Is Pau Gasol the greatest FIBA player ever?

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Genjuro
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Re: Is Pau Gasol the greatest FIBA player ever? 

Post#41 » by Genjuro » Mon Sep 11, 2017 11:26 pm

Mirotic12 wrote:I really don't see much difference in skill level from Pau, to say Divac, Cosic, Sabonis, Meneghin, and so forth.


:lol: That's certainly not a surprise.

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Re: Is Pau Gasol the greatest FIBA player ever? 

Post#42 » by daytripper » Wed Sep 13, 2017 9:24 am

Mirotic12 wrote:
I don't recall him ever beating the US.



1999: Junior World Championship (Portugal). Spain beat the US in the final, winning gold 94-87

2002: FIBA's World Cup (Indianapolis). Spain beat the US 81-75.

The 2008 and 2012 Olympic Finals were won by the US, with very controversial officiating, especially in 2008. There were like a zillion non-called travelling violations by the US. So much so that Navarro, in the last play, took like five steps before dribbling the ball, in protest. No travelling was called in that play either. The games were extremely close, and Pau was the leader of those teams. Even in the 2016 Olympics, in the semis, the US faced its toughest oponent in Spain, winning by just 6 points.

Just to realize the impact of Pau Gasol in the game, look at Spain's performance in 2005 Eurobasket and 2010 Workd Cup.
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Re: Is Pau Gasol the greatest FIBA player ever? 

Post#43 » by e_l_f_o » Wed Sep 13, 2017 11:31 am

I personally think he is... He single handed won last eurobasket with an incredible semifinal against the favorite French team (at France) at 35 years old with 40 points, 11 rebounds.. [url][/url]
He always performs for Spain (unlike his bro, who really hasn’t been able to take his spot) and is a real legend and an example for all young players as he is always up to play for Spain even though his age..
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Re: Is Pau Gasol the greatest FIBA player ever? 

Post#44 » by Mirotic12 » Wed Sep 13, 2017 7:15 pm

daytripper wrote:1999: Junior World Championship (Portugal). Spain beat the US in the final, winning gold 94-87

2002: FIBA's World Cup (Indianapolis). Spain beat the US 81-75.

The 2008 and 2012 Olympic Finals were won by the US, with very controversial officiating, especially in 2008. There were like a zillion non-called travelling violations by the US. So much so that Navarro, in the last play, took like five steps before dribbling the ball, in protest. No travelling was called in that play either. The games were extremely close, and Pau was the leader of those teams. Even in the 2016 Olympics, in the semis, the US faced its toughest oponent in Spain, winning by just 6 points.

Just to realize the impact of Pau Gasol in the game, look at Spain's performance in 2005 Eurobasket and 2010 Workd Cup.


Let's not count the junior games. USA lost many times in junior levels. They lost for example, I believe, 40 times at junior level since 1990 alone.

So Pau beat USA once in 2002, at senior level. I forgot about that, probably because it seemed like everyone was beating that 2002 US team.

OK, now let's stay objective here. Yes, I agree, US got a lot of help from the refs in 2008, and 2012 Olympic gold medal games, especially in 2008 game.

However, then you bring up the performance of Pau in 2005.........so let's stay fair and objective.

2008 and 2012, refs did help USA win. However, in 2005, the refs clearly, without any doubt whatsoever, helped Spain beat Croatia. We can't give credit to Pau, for refs helping USA in 2008 and 2012, and then pretend refs didn't help Pau against Greece in 2007, or in plenty of other games.

What you say is true in the USA got ref help, but Spain also got ref help many times. Bringing up the refs, in the case of trying to rate Pau's FIBA career, is a huge can of worms. Because other than when playing USA, refs usually favored Spain, from 2005 to now.
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Re: Is Pau Gasol the greatest FIBA player ever? 

Post#45 » by mojo13 » Wed Sep 13, 2017 10:22 pm

Refs favored USA? You guys are laughable.
For every FIBA travelling violation the refs might overlook on USA players they seem to conveniently miss about 5x more moving screens and illegal hand checking. Let alone the physical mugging they allow in an attempt to negate the USA's superior athletes.

If the USA played other top counties using NBA rules the average margin of victory would be above 40 points. The FIBA rules are specifically geared to attempt to contain the USA's endless supply superior athletes. And I'm ok with that just to see some level of competition. I think they just let the traveling go, because it would be too hard to enforce, too hard for USA players to adjust that you'd have 50 violations a game and all hell would break loose. FIBA decided to let the illegal wrestling go as it conveniently slows the USA down without the need for 50 whistles killing the game.
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Re: Is Pau Gasol the greatest FIBA player ever? 

Post#46 » by Mirotic12 » Fri Sep 15, 2017 12:12 am

mojo13 wrote:Refs favored USA? You guys are laughable.
For every FIBA travelling violation the refs might overlook on USA players they seem to conveniently miss about 5x more moving screens and illegal hand checking. Let alone the physical mugging they allow in an attempt to negate the USA's superior athletes.

If the USA played other top counties using NBA rules the average margin of victory would be above 40 points. The FIBA rules are specifically geared to attempt to contain the USA's endless supply superior athletes. And I'm ok with that just to see some level of competition. I think they just let the traveling go, because it would be too hard to enforce, too hard for USA players to adjust that you'd have 50 violations a game and all hell would break loose. FIBA decided to let the illegal wrestling go as it conveniently slows the USA down without the need for 50 whistles killing the game.


Hand checking and moving screens are both banned from FIBA. It's something NBA fans always complain about, but it's not even legal. It's just an excuse used to try to muddy the waters from the issue that FIBA started treating USA different with the traveling and palming rules starting in 2008 Olympics.

If you actually watch a FIBA game objectively, you can see the large majority of moving screens are called. They might even be more strict with it than NBA is actually.

As for the illegal wrestling...Team USA games are always the softest and closely whistled FIBA games there are. You see way more physical contact in any FIBA game not involving USA. As a Canada fan I know you know that is the reality. A lot more physical contact is allowed when Canada is playing some game in AmeriCup, than what is ever allowed with any Team USA games.

Team USA FIBA games, in terms of the physical contact allowed by the refs, are as soft as a baby's behind, compared to say a typical Greek League basketball game.
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Re: Is Pau Gasol the greatest FIBA player ever? 

Post#47 » by sorokii » Fri Sep 15, 2017 7:48 am

mojo13 wrote:If the USA played other top counties using NBA rules the average margin of victory would be above 40 points.

If, if, if, but they dont. They play international rules of basketball, which is FIBA

mojo13 wrote:The FIBA rules are specifically geared to attempt to contain the USA's endless supply superior athletes.

No. FIBA rules dont exist as any reponse for anything. FIBA rules exist because they are used worlwide. Only in USA we find different rules applied to favour speed and show.
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Re: Is Pau Gasol the greatest FIBA player ever? 

Post#48 » by Mirotic12 » Fri Sep 15, 2017 6:05 pm

sorokii wrote:
mojo13 wrote:If the USA played other top counties using NBA rules the average margin of victory would be above 40 points.

If, if, if, but they dont. They play international rules of basketball, which is FIBA

mojo13 wrote:The FIBA rules are specifically geared to attempt to contain the USA's endless supply superior athletes.

No. FIBA rules dont exist as any reponse for anything. FIBA rules exist because they are used worlwide. Only in USA we find different rules applied to favour speed and show.


Yeah this is the truth. I never understood why some NBA fans think FIBA created separate rules for Team USA to be at a disadvantage. It's not factually true. FIBA and its rules existed many years before the NBA.

It was the NBA that then started changing rules and making them different. And over the years, it was always said by the NBA itself, that they didn't change rules because players were athletic. They in fact changed rules always to make the game more popular and for more points to be scored. Every time the NBA always said, they polled fans and fans wanted higher scoring games and less defense, so every time that was why major rules changes came.

None of FIBA's rules ever had anything to do with NBA or Team USA, and NBA rules always came after FIBA. The idea that FIBA somehow re-actively changed its rules to hurt Team USA is simply imagined. It never actually happened. Those rules were always in existence before anything the NBA was doing with its rules.
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Re: Is Pau Gasol the greatest FIBA player ever? 

Post#49 » by tomacorandom » Sun Sep 17, 2017 10:27 pm

He clearly is

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