Now that the FIBA allstar exhibition sideshow is over, enough with the judgments.

Every two years we have to go through this ritual. A bunch of all star teams get together for a few weeks and play a single elimination tournament, with a dose of international politics as the subtext, as it usually is when you're playing for the flag and not for money. For roughly two weeks, over the span of 6-8 games, each time a certain team loses (but not when they win) grand theories written a thousand times before are proudly trotted out as if shiny and new. A bowl of hubris is the special of the day, served hot, cold, and often. Assumptions are questioned, proclamations are made, grand new orders are promised..........

..........and then forgotten, and two years later we go through the same charade.

Let's turn the clock back 48 hours. Greece beat the US fair and square in a game in which the US' intensity was decidedly low and their shooting, once again, was decidedly off kilter, whereas the greeks, most notably spanoulis, shot lights out. Good for Greece, they were the better team for those 40 minutes.

THen of course the cycle of recriminations and rehashing begins anew, along with a hefty dose of glee from around the globe as Goliath falls again (and within, note the wonderful postings of BayArea sheep aficionado).

Not enough "team" play

too much 1-on-1

selfish playground ball

dunk contests

fundamentals


If only these post hoc sages were granted the keys to the cathedral, Coach K, he of the selfish playground style, might learn a thing or two about coaching basketball..........right? But of course that's not all. Is the US really the best team? Are they really even the most talented? All bets are off now..

These observations are thought of as the harbinger of a new era, forthcoming for decades now: the door has closed on the US as a basketball power, Greece is the new paradigm, and Greek players (like Carlos Arroyo and Sarunas Jasikevicus before them) are lauded with olive wreaths, as well as predictions of grandiose future achievements. FIBA, the neutral international "governing" body quickly chimes in, as the FIBA President forecasts doom and gloom and final humiliation for the US in the bronze medal game vs. Argentina, much like it was forecast for the US vs. Lithuania in 2004.

FIBA, of course bears noting for its massive inferiority complex. Perhaps I shouldn't even call it a complex, because its inferiority is an actual fact. Le Federation International de Basket-Ball Association (that is it's official name, belying the inherently French nature and heritage of jouant au basket, non?) which nominally exercises federal power over national associations, as would FIFA, e.g., instead finds itself dwarfed and emasculated by one national association - and by that I mean THE Association - in particular. Accordingly, with billions more in resources, history, audience, and prestige, the NBA - insolently, under the insatiable Stern from his Fifth Avenue midtown Manhattan redoubt of arrogance - excercises more clout in the basketball universe than its rightful center of gravity: FIBA from its egalitarian Geneva abode, where it has conducted various international all star tournaments for the last 60 years or so.

FIBA's penis envy is most hilariously obvious in FIBA's delicously self conscious slogan "We Are Basketball" - as if they'd have to remind us if that were really true. How about just change it to "FIBA: Nous SOMMES importants" - a little less embarrasing, right?

Anyway, enough of that digression, let's get back to history. The woeful US "team" lines up for a deserved thrashing at the hands of the team oriented Argentines, an unlucky loser by 1 point in the semis, and the TRUE juggernaut of the tournament to anybody in the "know". Unfortunately, the new paradigm breaks down, Argentina gets trashed by the US, precisely BECAUSE they can't stop the array of individual stars the US brings to the table. This is of course, lost in the shuffle and not discussed, because it doesn't fit the vision of Argentina as a mirror image of their soccer team, an unselfish passing team of basketball geniuses who have established themselves as the dominant power of the Americas - as well as the vision of USA basketball as fading into the rear view mirror.

Then the Greek team, they of Olympian ideals and feats disappoints. Rather than demonstrate a clinic on "team" ball over a half-strength Spanish squad; they come out and put on an absolute stinker. The new paradigm lies in tatters on the floor (much like the Argentine "team" supremacy paradigm died yesterday, as did the Yugoslav supremacy contingency of a few years ago)...that is, if you're the type to make judgments based on one game, or even two weeks of games.

It's hard, as the US has learned, to make three pointers, when you miss them. Shockingly, this fundamental truth is generally forgotten in the waves of hyper analysis following every stumble of the US team, whcih, though disappointing, is still the only team to medal both in 2004 and 2006, and which will be the favorite, again in 2008. Also forgotten are the dreams of greatness for Carlos Arroyo and Sarunas Jaskevicus, international heros to NBA backups in a few months time..........and the two weeks of summer whn trapezoid lanes control the basketball universe become but a memory.

Fret not, In 2008, the cycle will begin again, as boredom and the dog days of summer will turn the eyes of the hoop world to Beijing, and the selfish, ball hogging boys of summer will stumble out of their Escalades and Hummers for yet another two week exhibition tourney, which, should they fumble, will provide evidence of the momentous change of the future of the basketball universe. With such weight on their shoulders, is it any wonder they fail?

 

I'm compiling a list of suggestions for the current Federation International de Basket-ball Association slogan, which is currently this:



As indicated above, I don't think this that the current slogan is sufficiently expressive of FIBA's importance in basketball.

Here are some of my suggestions:



Nice but too "old-europe" ish, really. How about the following?



Naah, maybe trying too hard, might make folks suspicious, how about this:



Perfect.

 

I knew a politically motivated post like this would come - YOU HATE THE WORLD AND DISRESPECT US! YOU HATE THE WORLD YOU UGLY AMERICAN. Yes, basketball needs more politics involved - we need to be able draw even more broad based judgments from it........

Let me respond: You're dead freaking wrong, nothing could be further from the truth; I have lived abroad and wager I've been to more countries in the past year than you or most poeple will see in their entire lives. I speak good French and Spanish and parts of a few more languages.

Let me be perfectly clear: FIBA is not "the world", nor is it "basketball".

It's a group of technocrats who hang out in a tastefully appointed, post-modern building in Geneva (which you can take a virtual tour of here which is in Switzerland not France. Like it's mentor organization, FIFA (which is notoriously corrupt, inefficient, and much reviled - not by Americans, who dodn't give a sh-t about soccer, but by Europeans, despite FIFA being yet another Geneva based NGO dominated by Europeans.) And, in case you didn't know, yes I am aware that French is the de facto official language because back in the early 20th c. it was the de facto international language of diplomacy, as well as of Geneva.

Anyway, I don't feel that a bunch of tecnocrats in Geneva "are basketball", in fact I find it pretty goddamned laughable, and I don't think that's a matter of national perspective. Imagine if the NBA had that slogan the amount of grousing it would generate abroad.....

But anyway, since we're handing out national shame badges - is the fact that the Greek public disrespected Iberian basketball by listening to techno on their mp3 players a factor today? Because they got run out of the building and couldn't buy a damned basket against a Spain team that really didn't impress me very much and was without their best player. Or are Greek citizens enlightened internationalists who arent' deserving of shame? Why are we even discussing this?

Anyway, I'm happy that basketball is popular around the world. And so is the NBA - more good players for them.

 

max14 why don't re-read my post and then think about why you've completely misconstrued it? Of course the 3rd place game doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things - that's my point!

The point flew entirely over your head, just a three pointer from the Greek national team today - CLANNNNNNNG!!!!!!!!!!!

 

LOL, nobody said it wasn't real basketball, Spain won fair and square. Are you sure you even put this in the right thread? Any other claim? The only claim I'm making is that GIANT OVERARCHING PRONUNCIATIONS which are only made when the US loses, but not made in any other circumstance, even if they refute the HUGE IMPORTANT ASSUMPTIONS should be taken with a grain of salt. Every few years a momentous, overarching paradigm shift is declared, then we forget about it and do the same thing the two years later, and last time's NEXT BIG THING's mediocrity goes unnoticed.

I take the folllowing as a VALUABLE LESSON from this years FIBA all star tournament: The team that scores more points than the other team will win the game. Other than that, I can make some tactical observations - but every single grandiose observation about the spectacular greek team that littered the internet and the airwaves seems to now have been undone, yet nobody notices.

It's quite easy to make assumptions based on 40 minutes when you make your shots, but you don't always do, so what are they worth?


On the non-basketball points:

YOu guys don't really know how to interpret the term "FIBA". Generically on this board I see people say "the FIBA teams". Well, the US is a member of FIBA, is the US one of "the FIBA teams"? Others seem to interpet "FIBA" as "everybody in the world who is not on the US national team"

I interpret FIBA as the le Federation International de Basket-ball Association which is a bunch of guys in Switzerland who push paper, and hold it in little regard, (much as FIFA is widely regarded as a joke, and the IOC is a joke as well), prone to corruption and incompetence and jealousy and pettiness- see e.g., the 1972 Olympic basketball final. I didn't see Chinese fans cheering FIBA after their Violet-bad referees started tossing Yao out of the game just for breathing on the other team.

FIBA's not unlike the UN General Assembly. Useful to have to get everybody together - but let's face it, it's not the real world.

Not to say the NBA, and certainly not the league administration on 5th Avenue "is basketball" either. Basketball is a kid shooting hoops in his driveway, alley, or a public park, be it in Brooklyn, Beijing, Barcelona or Botswana.

 

.....because you were operating under the mistaken impression that it was located in France. It's not, it's in Switzerland.

 

You should have been here two years ago, people were comparing him to TIny Archibald, and I'm not making that up. ANyway Arroyo can still score in bunches in international commpetition and did so these past few weeks.

I think the abilities required are the same. Look at the best players in the tournament - Yao? Gasol? Nowitzki? Anthony? Ginobili? I see the Western Conference all star team there.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong. NBA offenses are not that simple, if so then you and I would be coaching. Again, you are trotting out the same hackneyed myths that we are subjected to every two years.

Question - what team led the 2006 world championships assists per game? Which team led the 2004 Olympics in assists per game? Oh yes, the ISO one-on-one kings - the US. But let that not stop us from making hte same boring conclusions over and over again. I'm sure Mike Krzyzewski probably just abandoned his 40 years of basketball experience and ate sushi all day while Carmelo and LeBron and Wade had a 1-on-1 contest and HORSE games instead of installing an offense.

Ahhh, the evil NBA, which can only be saved by your superior team know-how. Is the star system what doomed Argentina two days ago? Is it what doomed Greece? Is that why spain won, so they lost their star and didn't have to play in the star system? This above paragraph (actually the last two) is the kind of garbage that I'm talking about. Silly generalizations, with little reference paid to actual facts, that fall apart if you try to apply them generally.

So Ryoga why don't you tell us how to solve "our" basketball problems? Then you can tell me who "your" team is and I will make a bunch of silly generalizations about how to solve yours.