CollegeKingRex
CTG Regular
I'll have matchday 1 picks up later. I beat these guys senseless four years ago in the Group stage.
:shake:
Wrote this earlier in the week, figure might as well post on here...
This year will be the first and last time that there will be a World Cup in both basketball and soccer in the same year. Obviously, soccer’s World Cup is the most popular sporting event in the world, and the month-long celebrations in Brazil during the 64-game tournament won’t be paralleled anytime soon. Like its soccer brethren, the event has been held every four years since 1970 (the first event was in 1950, but the intervals were off by a few years until settling into a four-year cycle in 1970). The two things that will change after this year is that the event’s name no longer is the FIBA World Championship. It’s now been changed to the FIBA Basketball World Cup, to align with soccer. The other change is that the tournament won’t be held next until 2019, so as not to overlap with the FIFA World Cup. The event will also expand from 24 to 32 teams in five years, which is the same amount of teams that play in the world’s biggest soccer tournament.
The winner of this tournament will automatically qualify for the 2016 Olympic games in Brazil, joining the host country. Group play begins on Saturday from various cities around Spain, the host country. Each of the four groups contain six countries, who will play each other in a round-robin format that has them playing five games in six days in the same venue. Sixteen of the 24 countries will advance to the knockout rounds from Sept. 6-14, with all of those games being in either Madrid or Barcelona. Here are the way the countries were grouped after the draw:
Group A: Spain, Serbia, France, Brazil, Egypt, Iran
Group B: Croatia, Greece, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Senegal, Philippines
Group C: Finland, Ukraine, Turkey, Dominican Republic, United States, New Zealand
Group D: Slovenia, Lithuania, Mexico, Australia, Angola, South Korea
The United States are the defending champions, having knocked off host Turkey in the final in Istanbul in 2010 by an 81-64 scoreline. Before that success, the USA hadn’t won the event since 1994, the first time that professionals represented the US in the event. The USA fell on hard times at the end of the decade, suffering their first international loss with pros at the 1998 FIBA World Championship in the semifinals (though NBA players were in a lockout and could not compete). Despite winning gold in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, there were clearly cracks in the foundation, and those were exposed in the 2002 World Championships where the US finished sixth. The 2004 Olympic team lost three times before limping to the bronze. At that point, USA Basketball initiated a long-term project that would try to curb the individual 1-on-1 type play and find better, more cohesive team players. The strategy allowed them to win their first seven games at the 2006 World Championships, but lost to Greece in the semifinals and settled for bronze. The USA hasn’t lost since in international play and is a heavy favorite to win, despite the second-ranked Spaniards having a raucous backing in what will basically be “home games”.
Here is the US roster, with NBA club in parentheses.
Stephen Curry (Golden State)
Klay Thompson (Golden State)
Derrick Rose (Chicago)
Kenneth Faried (Denver)
Rudy Yag (Sacramento)
DeMar DeRozan (Toronto)
Kyrie Irving (Cleveland)
Mason Plumlee (Brooklyn)
DeMarcus Cousins (Sacramento)
James Harden (Houston)
Anthony Davis (New Orleans)
Andre Drummond (Detroit)
Let’s look at some other countries who could give the USA troubles:
Spain is the only country remotely close to the US in the current FIBA rankings; no one else is even close. It would take a shocking upset (both the USA and Spain might well be double-digits in every game they play not against each other) for these two to not clash in the tournament’s final. Ricky Rubio will be a key figure for the hosts; he finally emerged as a viable NBA point guard in Minnesota last year. He’ll need to spearhead the guard play, because outside of he and Jose Calderon (Knicks), there’s not much NBA talent in the backcourt. It’s hard to argue that Spain’s frontcourt of Pau Gasol (newly-signed Chicago Bull), Marc Gasol (Memphis) and Serge Ibaka (Oklahoma City) will give the US fits with a size and skill advantage inside.
Brazil figures to advance out of Group A with Spain, but will need a bit more scoring from its guards. Leandro Barbosa figures to be the best candidate to fill that void. The 31-year old combo guard for the Phoenix Suns can score score in bunches and get to the goal better than most anyone in the NBA. The Brazilians have one of the best frontlines in the event and certainly match up with Spain, as Tiago Splitter (San Antonio), Anderson Varejao (Cleveland) and Nene Hilario (Washington) will punish lesser foes. Each stands 6-foot-10 or taller.
France matches up fairly evenly with the Brazilians on paper because they have one of the few frontlines who can stand in there and slug with Brazil. Utah Jazz monster (7-foot-2) Rudy Gobert will be making his international debut at this event. Boris Diaw and Ian Mahinmi (Spurs and Pacers, respectively) both are punishing bruisers capable of giving the French prolonged minutes inside. Nicolas Batum and Evan Fournier are NBA names that have plenty of upside. Batum has proven himself to be a worthy asset to Portland, while Fournier was recently traded to Orlando and should be a difference-maker for the Magic next season because of his versatility to play either wing or run the point, which he did some in Denver last season. France are the current European Champions, but the absense of San Antonio’s Tony Parker might ultimately be too much for the 8th-ranked French to overcome, however.
Greece is ranked fifth in the world, and the aging Greeks will need help from their young rising star Giannis Antetokounmpo if they hope to advance to the semifinals or beyond. The Greeks lost 2013 Eurobasket top scorer Vasileios Spanoulis to age, and Giannis Bourousis (the second leading Eurobasket scorer) is also 30 and won’t be able to consistently burn foes with five games being played in six days. Antetokounmpo played heavy minutes with the Milwaukee Bucks last season, and gained much needed experience against NBA players while learning on the job. He had a great summer for the Bucks in the Las Vegas Summer League, and at 6-foot-11, Milwaukee coach Jason Kidd has said he’ll even consider playing him some at POINT GUARD once the NBA resumes. He’ll have to carry a lot of the load for Greece in order for them to get to the semis or beyond.
One team the Greeks figure to be fighting is Puerto Rico, who is led by feisty point guard J.J. Barea. While he had a largely disappointing season playing behind Rubio in Minnesota in 2013-14, he’s been a consistent scorer for the Puerto Ricans. Carlos Arroyo, Renaldo Balkman and Ramon Clemento will all need to shine as well if the islands hope for a deep run.
Argentina won’t have the services of Manu Ginobili, so it could be up to Facundo Campazzo, who just signed with Real Madrid, to make an impact at this event. New York Knick guard Pablo Prigioni could be playing in his last international event at age 37, so Campazzo, at 23, will need to step into a leadership role. He’s best known to Americans for a low blow during the 2012 Olympics against Carmelo Anthony. Campazzo says he was retaliating against Chris Paul, who he claims punched him earlier in the game. Luis Scola, who had a subpar year for the Indiana Pacers, is the other NBA player on the team. This unit doesn’t look as strong on paper as some of the previous ones, including the Olympic gold winners in 2004 and bronze winners in 2008. It’s an aging bunch despite its current FIBA ranking of No. 3 in the world.
Croatia will be fighting Senegal for a spot as well. The Croats have several guys on the cusp of the NBA, and two who signed this off-season, but no one on their roster has ever logged an NBA minute, so experience will be lacking from the Croats.
In Group C, the USA has little real competition. Turkey boasts Omer Asik and a quality defensive unit that played well enough to earn silver four years back. But three other teams will advance out of the group. If it plays up to FIBA ranking form, New Zealand and the Dominican Republic will progress as the third and fourth placed teams.
Australia should compete at the top of Group D. The Boomers won’t have the services of former NBA No. 1 draft choice Andrew Bogut, but they do have some rising young talent, including 19-year old Dante Exum. Matt Dellavedova and Aron Baynes are established international players, currently employed by Cleveland and San Antonio, respectively, but there is much inexperience outside of the top three or four players. The Aussies probably got the best draw of any Top 10 team in the tournament. Only Lithuania is slotted above them in the current FIBA rankings from the other five teams in their group, so passage to the knockout phase is almost a given. From there, anything can happen.
Speaking of the Lithuanians, you won’t find many guys here that you know of (or whose names you can properly pronounce), but they gritted out a bronze medal in this event in 2010 and figure to fight for longtime coach Jonas Kazlauskas, considered one of the best tacticians in Europe. The only NBA name you’ll know of is Jonas Valanciunas, who started 81 games for Toronto in the NBA last year, averaging 11 points and nearly 9 rebounds per game. With Linas Kleiza finished with international duty, someone else will have to pick up the slack as well. Donatas Motiejunas will figure prominently, but Renaldas Seibutis can fill the wing void left by Klieza and will need to score in double digits in this event if Lithuania hopes to medal again.
GL!
:shake:
Wrote this earlier in the week, figure might as well post on here...
This year will be the first and last time that there will be a World Cup in both basketball and soccer in the same year. Obviously, soccer’s World Cup is the most popular sporting event in the world, and the month-long celebrations in Brazil during the 64-game tournament won’t be paralleled anytime soon. Like its soccer brethren, the event has been held every four years since 1970 (the first event was in 1950, but the intervals were off by a few years until settling into a four-year cycle in 1970). The two things that will change after this year is that the event’s name no longer is the FIBA World Championship. It’s now been changed to the FIBA Basketball World Cup, to align with soccer. The other change is that the tournament won’t be held next until 2019, so as not to overlap with the FIFA World Cup. The event will also expand from 24 to 32 teams in five years, which is the same amount of teams that play in the world’s biggest soccer tournament.
The winner of this tournament will automatically qualify for the 2016 Olympic games in Brazil, joining the host country. Group play begins on Saturday from various cities around Spain, the host country. Each of the four groups contain six countries, who will play each other in a round-robin format that has them playing five games in six days in the same venue. Sixteen of the 24 countries will advance to the knockout rounds from Sept. 6-14, with all of those games being in either Madrid or Barcelona. Here are the way the countries were grouped after the draw:
Group A: Spain, Serbia, France, Brazil, Egypt, Iran
Group B: Croatia, Greece, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Senegal, Philippines
Group C: Finland, Ukraine, Turkey, Dominican Republic, United States, New Zealand
Group D: Slovenia, Lithuania, Mexico, Australia, Angola, South Korea
The United States are the defending champions, having knocked off host Turkey in the final in Istanbul in 2010 by an 81-64 scoreline. Before that success, the USA hadn’t won the event since 1994, the first time that professionals represented the US in the event. The USA fell on hard times at the end of the decade, suffering their first international loss with pros at the 1998 FIBA World Championship in the semifinals (though NBA players were in a lockout and could not compete). Despite winning gold in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, there were clearly cracks in the foundation, and those were exposed in the 2002 World Championships where the US finished sixth. The 2004 Olympic team lost three times before limping to the bronze. At that point, USA Basketball initiated a long-term project that would try to curb the individual 1-on-1 type play and find better, more cohesive team players. The strategy allowed them to win their first seven games at the 2006 World Championships, but lost to Greece in the semifinals and settled for bronze. The USA hasn’t lost since in international play and is a heavy favorite to win, despite the second-ranked Spaniards having a raucous backing in what will basically be “home games”.
Here is the US roster, with NBA club in parentheses.
Stephen Curry (Golden State)
Klay Thompson (Golden State)
Derrick Rose (Chicago)
Kenneth Faried (Denver)
Rudy Yag (Sacramento)
DeMar DeRozan (Toronto)
Kyrie Irving (Cleveland)
Mason Plumlee (Brooklyn)
DeMarcus Cousins (Sacramento)
James Harden (Houston)
Anthony Davis (New Orleans)
Andre Drummond (Detroit)
Let’s look at some other countries who could give the USA troubles:
Spain is the only country remotely close to the US in the current FIBA rankings; no one else is even close. It would take a shocking upset (both the USA and Spain might well be double-digits in every game they play not against each other) for these two to not clash in the tournament’s final. Ricky Rubio will be a key figure for the hosts; he finally emerged as a viable NBA point guard in Minnesota last year. He’ll need to spearhead the guard play, because outside of he and Jose Calderon (Knicks), there’s not much NBA talent in the backcourt. It’s hard to argue that Spain’s frontcourt of Pau Gasol (newly-signed Chicago Bull), Marc Gasol (Memphis) and Serge Ibaka (Oklahoma City) will give the US fits with a size and skill advantage inside.
Brazil figures to advance out of Group A with Spain, but will need a bit more scoring from its guards. Leandro Barbosa figures to be the best candidate to fill that void. The 31-year old combo guard for the Phoenix Suns can score score in bunches and get to the goal better than most anyone in the NBA. The Brazilians have one of the best frontlines in the event and certainly match up with Spain, as Tiago Splitter (San Antonio), Anderson Varejao (Cleveland) and Nene Hilario (Washington) will punish lesser foes. Each stands 6-foot-10 or taller.
France matches up fairly evenly with the Brazilians on paper because they have one of the few frontlines who can stand in there and slug with Brazil. Utah Jazz monster (7-foot-2) Rudy Gobert will be making his international debut at this event. Boris Diaw and Ian Mahinmi (Spurs and Pacers, respectively) both are punishing bruisers capable of giving the French prolonged minutes inside. Nicolas Batum and Evan Fournier are NBA names that have plenty of upside. Batum has proven himself to be a worthy asset to Portland, while Fournier was recently traded to Orlando and should be a difference-maker for the Magic next season because of his versatility to play either wing or run the point, which he did some in Denver last season. France are the current European Champions, but the absense of San Antonio’s Tony Parker might ultimately be too much for the 8th-ranked French to overcome, however.
Greece is ranked fifth in the world, and the aging Greeks will need help from their young rising star Giannis Antetokounmpo if they hope to advance to the semifinals or beyond. The Greeks lost 2013 Eurobasket top scorer Vasileios Spanoulis to age, and Giannis Bourousis (the second leading Eurobasket scorer) is also 30 and won’t be able to consistently burn foes with five games being played in six days. Antetokounmpo played heavy minutes with the Milwaukee Bucks last season, and gained much needed experience against NBA players while learning on the job. He had a great summer for the Bucks in the Las Vegas Summer League, and at 6-foot-11, Milwaukee coach Jason Kidd has said he’ll even consider playing him some at POINT GUARD once the NBA resumes. He’ll have to carry a lot of the load for Greece in order for them to get to the semis or beyond.
One team the Greeks figure to be fighting is Puerto Rico, who is led by feisty point guard J.J. Barea. While he had a largely disappointing season playing behind Rubio in Minnesota in 2013-14, he’s been a consistent scorer for the Puerto Ricans. Carlos Arroyo, Renaldo Balkman and Ramon Clemento will all need to shine as well if the islands hope for a deep run.
Argentina won’t have the services of Manu Ginobili, so it could be up to Facundo Campazzo, who just signed with Real Madrid, to make an impact at this event. New York Knick guard Pablo Prigioni could be playing in his last international event at age 37, so Campazzo, at 23, will need to step into a leadership role. He’s best known to Americans for a low blow during the 2012 Olympics against Carmelo Anthony. Campazzo says he was retaliating against Chris Paul, who he claims punched him earlier in the game. Luis Scola, who had a subpar year for the Indiana Pacers, is the other NBA player on the team. This unit doesn’t look as strong on paper as some of the previous ones, including the Olympic gold winners in 2004 and bronze winners in 2008. It’s an aging bunch despite its current FIBA ranking of No. 3 in the world.
Croatia will be fighting Senegal for a spot as well. The Croats have several guys on the cusp of the NBA, and two who signed this off-season, but no one on their roster has ever logged an NBA minute, so experience will be lacking from the Croats.
In Group C, the USA has little real competition. Turkey boasts Omer Asik and a quality defensive unit that played well enough to earn silver four years back. But three other teams will advance out of the group. If it plays up to FIBA ranking form, New Zealand and the Dominican Republic will progress as the third and fourth placed teams.
Australia should compete at the top of Group D. The Boomers won’t have the services of former NBA No. 1 draft choice Andrew Bogut, but they do have some rising young talent, including 19-year old Dante Exum. Matt Dellavedova and Aron Baynes are established international players, currently employed by Cleveland and San Antonio, respectively, but there is much inexperience outside of the top three or four players. The Aussies probably got the best draw of any Top 10 team in the tournament. Only Lithuania is slotted above them in the current FIBA rankings from the other five teams in their group, so passage to the knockout phase is almost a given. From there, anything can happen.
Speaking of the Lithuanians, you won’t find many guys here that you know of (or whose names you can properly pronounce), but they gritted out a bronze medal in this event in 2010 and figure to fight for longtime coach Jonas Kazlauskas, considered one of the best tacticians in Europe. The only NBA name you’ll know of is Jonas Valanciunas, who started 81 games for Toronto in the NBA last year, averaging 11 points and nearly 9 rebounds per game. With Linas Kleiza finished with international duty, someone else will have to pick up the slack as well. Donatas Motiejunas will figure prominently, but Renaldas Seibutis can fill the wing void left by Klieza and will need to score in double digits in this event if Lithuania hopes to medal again.
GL!
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