Goran Dragic is reigning 3rd team all NBA, i think this is something quite meaningful. It is a team sport and without proper teammates some goals like a medal, 1 seed or playoffs just aren't realistic. At least our guys go all in and play with a heart instead of losing on purpose. Great karma for a former Slovenian player Preldzic to eliminate you, lol.
did you even watch the angola vs aus game or are you just making assumptions without knowing all the facts like dragonfork and dragic did?
I watched the latter half of the 3rd and the whole 4th quarter. What I saw was very very bad defense and contested midrange shots on offense. I think there is an article on Grantland which shows those plays in detail. I also didn't see Baynes, Delavedova, Andersen and some others, but like I said, I don't have a problem with that. Resting your players is smart, playing to loose, with no intensity on defense/offense is disrespectful to the game. But whatever, I believe that Slovenia would loose to Turkey as well, so Dominicans were actually much better for us and a medal was never realistic with this team. I'm happy with top8 finish. I wasn't bothered by you being tactful, it was Slovenias fault for scoring 2 points in the 4th, but don't blame Goran. Defenses are focusing on him and without help of teammates (some really ugly misses on open shots against Lithuania) it just can't be done by one man. Dragic on the Rockets would be great, but this is just not realistic, especially with news of Suns offering a contract to Zoran, I think they want to lock him long term. They will not trade him to the same team twice, especially not after the catastrofic first trade which netted them the great aaron brooks for Goran AND a 1st rounder, lol.
The only thing more shameful than your team's actions at this World Cup is you trying to defend them. Here's the link to an SI article meticulously detailing the tank fest those poor saps put on. People in the arena laughed at the slapstick comedy show of intentional errors that poor excuse for a team of true competitors put on. http://www.si.com/nba/2014/09/04/australia-angola-tanking-goran-dragic-fiba-world-cup From the article... Read the entire article and check out the gifs. Shameful, disgraceful... as unsportsmanlike as it's humanly possible at the highest level of competition. In short.... typically Australian... and so "unRockets" like, tanking like little girls.
And now for a coup de gras... http://www.talkbasket.net/11091-fiba-open-disciplinary-hearing-against-australia.html Aussie wankers... SMH Rebuttal? Yeah... that's what I thought!
Voice of Aus, tell honestly, did u want Australia to win against angola? I was watching the end, Australian players obviously did not wanted. They played with zero. Also, which other team rested it's best players when playing final match? Even when it did not mean anything.
The boomers were pissweak and got what they deserved. I say that as an Australian that was disgusted that they would try to manipulate the matchups like a bunch of b****es instead of taking on whoever they got drawn like a team of men would.
Even great teams lose on purpose and a lot of fans forgets it pretty fast. Just quick throw-back to 2012 olympics, last match Spain vs Brazil, winner plays USA in semifinals. Spain leads by 6 at HT, by 9 after 3q and lose the match on purpose by 6 and last quarter 16-31. No defense were found either, yet they won silver medals and Brazil lost in first round of elimination.
I thought lithuania lost to australia on purpose as it meant they could only finish first or third, i thought it was pretty shrewd on their part too *shrug*
I'm sure throwing the Angola game angered the basketball gods, that massive choke by Australia was proof of that. The Aussies shouldn't have worried about when they played the USA and dared to dream. Something crazy could have happened, you never know. As the great philosopher Sydney Deane said "even the sun shines on a dog's ass some days"
To purposefully lose means threatening the integrity of the sport. If they can prove it, FIBA should ban the team from international play for a couple years. IMO the same principle should apply to the NBA. The bottom team should get relegated to the Dleague for one year, and automatically get the number one pick the year after.
I completely agree with you and any other true sports fan should as well. Voice of Aus on the other hand, called Goran a b**** for having the guts and courage to be the first to publicly and rightfully talk about it. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Basketball is a beautiful sport, there is no room for fixing the game like today Australia vs Angola!! <a href="https://twitter.com/FIBA">@FIBA</a> should do something about that!</p>— Goran Dragic (@Goran_Dragic) <a href="https://twitter.com/Goran_Dragic/status/507539131137032193">September 4, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> Now it's completely clear who the b**** here is! Purposefully loosing the game just because they're piss scared of the USA team. Shameful!!!
It's sad because that's not the Australian way, and it's not how the Australian team used to conduct themselves. From an article regarding Australia vs USA prior to the 96 Olympics: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2013/oct/31/the-forgotten-story-of-shane-heal-v-the-dream-team Heal and his team-mates acknowledged they were playing against the world’s best but refused to back down from confrontation when necessary. “I guess the Australian way is that we weren’t going to kiss their arse – we were going there to test ourselves against the best. We weren’t going to treat them any differently than we did anybody else. We had respect for them but we certainly weren’t going to bow to them.”
We have a lot of BOOMER fans here but I gotta go with the DRAGIC brothers here even if they don't come out smelling like roses. Tanking is awful in sports but just feels downright sinful in international play.
Should Spain hand back their silver medals for tanking against Brazil in order to avoid Team USA before the non-medal part of the finals?
