from beating Spain. So no, they're not bad players even if they're not elite.

[Von Bismarck]

All the players you mention played in the Greek national team at Eurobasket, a team that performed well and wasn't far from beating Spain. So no, they're not bad players even if they're not elite.

Yeah. If they were bad, they'd be playing for some semi-pro third/fourth tier Greek club.

[Mirotic12]

All the players you mention played in the Greek national team at Eurobasket, a team that performed well and wasn't far from beating Spain. So no, they're not bad players even if they're not elite.

Yeah. If they were bad, they'd be playing for some semi-pro third/fourth tier Greek club.

Calathes might be the worst main rotation guard in all of Euroleague. And he's never played well with Greece's national team, and that included EuroBasket 2015. Not even in Greece do people think he's anything more than at very best case, an average Euroleague player.

Calathes is many country miles a worse player than Greece national team's typical lead guards over the years, like Vassilis Spanoulis, Nikos Zisis, Theo Papaloukas, Panagiotis Giannakis, Nikos Galis, Dimitris Diamantidis, Angelos Koronios, and such.

Koufos can't play a lick of defense, and he has almost no offensive game other than dunking. He's a worse player than Greek center Loukas Mavrokefalidis, that barely even has gotten in their national team (but he does not have the letters
"NBA" next to his name, to inflate his supposed value, like Koufos does). He's not to the standard of previous Greek national team centers like Fasoulas, Rentzias, Schortsanitis, Bourousis, even someone like Papadopoulos. He did not play that well at EuroBasket (for example, Greece's other center, Bourousis, was far better than him). He played just average, and that's the best performance he ever had with Greece so far.

Papanikolaou was a role player at both Olympiacos and Barca before he played in the NBA. But he was a role player that could hit open 3 point shots. He spent 2 years in the NBA, and forgot how to shoot the basketball, instead focusing obviously on his athleticism.

The result is he is now a role player in Olympiacos, who has the main job of hitting wide open 3 point shots, but that can't actually hit any wide open 3 point shots...

Papanikolaou has been the 11th man of the Greek national team the last 2 summers, and barely even got on the court at EuroBasket 2015.

Greece was 7-1 (with a 2 point loss to Spain) almost entirely despite these players. It was Zisis, Spanoulis, Printezis, Antetokounmpo, and Bourousis that were responsible for all of Greece's wins. I watched that tournament, and I watched the games of all the good teams, including Greece. So I know exactly which players of Greece played well, and led them to victories, and in which games, and I know exactly which players of Greece did not have a good tournament.

Bourousis and Printezis led Greece in the win over Macedonia:

http://archive.fiba.com/pages/eng/fa/game/p/gid/2/grid/C/rid/9323/sid/9322/tid/291/_/2015_EuroBasket/statistic.html


Bourousis and Spanoulis led Greece to beat Latvia to qualify for the Olympics last chance tournament. Notice how in the quarters and play by play, Greece was getting destroyed in the qualifying game, and most important game, the whole time their NBA players were on the court. Their veteran Euroleague players had to come in and save them in the 2nd half. Antetokounmpo was particularly atrocious in that most important game.

http://archive.fiba.com/pages/eng/fa/game/p/gid/A/grid/73/rid/11663/sid/9322/tid/291/_/2015_EuroBasket/statistic.html

Spanoulis led Greece to the wins over Slovenia and Croatia (with help from Printezis in the Slovenia game).

http://archive.fiba.com/pages/eng/fa/game/p/gid/6/grid/C/rid/9323/sid/9322/tid/291/_/2015_EuroBasket/statistic.html

http://archive.fiba.com/pages/eng/fa/game/p/gid/11/grid/C/rid/9323/sid/9322/tid/291/_/2015_EuroBasket/statistic.html

The only game where Calathes really played well, was a blowout win against a weak team, against Georgia.

Greece barely even beat the much, much, much less talented and weaker Netherlands (68-65), in the game Spanoulis missed:

http://archive.fiba.com/pages/eng/fa/game/p/gid/13/grid/C/rid/9323/sid/9322/tid/291/_/2015_EuroBasket/statistic.html

Bourousis led Greece in the game against Belgium (with some help from Spanoulis in the 2nd half):

http://archive.fiba.com/pages/eng/fa/game/p/gid/A/grid/62/rid/11661/sid/9322/tid/291/_/2015_EuroBasket/statistic.html


For the tournament, Papanikolaou was Greece's 11th man, and he averaged 1.8 points and 1.4 rebounds:

http://archive.fiba.com/pages/eng/fa/player/p/pid/57921/sid/9322/tid/291/_/2015_EuroBasket/index.html

Calathes was 5th on the team in scoring, and Koufos was 4th on the team in scoring. Papanikolaou was 10th on the team in scoring. Even Antetokounmpo was 6th on the team in scoring. So all of Greece's NBA players did not do a whole lot for them scoring wise, although Antetokounmpo played good man defense (not good team defense though) and rebounded the ball well, and Koufos was solid at rebounding. All Calathes mainly did was dribble the heck out of the ball the whole time he was in games. Papanikoloau was, by leaps and bounds, the worst player on Greece's roster. I know, because I watched their games.

http://www.eurobasket2015.org/en/pageID_sjYngeE7G,EaeD6EPgPrB3.compID_qMRZdYCZI6EoANOrUf9le2.season_2015.roundID_9322.teamID_291.html

http://www.eurobasket2015.org/en/pageID_sjYngeE7G,EaeD6EPgPrB3.compID_qMRZdYCZI6EoANOrUf9le2.season_2015.roundID_9322.teamID_291.html

If Greece is going to be led by, and featuring players like, Koufos, Calathes, and Papanikolaou going forward, then they better hope that,

1. FIBA does indeed ban all the other good European national teams, but not them.

2. That Giannis Antetokounmpo is the 2nd coming of Michael Jordan...

Because otherwise, they will be far from the level they were at from the late 80s to late 90s, the level they were at from 2003 to 2009, and even far from the level they were at in the last 6 years.

Calathes, Koufos, and Papanikolaou are not even as good as guys like Nikos Chatzivrettas, Michalis Pelekanos, Panagiotis Vasilopoulos, and Dimos Dikoudis were. Those guys had roles on Greece's national team like defensive specialist (Chatzivrettas, Pelekanos, Vasilopoulos), and 4th big man (Dikoudis).

And now Greece is going to be led by players like Koufos, Calathes, and Papanikolaou? That seems to be the very strong implication being made here, that they, along with Giannis Antetokounmpo, will be the leaders of Greece now.

Greece might as well just allow that FIBA ban them then. What difference would it make to them to be banned or not, if that is the current leadership of their team?

They should just skip ahead to their next generation of players then, if that is the case, like Charalampopulos, Dorsey, Auguste, Papagiannis, Mitoglou, Toliopoulos, Larentzakis, Agravanis, Papapetrou, Antetokounmpo brothers, Bochoridis, etc. They would be better off than being embarrassed by putting an elite European national team under the control of players like Calathes, Koufos, and Papanikoloau.

[TheTrooper]

We get it...NBA players are ****, overrated, thugs that only jump high, media hyped by the Americans and Euroleague players are the best.

[Von Bismarck]

The word is out there Giannis won't be playing the Olympic Qualifiers. Did anyone hear about that?

[Prez]

Giannis is 10x better than Spanoulis ever was.

[Mirotic12]

We get it...NBA players are ****, overrated, thugs that only jump high, media hyped by the Americans and Euroleague players are the best.

If you imply ever again here, that I am racist, I am sending an abuse report to the admin against you. Consider this a friendly suggestion that you please never post like that towards me again.

The word is out there Giannis won't be playing the Olympic Qualifiers. Did anyone hear about that?

Nothing has been announced about it. But he has been asked about 50 times by Greek media if he is playing this summer, and every single time he gave the answer of "I need to work on my jumper this summer".

So nothing official has been said one way or the other, but he probably would not be saying that if he intended to play.

On the other side, now FIBA is saying any national teams from countries with teams in Eurocup, and even Euroleague maybe, will be outright banned anyway. If FIBA holds firm in their current position, Greece will be banned from the tournament anyway. And at the moment, it looks like FIBA is getting more and more hardened in their position each day.

Also, the President of Greece's basketball federation has confirmed in Greek media several times that the NBA teams have the right to block any player from any national team tournament, and that they just have to send a letter to FIBA and to the player's national federation, declaring the player does not have permission to play from them. So he has said already several times, that Antetokounmpo can only play for Greece any summer IF the Bucks grant permission, and that for example, Greece's federation had to have extensive talks with the Bucks for several months, before they let him play at EuroBasket last summer.

[TheTrooper]

We get it...NBA players are ****, overrated, thugs that only jump high, media hyped by the Americans and Euroleague players are the best.

If you imply ever again here, that I am racist, I am sending an abuse report to the admin against you. Consider this a friendly suggestion that you please never post like that towards me again.

You need to read better.
I don't say you are racist, I say that you have a strong bias towards Euroleague players and strong hate towards NBA players. Every single post you rant about how the US media hypes NBA players and claim some noname Euro guys are better than them.

[Mirotic12]

We get it...NBA players are ****, overrated, thugs that only jump high, media hyped by the Americans and Euroleague players are the best.

If you imply ever again here, that I am racist, I am sending an abuse report to the admin against you. Consider this a friendly suggestion that you please never post like that towards me again.

You need to read better.
I don't say you are racist, I say that you have a strong bias towards Euroleague players and strong hate towards NBA players. Every single post you rant about how the US media hypes NBA players and claim some noname Euro guys are better than them.

No, I don't do that. I just made posts in this very thread saying numerous Euroleague players were bad players. Also, you absolutely did bring race in the discussion and clearly implied I am a white supremacist, with your false claim that I overate "Euroleague players", and that I underrate "thugs that only jump high". What you said is ridiculous, and very out of line.

We get it...NBA players are ****, overrated, thugs that only jump high, media hyped by the Americans and Euroleague players are the best.

That was your post, which implied I am racist against blacks (or as you called them - "overrated thugs that only jump high"), that I am a white supremacist ("Euroleague players are the best" - your incredibly thinly veiled racist code term for white players), and the post itself had an offensive term in it ("thugs" - there is no explanation needed as to what you clearly meant by that).

And that's all especially ridiculous, when you said that in a thread where I just mentioned numerous white players, and said they were bad players.

Like I said, please don't do it again, or I will be justified in reporting you. If you can't be civilized here, that is your issue, not mine.

[TheTrooper]

...........

Look if I wanted to say that you are a racist I would have said it,don't worry about it. I'm a pretty direct person.
The post was supposed to be taken literally, no implications there. White guys in the NBA jump high too....higher than white and in many cases black players in Europe. Plenty of monster dunks and blocks made by whites in the NBA.

The post was made because you are bashing Greek NBA players and overrating Greek Euroleague players.
You said that Mavrokefalidis was better player than Koufos and the only reason he is playing in front of him is cos he dunks and has NBA next to his name !!!
You said that Calathes was hyped only because of NBA experience and that the NBA made him worse player and a worse shooter. You were saying that they only work on their athleticism over there. And you made a similar remark about Papanikolau
On the other hand, you over-hype a guy that is regularly throwing bricks in Europe and in the NBA ( VSpan).

[Mirotic12]

...........

Look if I wanted to say that you are a racist I would have said it,don't worry about it. I'm a pretty direct person.
The post was supposed to be taken literally, no implications there. White guys in the NBA jump high too....higher than white and in many cases black players in Europe. Plenty of monster dunks and blocks made by whites in the NBA.

The post was made because you are bashing Greek NBA players and overrating Greek Euroleague players.
You said that Mavrokefalidis was better player than Koufos and the only reason he is playing in front of him is cos he dunks and has NBA next to his name !!!
You said that Calathes was hyped only because of NBA experience and that the NBA made him worse player and a worse shooter. You were saying that they only work on their athleticism over there. And you made a similar remark about Papanikolau
On the other hand, you over-hype a guy that is regularly throwing bricks in Europe and in the NBA ( VSpan).

After this post, TheTooper is now in my ignore list. So I won't be responding to any of his posts from now on. Just so no one thinks I am not answering his posts. I'm simply not going to waste my time dealing with his obvious trolling.

Back on topic, before it was derailed with a racist rant....

The European Parliament is now taking this issue up with the European Commission, and they clearly are claiming that what FIBA is doing violates EU law. As I said earlier in the thread, I am pretty sure that what FIBA is doing violates EU fairness of competition laws.

So then they should only be able to threaten these European federations, leagues, and clubs from countries that are not a part of the EU (Russia, Turkey, Israel, Serbia, etc.).

http://www.eurohoops.net/backstage/233479/fisas-asks-the-european-commission-about-fiba-sanctions-against-national-federations

Fisas asks the European Commission about FIBA sanctions against national federations

[NuggetsWY]

Interesting last few posts: here's one American who doesn't see references to American NBA players as a reference to any race. While the NBA has had thugs in the past (if by thug you mean someone who isn't much of a shooter but plays ROUGH defense) but the modern NBA is quite different. The modern NBA over-emphasizes 3 pt shooting (my opinion) and the modern NBA calls flagrant fouls for hits around the head constantly. They call fouls on moving screens and just in general the NBA now truly favors the athlete over the "thug".

The modern NBA also includes many players from other countries. Teams might have zero to five or more non-American and that's not just European players but from all over the world. It would also seem rather obvious that while some non-American players are better than the average NBA player, it would also seem rather obvious that the greatest players in the world are in the NBA simply because of the money. National loyalty is not always able to over-come the cash.

On the other hand, on many teams outside of the USA, former NBA players or even Americans who weren't drafted seem to be VERY welcome. They may not be "the star" but they typically start or play quite a few minutes, if they make the team.

The NBA plays a different style of basketball and players that join the NBA work on the necessary skills to fit in the NBA. Perhaps they no longer fit as well with their national team, but then again, France seems like quite a powerhouse and they have quite a few NBA players.

Some Americans still are prejudiced towards players that have what is often called an "American attitude" but many Americans consider "Euro-style" players a positive addition. It's just my opinion, but I think NBA-style has added some "Euro-style" and I think "Euro-ball" has adapted some NBA-style - and I just happen to think that's a good thing.