Oh Eurobasket, it seems as if only a few days ago we were anxiously awaiting your arrival. We couldn’t wait to see Spain dominate, watch Lithuania play with that fire we’ve come to know, all while doormats like Germany and Macedonia flounder and die under the pressure. Well, here’s the thing: Spain sucked, Lithuania was lifeless, and Germany and Macedonia sprung upsets to advance. Oh, and did I mention Poland played some of the most inspired basketball you’ll ever see in international competition? Damn. What a week. And to think: we’re just getting started.
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Why the heck are you so down on Greece, exactly?
“They wouldn’t advance in group F, …”
Greece is lacking a few very talented players, but they still beat serbia, russia and lithuania in their preparations. They may have lost to slovenia, but that game was so much closer than the end-score shows. And additionally, greece may arguably be the deepest team in the post east of spain. It may be that spanoulis is not running the team in the same way that papa oder d3 would, but neither does rubio or any other pg in this tournament. PG have been severely unimpressive and in such a watered-down competition there is no reason to completely discard Greece. Spain lacks Calderon’s shooting, greece lacks the two best pg’s of the euroleague and every other team misses a lot more to begin with. On the much-discussed matchup:Turiaf may defend Bourousis, but will he defend Sofo and Koufos as well? How many fouls can he pick up exactly before they have their way? Plus france has no shooters at all. I don’t even see France in the same league with the big boys this year. And greece has always had france’s number, as those nba-bangers have never translated into good team-play. You just can’t go far in such a toruney without ANY outside shooting and relying so much on one player at all times, no matter how great he is. France wouldn’t even be here if tony wasn’t hitting long shots which aren’t his forte in the clutch against germany and any single one german could step up in the 40th minute at any time. GERMANY!!!!! We’re not talking a competitive team here, it’s germany that fights admirably but lacks so much in the talent and experience department, it should be a punching bag for france with its seasoned players. There are guys on this team with no contract or no playing for their teams. They couldn’t even beat latvia, which has been a punching bag to any good team this summer. So please get off the France bandwagon, those guys may be fantastic individuals and role players in the nba, but I would pick a disciplined tight team full of euroleague stars any day for this kind of tourney. I even see croatia beating them.
Remember Belgium!
We’ll see, surely…
My predictions for top 4: slovenia, spain, greece, serbia
Medals: Gold: Slovenia Silver: Spain meh:Greece
I can’t pick spain for gold with their underwhelming performance, even if only because they just don’t deserve it anymore.
And I can’t pick greece against a good team that advances from the horrible(it’s fantastic, isn’t it?) group F, because greece won’t have been stress-tested as much, not for talent though.
oh, and a talent-rank for next years wc:
1. spain (assuming full ranks with youngsters claver and Llull)
2. greece (with papanikolaou/d3/vasilopoulos/maybe old-papa and assuming sofo stays a lean machine and actually plays a bit this season AND having a star pg in calathes after a year of sarunas/obradovic tutelage)
3. serbia (the tightest young team out there)
4.slovenia (too stacked to ignore, even if they are perennial losers)
5. turkey (could enes kanter start being a factor there in a year?)
Btw. nice blogging, keep it up, even if I disagree