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

Where? Please, tell me where it shows that was I mistaken.

 

I was?

 

yep, the "experts" just love to hold on to old cliches

 

I think the biggest problem for the USA is that zone defenses are completely legal everywhere else but the NBA, which allows a "kind of" zone.

College players would probably be better used to playing Fiba style than most NBA players.

If the NBA finally just breaks down and allows a true zone, I think we would be better in FIBA competitions.

The US team clearly had issues with Zone defenses, and covering the pick and roll, very easy to anyone that is used to playing against either of them, but apparently hard for players that have rarely seen it.

DD

 

Sam, why are you so hypersensitive about the hyperanalysis. This is a basketball board. We hyperanalyze. What's so bad about it?

A ritual every 2 years? Yeah, if your boys won an international tourny once in a while over the last decade or so, there wouldn't have been this ritual, would it?

It's easy to dismiss the losses as "just 40 minutes of not hitting shots." Look, if US basketball is so overwhelmingly more talented, and yet hasn't won an international champ since the real Dream Team quit, you can't just say it's just a bad game here and there.

If the Rockets were the most talented team in the NBA, and they didn't won the championship 4 years in a role, you can bet cf.net would be loaded with all kinds of hyperanalysis. Maybe then you could write a post with the title "Now that the NBA sideshow is over. . ."

 

What you're saying here is that you find 1 game eliminations to be unfair and respect playoff formats that run on for 7 games. You do realize that the only reason sports go with the 7 game format is to drag things on and make tons more money right?

Why is the best basketball tournament each year the NCAA? Why is the biggest game the superbowl? Why are game 7s more special than any other playoff games? You can't tell me that you really think the 2.5 month drag of the NBA playoffs is really worth it?

 

I think what is being addressed here is that the only "lesson" one can truly gain from the World Championships this year is the same one we've seen since 2000: the US can't win every bad game they play anymore.

It used to be that, even with a bad shooting night, the Americans would so dominate all other facets of the game that winning would still be inevitable. That hasn't been the case in years.

As such, to set the standard for the American team as "Win every game" lest they be bashed over and over by those who either dislike the team or are indifferent until something unfortunate happens is incredibly harsh.

As you mentioned, the NCAA tourney is another single-elimination popular basketball event. Wonder why it's so popular? Because dynasties are nearly impossible in a single-elimination format. NCAA teams are forever revered for even winning just back-to-back titles (something that hasn't happened in 14 years). The U.S. is the only team that's medaled in the Olympics of 2004 and this years World's. That's certainly not dominance, but its a consistency no other world squad matched and if I were a betting man I'd wager more on the U.S. to medal in 08 than I would for any other team.

The Dream Team is long gone, but that doesn't mean we have a bunch of loser classless thugs running wild on the court for us. I'd say the NBA and US basketball still have it pretty good compared to any other country's local league and team.

 

I was here two years ago, and I'm insisting that "scoring in bunches" means nothing. Take any NBA scoring PG, give him the key of a team, and he'll score for sure.

those are some of the best players in the world, nothing strange, but that's not the point.
1) the order is different, in a Fiba competition, a guy like Gasol is easily a TOP5 player in the world, while Dirk is probably the best.
2) guys that might be starting material in the NBA would look much worse than players who couldn't stay in the NBA. The NBA requires specialization for 90% of its players, FIBA basketball requires a little of everything

those are not myths, I've seen thousends of NBA games in the last 15 years or so, most teams do run very poor offences, where the threat isn't generated by ball movement but by the double team of the star. I don't blame poor coaching for that, more the lack of practice time and the difficulty to coach NBA stars. For instance I've seen playing Stanford several times, I know Mike Montgomery can organize a good offence. Btw, the Warriors had no clue about how to play as a team.

I have no stats here, but don't trust too much the assist numbers: 3 point shots are not counted as assists, so it might lead to skewed conclusions.

the star system is what lets inferior teams compete with the US, it's so easy.
I'm Italian, if my team was able to somehow stay in the game even without a great shooting night, it means there must be something really wrong in your team.

shorter regular season
less teams in the playoffs
stop calling stathogs "stars"
stop the star calls
more power to the coaches, less to the players

 

sam, I agree with most everything you said, but the problem against greece wasn't not making shots when you miss them, it was defense. and taking too many threes. that lost focus for one game and greece had an incredible shooting game and they got burned.

the funny thing about it is that they got exactly what they should have expected. Coach K's teams really heavily on the three point shot, and if you watch enough Duke games, they are subject to have a game when nothing is falling, and the opposition is hitting everything and the matter is compounded because duke keeps shooting threes.

 

First of all I want to ask you one thing, what do you know, really, about international basketball?
You know the best players, the best team, do you see some Euroleague games?
Do I have a basketball expert in front of me or just a NBA fan ?

Just to understand if this discussion is worth something.
My point is very easy, your team in underachieving and that's because you have players who don't know how to play together.

It might not mean much, but the US lost to Italy two years ago in an exibition game before the Olympics by like 20 points.
Then, Arroyo was already in the NBA playing for Utah and averaging 12.6/5, and he was considered a bargain at the time.
Jasikevicius has been rumoured to receive offers from the NBA since 2000, it's not like scouts didn't know him before Lithuania won against the US.
What's your point?

Gasol is top5 because of the skills he has and the different rules. There's not one player in the NBA that has his wide array of offensive skills, once you cover his lack of strength and attitude to play phisical, you just can't stop him. And that's happening in every competition he's been playing in since he was in Barcelona.

Pick n' roll or isolations, that's where most NBA offences start.
How often do you see some sort of motion offence?

 

very well summed up. to expect us to win every single game, no matter how badly we play isn't fair anymore, and that's what single elimination requires.

yes it is worth it. almost without fail, the nba crowns the best team as it's champion every year and it is a direct result of having 7 game series. there is no room for fluke, one game victories in the nba playoffs. perhaps you find that boring, that the actual best team wins, but i love that i get to see who the best really is. maybe some just want excitement and upsets galore and have no concern for really getting into a sport and discussing it and being able to look at teams over history and watching matchups change throughout a series. that's fine, like whatever you wish, but to suggest that it's all money-motivated and has no effect on separating pretenders from contenders is stupid. it obviously does.

if anything is about money, it's the NCAA tourney. i love it and watch damn near every game. people who don't like basketball get into making brackets and watching cinderellas they've never heard of. but the tourney isn't set up to adequately determine the best team and should never claim to be. a 6 round, single elimination tournament is damn near the worst way to determine a champion, unless you just want excitement and money, and then it's a great way.

game 7's are more special b/c it's win or go home, just like the ncaa's. that will always be more exciting than a random game 3. but excitement doesn't equal a good way to see who is the best. and at least with game 7, we have adequately determined that the teams are pretty equal and that at some point the series has to stop. series' should be as short as is possible to still separate two teams. playing an infinite number of games would be the best way, but 7 is long enough to get the job done. at some point it will always come down to one game, but at least there is a basis for it once you've reached game 7. showing up for game 1 isn't enough to let us know that one game is all we need. arguing otherwise shows a lack of understanding of basketball, math, probability, and probably a host of other things.

 

ok, that's enough for me, you sure you remember the game?

 

Even with the 7-game format, the best team doesn't always win (contra pgabriel's claim). In fact, how do you define "the best team"? The team that wins it all in a 7-game playoff format? Isn't it circular reasoning? Miami was 12 games behind Detroit in the regular season. But they decisively beat the Pistons in the playoffs. Which is the better team?

If a 70-12 team were eliminated in the playoffs (be it 1 game or 7 games), not too many people would question the playoffs format. Instead, they would question whether that team was built to win in that playoff format. Remember Dallas used to be the poster boy of "good in regular season but can never win in the playoffs" team? Now Pheonix has replaced Dallas for that title.

Even if we agree that a longer format has a better chance of avoiding "fluke" results, the fact that the US has lost consecutive international tournaments should tell us that the fluke excuse is getting weaker and weaker.

One of the "lessons" people are trumpeting is that American players aren't suitable for international rules. Whether that "lesson" is correct or not is debatable. And as you rightly pointed out, there is no such thing as the "real game of basketball." So I don't think we should belittle the significance of the WC.

I agree with you that the only sure lesson we have learned is that the talent gap is shrinking. I am not sure if the American talent level is down. But the rest of the world's talent level is certainly up.