<iframe src="http://live.fibaeurope.com/widgets/Players.aspx?lng=en&width=250&height=400&theme=default&rid=8722&pid=54708&rid=8722&pid=57836&rid=8722&pid=43603&rid=8722&pid=57921&rid=8722&pid=44540" width="250" height="400" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe><iframe src="http://live.fibaeurope.com/widgets/LiveGames.aspx?lng=en&width=250&height=400&theme=default&rid=8722&tid=291&tid=306&tid=2135&tid=362&tid=376" width="250" height="400" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> (The schedule widget on the right is only showing upcoming games featuring Rockets. If you are interested in the other games as well, you can find the full schedule here or on the official site of EuroBasket 2013 Ignore the "Last Game:" stats on the left Player widget for now. Those are from past tournaments.) Since I'm currently in the same time zone as this year's EuroBasket host nation Slovenia, I can't tell if these widgets automatically detect your time-zone or not. I suspect that they don't, so if you're living in the US and and see 14:30 next to Turkey-Finland, that's Central European Time (CET), which is 7 hours ahead of North American Central Time (CT). So, 14:30 CET = 7:30 am CT. 17:45 CET = 10:45 am CT. 21:00 CET = 2:00 pm CT. Other notable players include future Rocket Hedo Turkoglu, potential Rockets trade target Ersan Ilyasova, Dwight Howard mentor Oguz Savas, Rockets Summer League legend Lior Eliyahu, V-Span, Boki Nachbar, Goran & Zoran, Tony Parker, Nic Batum, Nando De Colo, Marc Gasol, Rubio, Calderon, Gortat, Belinelli, Shved, Nikola Vucevic, Jeff Taylor, Jonas Jerebko, Valanciunas, Kleiza, Nenad Kristic, Rudy Fernandez, Pero Antic (Hawks), Mirza Teletovic (Nets), Luigi Datome (Pistons), Sergey Karasev (Cavs), Nemanja Nedovic (Warriors), Dario Saric (2014 draft), Pooh Jeter (Ukraine), Travis Diener (Italy), Don Draper (Croatia), Bo McCalebb (the best), many other naturalized Americans, various (former) NBA busts, as well as a bunch of second round picks of past drafts yet to play in the NBA. Fun times. Competition System: Spoiler All (future) Rockets are in their team's rotation and should get plenty of PT, aside from maybe D-Mo, who probably will see inconsistent minutes, given that Lithuania decided to fill their 12 roster spots with 6 big men. It's highly likely that Spain, Greece, Turkey and Lithuania will reach the second group stage. Israel isn't very good, however they are fortunate their group (group A) is filled with rather crappy teams aside from France, so Israel, too, might manage to get to the next round (it's likely going to come down to two of Israel, Germany and the Ukraine). To give you an idea of just how bad group A is and how these teams generally stack up, I grouped all all the teams into tiers, with their group letter next to them. Obviously some people may disagree with my ranking (I suspect some folks would put Lithuania in tier #2 and perhaps rank Russia & Croatia higher, Macedonia lower), but you get the idea. Spoiler All games on ESPN3, I believe.
That's Dontaye Draper, he's a Croatian-American point guard. Imagine that though, being an international basketball player and still not the most recognizable person by your name. Poor fella.
Great post, very accurate tiers. Being Lithuanian I also agree that we're not in the 2nd tier for sure, won't make it to the top 4 either. Groups B and D are really strong, A is a joke.
Actually Israel isn't a bad national basketball team at all,Israel and France are the main candidates to qualify to the next round,if Israel will fail at qualifying to the next stage it will be an embarrassment,because you mentioned it yourself,the other national teams which are in the same group as Israel are not very decent. Basing and judging on the performance from the preparations games Israel didn't look very solid,and didn't look very well as a team in terms of playing together,they lost a lot of games they should've won in the last minutes,but I believe they will overcome this current phase and will be able to prevail and advance to the second round. I hope Casspi and Eliyahu will keep displaying their good performance in the upcoming games of the tournament as well,because the game against Great Britain in two days is the real deal.
I like your optimism, MazelTov, but a lot of things have to go right for Israel to advance. Casspi and Eliyahu have to be on top of their game, and in the absence of Mekel, they lack a true point guard. Someone, especially Ohayon, has to step up. As always, they lack size and with Tyus injured, they are really thin at Center. Rebouding is a weakness, one of the only aspects where Casspi has been consistently good, and they seem unable to sustain good defensive intensity ovre the course of a whole game. Unless they can create turnovers and get into a running game, they will have problems. I hope they'll prove me wring.
Well, you are definitely right,one of Israel's weaknesses is rebounding,our players struggle to grab the rebounds,it happens because of our lack of height and size,unfortunately the Israeli Centers are not as big as the Centers in Spain,Poland,Lithuania,Turkey,Serbia and more. Israel is abundant with Point Guards but it's rare to find a decent and tall enough Centers in Israel and that's a shame,but what can we do, we need to blame our genes LOL. But with all seriousness, I truely hope the Israeli national basketball team will regroup, play as a team, I wish players will step up their game and I hope our crucial players will bring their A+ game every night. Because I'm not to worried about Casspi because he is the star of this national basketball team and most of the balls will be headed to his direction, I only worried about Eliyahu, he can be a great and super important factor but he has a problem with his consistency, one game he can display impressive performance and in the other he can find himself in a slump and that's problematic.
Oh, so this is why you have knowledge about our national basketball team, I thought you were American in the beginning. Well, let's hope Israel will have great campaign this year.
Last 20 years of Israel in Eurobaskets (year/place): 1993 15 1995 9 1997 9 1999 9 2001 10 2003 7 2005 9 2007 9 2009 15 2011 13 I agree that it's not a terrible team, but it's not a top 10 team in Europe, never was. and only in 2003 they managed to play in quarterfinals, other than that it always ended in group stages. I would bet all my money that this year will be the same. But hey, you have tel aviv maccabi and that's really great, if you're a fan of it
