2019 FIBA World Cup

bakahump

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Someone please let me know when Tatums shooting should be a concern as opposed to the current minor annoyance.
Different ball size?
Whats his shot selection? For those who have watched, Is he still kobe-ing out at 18-20 feet? (Dunk excluded).
 

DJnVa

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Dec 16, 2010
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Someone please let me know when Tatums shooting should be a concern as opposed to the current minor annoyance.
Different ball size?
Whats his shot selection? For those who have watched, Is he still kobe-ing out at 18-20 feet? (Dunk excluded).
When it's more than 2 games? He was 4 of 7 in first game.
 

DJnVa

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Dec 16, 2010
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Someone please let me know when Tatums shooting should be a concern as opposed to the current minor annoyance.
Different ball size?
Whats his shot selection? For those who have watched, Is he still kobe-ing out at 18-20 feet? (Dunk excluded).
Raining J’s podcast said Tatum was NOT doing last year’s Kobe-style shots. He was driving, missed some he likely won’t usually miss and had a few where he thought he was fouled and didn’t get call. Said he had some weird floaters too, but it was like 75% of the right play.
 

Big John

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Middleton was 0-8 from the floor against Australia. When should Bucks fans start to become concerned?
 

HomeRunBaker

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Middleton was 0-8 from the floor against Australia. When should Bucks fans start to become concerned?
It has been well documented how Middleton has been struggling with the FIBA sized ball along with Joe Harris. I haven’t heard Tatum mentioned with this group but yeah, it’s a different ball and a different style game.....many NBA players struggle with the adjustment.
 

benhogan

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Someone please let me know when Tatums shooting should be a concern as opposed to the current minor annoyance.
Different ball size?
Whats his shot selection? For those who have watched, Is he still kobe-ing out at 18-20 feet? (Dunk excluded).
if Tatum is Kobe-ing in November we'll have to reach for the Advil

More concerned about guys getting injured, a bunch of awkward players on some of these bad Intl teams.

6 Celtic players (Team Shamrock, Theis, VP) in this tournament
 

DJnVa

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Also, Pop has played Jaylen at the 4 some. Be interesting to see if Celtics try that in some lineups.
 

lovegtm

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Also, Pop has played Jaylen at the 4 some. Be interesting to see if Celtics try that in some lineups.
I really enjoy the sub-plot of Jaylen being the guy Pop wishes he had gotten for Kawhi.

Re Jaylen at the 4: he's strong enough to do it against a lot of NBA 4s. The problem in the past has been that, despite his physical strength, he's bad at holding position in the post. If he's able to solve that, things get interesting.
 
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InstaFace

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OK guys, it's here. First games start in under 24 hours. Might as well do a preview rather than, like, my actual job.

USA's schedule, as best I can calculate time zones (all in Shanghai which is +12 hours from us). Games are at 20:30 local time (GMT+8) so they'll generally be at 8:30am ET.

Sunday 9/1, 8:30am ET: vs Czech Republic
- They'll pretty much just feed the Bulls' Tomas Satoransky
- Their center, Ondrej Balvin, is 7'1" and plays in Spain for Gran Canaria
- They have a naturalized player, Blake Schilb, who was a standout all-American for Loyola Chicago '07 and plays for a French team after a decade in Europe (mostly Czech Rep.)
- First time they've qualified for the World Cup

Tuesday 9/3, 8:30am ET: vs Turkey
- Only real test of the first group stage, Turkey is a legit team starting 3 NBA players (Korkmaz [PHI], Osman [CLE], Ilyasova [MIL]), and with a rotation of ex-NBA / near-NBA EuroBasket standouts including old friend Semih Erden
- SG Korkmaz (of the 76ers) is their primary scorer; expect Smart to be tasked with wearing him down
- Naturalized citizen Scottie Wilbekin (SEC POY in 2014 for Florida) is their starting PG, and the only player besides the NBA trio to not play on a Turkish domestic club (he had 3 months with the 76ers in 2015)
- At the Acropolis warmup tournament, they played Serbia and lost by 15, played Greece and lost by 14.
- One of the most decorated European teams. Hosted and reached the final of the 2010 world cup, where an absolute berserk home crowd in Istanbul (which had pushed them, barely, over Serbia in the semis) got them looking pretty credible for their ritualistic demolishing by Kevin Durant.

Thursday 9/5, 8:30am ET: vs Japan
- You're gonna hear over and over about PF Rui Hachimura, #9 pick by the Wizards this spring out of Gonzaga. At the 2014 U17 championships, he put up 25 against a USA team that included Jayson Tatum. He is already, by some margin, the best Japanese player ever. The Jays are gonna have to contain him.
- Starting center Nick Fazekas is one of only two players to have his number retired by the Nevada Wolfpack; he led the team in points during qualification (for which they only had Hachimura for a few games last September).
- Other notable player is Yuta Watanabe, who's on a 2-way contract with the Grizzlies after graduating George Washington in 2018 and going undrafted. Very smooth, guard-like moves despite being 6'11". The rest of the roster plays on the top couple of Japanese clubs, 4 of them on league champions Alvark Tokyo.
- In warmup games, Hachimura demolished Iran, and led Japan's first-ever victory over a European team (by beating Germany and dunking on Dennis Schroder).
- We last played Japan in the 1972 Olympics, which is not an auspicious parallel.


So, assuming we win all those games and that Group F also goes according to rankings, we will then play in the second group stage:


Saturday 9/7, (time TBD): vs Brazil
- Brazil is one of the most decorated teams, having won the FIBA world cup in 1959 and 1963, Olympic Bronze 3 times, gold at the PanAm Games 6 times, and gold in 4 Americas Cups (most recently 2009) . They are the only team other than the US that has never failed to qualify for the World Cup.
- Their roster features only 2 current NBA players, who are somewhat fringe (Bulls reserve Christiano Felicio and Grizzlies prospect Bruno Cabaclo), but has a number of former NBA veterans most notably Anderson Varejao and Leandro Barbosa, plus Barcelona star / Lakers pawn Marcelo Huertas. Jazz backup PG Raul Neto did not make the roster.
- Perhaps needless to say, their team is very old, the oldest roster at the world cup, but with a lot of international experience.
- They didn't play many warmups; they did narrowly beat China a few days ago.

Monday 9/9, (time TBD): vs Greece
- Obviously, this is the first matchup that will catch a lot of US attention, so you gotta imagine FIBA is hoping that Brazil manages to top Greece in the first group stage so this match gets played on Saturday morning rather than Monday morning.
- Team Giannis (3 players have that first name) was sans freak for their final warmup vs Venezuela a few days ago, due to irritation in his knee. His brother Thanasis played despite foot problems. Let's hope nobody tells the Bucks.
- Despite his star power, Greece is anything but a one-man roster, having one of the deepest and most experienced EuroLeague rosters at the world cup and ranked #8 in the world. I. Bourousis is 2-time all-EuroLeague, ex-Grizzly PG Nick Calathes has won 5 all-Defense awards, G. Papagiannis was picked #13 in 2016 by the Kings, etc. Most of their non-Antetokounmpo rotation plays for Greece's 2 top teams, Panathinaikos and Olympiacos.
- Fun fact: Their team hates Serbia, and games between them have ended in brawls multiple times.

On the other hand, maybe we'll get an upset by New Zealand...
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDucvQYlWj4


If victorious, these games would be followed by...

Wednesday 9/11, 7am if winning the 2nd group, 9am if finishing 2nd: Quarterfinal vs L1/L2 (likely France, Australia, maybe Lithuania)

Friday 9/13, (time TBD): Semifinal

Sunday 9/15, 8am ET: Final
 
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DJnVa

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https://theathletic.com/1173611/2019/08/30/gregg-popovich-let-a-team-usa-player-pick-the-wine-one-night-the-result-was-fantastic/
Want to know the team joke? I don’t know if you’ll think this is funny, but Team USA’s guys think it’s hilarious.

Harris, the white, bearded, semi-preppy, quasi-hipster 3-point shooter from Chelan, Wash., who does what he can to avoid trouble, shares an alter ego with Smart, the feisty, rugged Boston spark plug from Flower Mound, Texas, who looks for trouble.
Harris added: “We’ve all played on it on texts, and now it’s ‘all business inquiries, see Marcus. Anything you’ve got going on, see Marcus.’”
 

InstaFace

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Thanks captaincoop, edited.

Rev, I go to /r/nbathunder as the successor to nbastreams. /r/soccerthunder got banned too, so now they're at BoltSoccer.
 

Reverend

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Thanks captaincoop, edited.

Rev, I go to /r/nbathunder as the successor to nbastreams. /r/soccerthunder got banned too, so now they're at BoltSoccer.
Thanks. I really enjoy how seriously the mods take the stealth aspect. Dash cunning, they.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Alarm set for 3:15am to watch stream of Angola and Serbia. I’m guessing there will be some type of wager I have access to with my accounts. I hope Barkley’s doing this game.
 

Ramon AC

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What?
Angola has a New England connection through its coach, Vermont native Will Voigt, so it's disappointing to see them get completely run off the floor like that.
 

InstaFace

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Couple interesting results this morning:
- China, the hosts, lost to Poland in overtime. They'll have a de-facto playoff game against Venezuela wednesday morning to move to the 2nd round.
- Puerto Rico kept it to a respectable 10-point loss against Spain
- Serbia utterly demolished the Philippines, nearly doubling them up at 126-67. Their wednesday-morning game against Italy to determine seeding for the second round will be a better gauge of how they do against decent competition.

The USA of course play Turkey at 8:30 ET tomorrow.

Brazil-Greece tips off a half hour earlier, at 8:00, if you need a warmup or something for halftime; this result determines the order in which we play them on Saturday and next Monday.

Only other interesting game tomorrow is in Group H, the quasi group of death, where Lithuania (#6), Australia (#11) and Canada (#23 but a lot of upside) share a group. The Canadians are going to the placement round unless they can pull a miracle against Lithuania; tipoff at 7:30am ET.
 

HomeRunBaker

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- Serbia utterly demolished the Philippines, nearly doubling them up at 126-67. Their wednesday-morning game against Italy to determine seeding for the second round will be a better gauge of how they do against decent competition.
Serbia beat Italy 96-64 in the Acropolis Tournament two weeks ago.
 

reggiecleveland

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So Canada is out. Very disappointing to watch Canadians cross the stage, shake Silver's hand, then never suit up for the Maple Leaf. Their bigs were just not up to the task.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Sounds they are being careful with Jayson. Then again I'd rather have Tatum's minutes go to Brown and take the rest of the tournament off.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27534546/tatum-least-next-two-team-usa-games
I would have to guess Tatum is done for the tournament. You can’t run a player who isn’t yours back out there after an injury like this. I’d imagine Ainge has already made a behind the scenes call to ensure this doesn’t take place. A call maybe isn’t even necessary as all parties likely assume Pop won’t run a banged up guy back on the floor.

The one funny thing about this incident is Simmons tweet timeline. He had just finished ripping Devin Booker a new one about working out alone in a gym with some 5’9” guy feeding him jumpers being better prep for the season than playing against actual competition.......his next tweet was “OMG Tatum got hurt.”
 

Big John

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I'm guessing Tatum is back after two games. Everyone who has played has rolled an ankle, and I'm assuming they have whirlpools in China. They won't need him against Japan, but they will probably want him to be available after that.
 

128

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Why? This does not appear to be an injury that leads to complications. Why make a molehill into a mountain? If the injury isn't serious, it's better that he plays.
Exactly. This, from all accounts, is a simple ankle sprain.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Exactly. This, from all accounts, is a simple ankle sprain.
Which is precisely why he shouldn’t return. A “simple ankle sprain” isn’t going to be 100% in a week and he is under contract to the Boston Celtics not to USA Basketball. Do you really want one of your key guys coming into camp with a recurring ankle injury?

What if JT wants to play?
I’m pretty sure this is not his call. He is under contract to the Celtics.
 
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benhogan

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The Celtics are paying him millions to play the NBA season. He's injured, the fun and games are over, come home and be ready for the opener.
OK glad I'm not the only one wringing their hands. Probably better off with Middleton, Brown, Harris at 100%, then Tatum dinged up.

Team USA has to handle players with kid gloves, they struggled to attract players to this tournament, to begin with...
 

DJnVa

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I get what you're saying, but before DeMarcus Cousins threatened to shoot people, he was injured in a typical preseason workout.

Unless these guys are not going to play any ball at all til training camp, I'm not sure what we can really do.
 

InstaFace

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going back to this:
So Canada is out. Very disappointing to watch Canadians cross the stage, shake Silver's hand, then never suit up for the Maple Leaf. Their bigs were just not up to the task.
There's no question Canada sent its B-team. But, were the A-listers not suiting up for their convenience, though, or just because of injuries?

Cory Joseph - active
Khem Birch - active

Kelly Olynyk - knee injury
Jamal Murray - did training camp, got ankle injury
Shai G-A - "focus on the upcoming NBA season", aka they either didn't ask or he wasn't interested
RJ Barrett - was on initial roster but got a calf strain. Could probably have played but was cautious before his first NBA season.
Dwight Powell - on initial roster, withdrew to, say it with me now, "focus on the upcoming NBA season". Starting center on a team with playoff ambitions, could have made a real difference.
Tristan Thompson - Withdrew due to Rich Paul saying so, no further detail, we can assume it was discretionary.
Nik Stauskas - Withdrew, no explanation
Trey Lyles - Unclear why he withdrew
Dillon Brooks - Injured, just missed the latter half of the NBA season after surgery on his big toe
Brandon Clarke - just-drafted rookie, practiced with team and may do Olympics
Nickeil Alexander-Walker - "preparing for my rookie season"

Of the 7 NBA rookies invited to Canadian training camp, only Oshae Brissett attended, and he didn't make the roster over the likes of 19yo Florida Gators player Andrew Nembhard.

I'm seeing SGA, Thompson and maybe Lyles as proven NBA talent who didn't go for personal reasons rather than injury. Everyone else seems to have had legitimate health concerns. Not that that stopped Marcus Smart, but he's maybe atypical in that regard :)
 

benhogan

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I get what you're saying, but before DeMarcus Cousins threatened to shoot people, he was injured in a typical preseason workout.

Unless these guys are not going to play any ball at all til training camp, I'm not sure what we can really do.
Boogie is at the stage where walking a city block(or eventually the Yard) will lead to icing hamstrings.

Is it a stretch to say, playing games against goofy foreigners, diving on the floor in OT trying to knock off the big-bad Americans is a much different risk? Also, Intl Refs seem to swallow the whistle and let defenders challenge players in the air at will.

I'm mildly interested in these games BUT extremely interested in seeing the Celts healthy and ready to deploy Brad's rotations from Day 1. YMMV
 

reggiecleveland

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Of the 7 NBA rookies invited to Canadian training camp, only Oshae Brissett attended, and he didn't make the roster over the likes of 19yo Florida Gators player Andrew Nembhard.

I'm seeing SGA, Thompson and maybe Lyles as proven NBA talent who didn't go for personal reasons rather than injury. Everyone else seems to have had legitimate health concerns. Not that that stopped Marcus Smart, but he's maybe atypical in that regard :)
A lot of it is FIBA holding the tournament so late in the summer. Had it been in July, as expected a few years ago, more guys would play. But the three guys you mentioned, three guys are a huge difference. Plus you forgot Powell.
 

HomeRunBaker

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A lot of it is FIBA holding the tournament so late in the summer. Had it been in July, as expected a few years ago, more guys would play. But the three guys you mentioned, three guys are a huge difference. Plus you forgot Powell.
Another huge factor is holding this tournament the year prior to the Olympics. Wasn’t it the norm in the past to hold it two years prior? When you commit to this program it takes over B2B summers for these guys. Many have a lot of other stuff going on or just want to enjoy their offseason rather than essentially commit 2.5 consecutive years to basketball competitions especially for a guy on a playoff team. I have more of an issue (although still very small) with someone like Devin Booker for this reason than I do with Curry/Harden, etc