Let's not get all overwrought about the most-watched basketball game in history. The US won easily 101-70 thanks to great defense - Coach K has the American team pressuring college-style all over the court - and a weak Chinese backcourt.
On the other hand, it wasn't lost on anyone that the US shot 7-24 (29%) from 3 points and the Chinese were left open for threes and hit 4-6 in the first quarter and 7-15 for the first half, exposing again the seemingly eternal US weakness against the 3-point shot. Clog the middle and make the US shoot jumpers...don't have to be a genius to figure that one out.
The "Redeem Team" has an easy one against Angola on Tuesday, but nothing simple after that. And the Croatians - who shot 12-16 from 3-points in their 97-82 win over Australia (who lost to the US by 11 in pre-Olympic play), Russians, Lithuanians, Greeks, Argentines and espcially the Spanish have backcourts that can compete with the Americans, and these teams consistently shoot 40% and more from long range. The US shouldn't count their gold medals before they hatch.
Showing posts with label FIBA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FIBA. Show all posts
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
The Bubble
Oh my, everyone is all excited about Atlanta's Josh Childress signing with Olympiakos of Athens. Hey, $20 million over 3 years (tax free? enjoy, enjoy!) isn't bad by anybody's standards, particularly for a perennial 6th man. And that's not all: Brandon Jennings, a non-qualifier for Division I from Oak Hill Academy, is headed to Virtus Roma, where he will undoubtedly spend a mandatory one year before heading back to the NBA.
In a recent column, Fox Sports' (and Tacoma's - say hi to Mom and Dad!) Mike Kahn wrote about the new west to east direction of international basketball, citing not only the examples of Childress and Jennings, but a number of other examples (Splitter, Delfino, Nachbar, Navarro, etc.). He makes an interesting point that the ridiculous amounts spent on superstars that strangle the NBA salary cap for mid-range players coupled with tight restrictions on young players under the cap's rules (not to metion the strong Euro/awful dollar) are creating a more attractive atmosphere in Europe for signing quality players.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure Mike's analysis translates into a lot more Josh Childres's heading over to Europe for a very simple reason: the money being provided for these big contracts are coming almost solely from a few individuals/oligarchs with some very specific teams - and I can count them on one hand: Oympiakos and Panathinaikos of Athens; CSKA Moscow and maybe Dynamo Moscow and Kimchi (suburb of Moscow). The funding for European's professional basketball teams for the most part still comes from corporate sponsors whose ability and desire to subsidize what is still in almost all cases a losing operation, will ultimately always be limited.
For those few individuals and oligarchs who have endless reels of cash, sure, $10-20 million and a lot more is just a drop in the bucket, but ultimately even very rich people get tired of pouring money down a drain and moreover, these teams are ultimately often just playthings for them - and anyone with kids knows that people get tired of playing with the same toys all the time. I have seen these kinds of individuals come and go now in European basketball for well over 20 years, and ultimately the answer to increasing interest in basketball in Europe is not by finding more oligarchs, but by creating the commercial atmosphere that will encourage investors and companies to put money into creating an attractive - and profitable - product.
Whether that can actually ever happen in European basketball is still a big unknown. The Euroleague and FIBA have made some nice strides in visibility, television rights and merchandising, and the web site content and technologies are quite impressive, but the quality of the product suffers from poor infrastructure, i.e. basketball stadiums, across the entire continent. The subject of arenas is really a separate piece, but it is absoutely incredible when you stop and think that the biggest basketball gym in Russia is in Kazan (cap. 7,100) and that one of Europe's top 3 teams, CSKA Moscow plays in a gym that holds only 5,000. Olympiakos plays in the absolutely awful Peace and Friendship Stadium, which seats 15,000, but has a velodrome encircling the court and fans sit miles away. Basketball in Europe is also still competing with soccer and a host of other sports, as well as 45 top-level European players who have opted to play in the NBA. Needless to say, for every one Josh Childress going to Europe, there are dozens more who still want to go the other way.
As to Brandon Jennings, it could be that there will be a few more like him in the future, as players could opt for making a lot of money in Europe instead of going to college for one year before they can be eligible to play in the NBA; but it's not so simple to take an 18 year old and uproot him into a foreign country with a foreign language and onto a professional team, where they virtually have to take care of themselves, as opposed to a Division I school where they are coddled and taken care of in every way. I could be wrong, but I think we may see that Jennings will be the exception - and not the rule.
In a recent column, Fox Sports' (and Tacoma's - say hi to Mom and Dad!) Mike Kahn wrote about the new west to east direction of international basketball, citing not only the examples of Childress and Jennings, but a number of other examples (Splitter, Delfino, Nachbar, Navarro, etc.). He makes an interesting point that the ridiculous amounts spent on superstars that strangle the NBA salary cap for mid-range players coupled with tight restrictions on young players under the cap's rules (not to metion the strong Euro/awful dollar) are creating a more attractive atmosphere in Europe for signing quality players.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure Mike's analysis translates into a lot more Josh Childres's heading over to Europe for a very simple reason: the money being provided for these big contracts are coming almost solely from a few individuals/oligarchs with some very specific teams - and I can count them on one hand: Oympiakos and Panathinaikos of Athens; CSKA Moscow and maybe Dynamo Moscow and Kimchi (suburb of Moscow). The funding for European's professional basketball teams for the most part still comes from corporate sponsors whose ability and desire to subsidize what is still in almost all cases a losing operation, will ultimately always be limited.
For those few individuals and oligarchs who have endless reels of cash, sure, $10-20 million and a lot more is just a drop in the bucket, but ultimately even very rich people get tired of pouring money down a drain and moreover, these teams are ultimately often just playthings for them - and anyone with kids knows that people get tired of playing with the same toys all the time. I have seen these kinds of individuals come and go now in European basketball for well over 20 years, and ultimately the answer to increasing interest in basketball in Europe is not by finding more oligarchs, but by creating the commercial atmosphere that will encourage investors and companies to put money into creating an attractive - and profitable - product.
Whether that can actually ever happen in European basketball is still a big unknown. The Euroleague and FIBA have made some nice strides in visibility, television rights and merchandising, and the web site content and technologies are quite impressive, but the quality of the product suffers from poor infrastructure, i.e. basketball stadiums, across the entire continent. The subject of arenas is really a separate piece, but it is absoutely incredible when you stop and think that the biggest basketball gym in Russia is in Kazan (cap. 7,100) and that one of Europe's top 3 teams, CSKA Moscow plays in a gym that holds only 5,000. Olympiakos plays in the absolutely awful Peace and Friendship Stadium, which seats 15,000, but has a velodrome encircling the court and fans sit miles away. Basketball in Europe is also still competing with soccer and a host of other sports, as well as 45 top-level European players who have opted to play in the NBA. Needless to say, for every one Josh Childress going to Europe, there are dozens more who still want to go the other way.
As to Brandon Jennings, it could be that there will be a few more like him in the future, as players could opt for making a lot of money in Europe instead of going to college for one year before they can be eligible to play in the NBA; but it's not so simple to take an 18 year old and uproot him into a foreign country with a foreign language and onto a professional team, where they virtually have to take care of themselves, as opposed to a Division I school where they are coddled and taken care of in every way. I could be wrong, but I think we may see that Jennings will be the exception - and not the rule.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
FIBA Makes the Giant Leap - Adopts NBA Rules for International Basketball
It's been slow, sometimes almost imperceptible, but over the past 20 years, basketball has become nearly the same game the world over - but yet there were still some slight differences.
But no more. The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) took the giant leap yesterday at its meetings in Beijing, when its highest executive body - the FIBA Central Board - announced a number of rule changes, which in effect, will make the international and NBA game virtually the same.
Even FIBA's press release referred to "historical changes", and indeed in one fell swoop, FIBA did a "copy and paste" from the NBA rule book to its own:
But no more. The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) took the giant leap yesterday at its meetings in Beijing, when its highest executive body - the FIBA Central Board - announced a number of rule changes, which in effect, will make the international and NBA game virtually the same.
Even FIBA's press release referred to "historical changes", and indeed in one fell swoop, FIBA did a "copy and paste" from the NBA rule book to its own:
- Beginning October 1, 2010, you can forget about the "funny-looking" international court with the trapezoid 3-second area: it will be a rectangle just like the NBA's
- 3-point line will go from 6.25 m (20'6") to 6.75 m (22'2"); the NBA line is 6.71 m (22'0") from the baseline to the foul line, and 7.24 m (23'7") on the arc connecting the 2 lines
- Time-outs in the last 2 minutes of the game and in overtime: the ball will be taken out in the frontcourt at a point opposite the top of the 3-point arc (sound familiar?)
- Ball knocked out of bounds by the defensive team in backcourt: the offensive team will get a new 24-second clock; if in frontcourt and there is more than 14 seconds, the 24-second clock will stay as is; if 13 seconds or less, the 24-second clock will be reset to 14 seconds (sound familiar?)
- There will be a restricted circle underneath the basket where in most circumstances an offsenive foul cannot be called (also sound familiar?)
- No t-shirts under uniforms in any circumstances
- A player who falls on the floor and slides while holding the ball will no longer be called for travelling
- A player won't be deemed to be in frontcourt until two feet and the ball are in contact with the frontcourt (another direct steal from US rules - NBA and NCAA)
- A technical foul can be called on a player for excessively swinging his elbows, even if no contact was made (another NBA rule)
The ONLY major difference that remains, as far as I can tell from the FIBA release, is that there is still no concept of a "cylinder" in international basketball, i.e. once the ball hits the rim, it's a free ball.
Given the innumerable Americans playing on teams in every league in almost every country around the world, this will certainly smooth the transition for everyone, and will also hasten the day coming soon when the NBA begins expanding globally.
For those who want to take a look at the FIBA press release: http://www.fiba.com/pages/eng/fc/news/lateNews/p/newsid/24352/arti.htmlThursday, April 10, 2008
Sometimes One Call Can Ruin an Evening...
Sometimes, it doesn't matter. You can have a great evening, making all the right decisions - and then one call ruins everything.
Such was the situation this evening at the Nokia Stadium in Tel Aviv in the quarter-final best-of-three third game between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Barcelona, eventually won by Maccabi 88-75.
Situation: third quarter, Vontego Cummings (ex-Pitt) is guarding Barcelona's hot-shooting Italian guard, Gianluca Basile. Cummings wraps him up under the basket and drags him to the floor- no call! Basile understandably reacts emotionally and kicks back somewhat at Cummings - the two of them engage in some silly slapping at each other while players from both teams separate them, including Maccabi's Derrick Sharp and Esteban Batista, who have come off the bench to intervene. There were no closed fists, and no one even tried to throw a punch.
The referees snap into action and overrreact: Cummings and Basile are ejected, as well as Sharp and Batista. Barcelona is of course the big loser in all of this as Basile, their top scorer (25 ppg in the first two games of the series) heads to the locker room.
Oh, and one other problem: the referees forget to make sure that Batista knows that he's ejected and they leave him on the bench until the begnning of the 4th quarter, when they discover their mistake and send him, too, to the showers. No one understands quite why he has been ejected - very embarassing.
The whole thing was unnecessary. Cummings should have been called for the initial foul, and if anything, he and Basile could have been assessed unsportsmanlike fouls. Sharp and Batista were rightly tossed from the game - but their ejections were administered poorly, to say the least.
The NBA has very clear directives regarding these situations and would have taken care of this very simply: regular foul against Cummings, likely technicals against Cummings and Basile, and they would have stayed in the game. Sharp and Batista would have been tossed for coming off the bench. The key to throwing a player out is whether or not the hand becomes closed in a fist and a punch is thrown (whether it connects or not thereafter is irrelevant). I know Europeans are always wary of American "imperialism", but on matters of basketball officiating, the Euroleague could sometimes try to learn a few things from their American cousins.
Such was the situation this evening at the Nokia Stadium in Tel Aviv in the quarter-final best-of-three third game between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Barcelona, eventually won by Maccabi 88-75.
Situation: third quarter, Vontego Cummings (ex-Pitt) is guarding Barcelona's hot-shooting Italian guard, Gianluca Basile. Cummings wraps him up under the basket and drags him to the floor- no call! Basile understandably reacts emotionally and kicks back somewhat at Cummings - the two of them engage in some silly slapping at each other while players from both teams separate them, including Maccabi's Derrick Sharp and Esteban Batista, who have come off the bench to intervene. There were no closed fists, and no one even tried to throw a punch.
The referees snap into action and overrreact: Cummings and Basile are ejected, as well as Sharp and Batista. Barcelona is of course the big loser in all of this as Basile, their top scorer (25 ppg in the first two games of the series) heads to the locker room.
Oh, and one other problem: the referees forget to make sure that Batista knows that he's ejected and they leave him on the bench until the begnning of the 4th quarter, when they discover their mistake and send him, too, to the showers. No one understands quite why he has been ejected - very embarassing.
The whole thing was unnecessary. Cummings should have been called for the initial foul, and if anything, he and Basile could have been assessed unsportsmanlike fouls. Sharp and Batista were rightly tossed from the game - but their ejections were administered poorly, to say the least.
The NBA has very clear directives regarding these situations and would have taken care of this very simply: regular foul against Cummings, likely technicals against Cummings and Basile, and they would have stayed in the game. Sharp and Batista would have been tossed for coming off the bench. The key to throwing a player out is whether or not the hand becomes closed in a fist and a punch is thrown (whether it connects or not thereafter is irrelevant). I know Europeans are always wary of American "imperialism", but on matters of basketball officiating, the Euroleague could sometimes try to learn a few things from their American cousins.
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