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vedanta
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 5:45 am    Post subject:

PRLakeShow wrote:
It's always been crazy to me how some international teams can hang with, sometimes very rarely, beat USA. It's a team full of NBA stars regardless if it's All-NBA guys, All-Stars or just role players vs. Maybe one or two NBA players and a bunch of unknowns. Well at least unknown to us.

I don't know. Maybe the talent gap is not as huge between the NBA and let's say the Spanish league. I remember a guy named Juan Carlos Navarro. Only played a year in the NBA. By all accounts this guy is a "scrub" yet when it came to international ball this guy was a stud. How does that happen? Why didn't this guy stick in the NBA?


His talent was huge, and could have been a 20/25 ppg. guy in the NBA provided he had landed in a team that allowed him to do his thing.

But his physical frame was not made for the NBA. He could not defend anybody, and the physical toll that takes to overcome fast NBA defensive players for a whole season is enormous when you can´t even receive the ball without running in circles like mad avoiding contact with those defenders.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 5:58 am    Post subject:

Steve007 wrote:
vedanta wrote:
Aeneas Hunter wrote:
I don't know about comparing foreign players to American NBA players. For NBA players from France or Serbia or Spain, the World Cup and the Olympics are the only opportunity to connect with your home country. I can see why it would be more important to them. For American NBA players, national team duty is a side show.


Well, I don´t think that is the case anymore, and also I don´t think that those guys who could enjoy some well needed summer rest wanted to attend the World Championship just to have fun. They wanted to compete. They just were not good enough, and there was a reason for it.

I am from Spain, and after years and years of watching FIBA and NBA basketball I have an opinion about both kind of styles: obviously most of the greatest physical talents are in the NBA, but this distance is getting shorter at a huge rate. Plus, and this is the most important thing, and a good lesson to be learnt from the NBA: Synergy. Spain almost beat (and would have done it without the refs bias in Beijing) two of the three most powerful teams of all time (USA team in 2008 in Beijing and 2012 in London), with only Pau Gasol as a superstar, and only three or four NBA players, none of them stars.The rest were average players who could never play in the NBA. But they knew to behave like one individual force, with no egos, no ISO ball, no "time for our star to take over", etc. FIBA teams are much, much more than the sum of their individualities, which is usually not the case in the NBA.


Marc Gasol was on the 2008 and 2012 teams and he wasn’t a star but he was pretty damn good. Ibaka was on the 2012 team. Is any country as good as those Spain teams?


Well, Marc was there, but at the end of the day we are talking about a group of guys with almost no NBA star talent and some nobodies (both Gasol brothers when Marc was not in his prime,in 2008 at least, with Navarro, Calderón, Ibaka, Rudy Fernández, Sergio Rodríguez, and that´s it) that deserved to defeat a USA team with...well, with almost any imaginable superstar , from Kobe to Lebron, from Howard to Anthony Davis, from Chris Paul to Wade, from Carmelo to whoever you can name.

And it was no fluke. The combination of great coaching, team spirit and Pau leading the troops with his always spectacular FIBA game was enough to counteract the second biggest collection of stars ever, who by the way gave everything they got in 2008 and 2012. It was no side show for them.

That´s why I talk about synergy, about a kind of collective game that is much more than the sum of its parts, which has always been the base for FIBA teams. And now that the physical gap is getting shorter, USA must send at least a "B team", not "C" or "D", because it won´t work anymore.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 6:23 am    Post subject:

vedanta wrote:
Plus, and this is the most important thing, and a good lesson to be learnt from the NBA: Synergy. Spain almost beat (and would have done it without the refs bias in Beijing) two of the three most powerful teams of all time (USA team in 2008 in Beijing and 2012 in London), with only Pau Gasol as a superstar, and only three or four NBA players, none of them stars.The rest were average players who could never play in the NBA. But they knew to behave like one individual force, with no egos, no ISO ball, no "time for our star to take over", etc. FIBA teams are much, much more than the sum of their individualities, which is usually not the case in the NBA.


I gotta throw the BS flag on this one. In 2008, the US and Spain played in the group stage, and the US won by 27 points. Spain was more competitive in the final, but lost by 11 points. So now you're complaining about "ref bias." Riiiiight. In 2012, Spain went 3-2 in the group stage, then managed to win a couple playoff games, before losing by 7 to the US.

I mean, it's nice that Spain managed to be competitive in a couple games against the US, even if you seem to have forgotten a lot of the guys who were playing for Spain. Only one of the games was an embarrassing blowout. But when you start lecturing us about the moral superiority of the Spanish team, you're just slinging BS.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 6:59 am    Post subject:

Aeneas Hunter wrote:
vedanta wrote:
Plus, and this is the most important thing, and a good lesson to be learnt from the NBA: Synergy. Spain almost beat (and would have done it without the refs bias in Beijing) two of the three most powerful teams of all time (USA team in 2008 in Beijing and 2012 in London), with only Pau Gasol as a superstar, and only three or four NBA players, none of them stars.The rest were average players who could never play in the NBA. But they knew to behave like one individual force, with no egos, no ISO ball, no "time for our star to take over", etc. FIBA teams are much, much more than the sum of their individualities, which is usually not the case in the NBA.


I gotta throw the BS flag on this one. In 2008, the US and Spain played in the group stage, and the US won by 27 points. Spain was more competitive in the final, but lost by 11 points. So now you're complaining about "ref bias." Riiiiight. In 2012, Spain went 3-2 in the group stage, then managed to win a couple playoff games, before losing by 7 to the US.

I mean, it's nice that Spain managed to be competitive in a couple games against the US, even if you seem to have forgotten a lot of the guys who were playing for Spain. Only one of the games was an embarrassing blowout. But when you start lecturing us about the moral superiority of the Spanish team, you're just slinging BS.


Oh, you completely misunderstood my post. I am not of the patriotic kind at all, and of course I am not talking about moral superiority.

If you want to talk about it, well, Spain always has done this in FIBA competitions. They never show their cards up until the last rounds. I am also not "complaining" about ref bias, I am affirming that there is no way that a basketball fan can watch the replay of that game and not cringe. It was not a matter of hard fouls while shooting, or similar. It was the constant difference in the ref standard. The NBA players were favoured big time because, first, they were allowed to travel most of the time by FIBA rules. Not always, but almost, and that gives you a great advantage in one on one situations. And second, and most important, the NBA team defense was always (I say again, always) allowed to put illegal pressure on the player who had the ball. The spanish team was always on the verge of losing the ball because as soon as a player received it, the defender used the hands to touch whatever he may touch, whether is the hand , forearm or ball, making the natural flow of the offense extremely tough.
So yes, the fact that Spain could overcome that to get to a very close score deep in the fourth quarter was meritorious and surprising. And , again, yes, in 2012 the double standard still went on.

But my main point was not at all to talk about the refs, although I did, and I don´t mind if you think that the USA deserved the win .I am OK with that. My point is that, although the best basketball talents, specially in the physical section of the game, are north american in the majority of the cases, there is some kind of synergy in european basketball that allow those teams to be much more than the sum of their parts, while in the NBA this is not happening. It is an interesting topic, and it can´t be denied. Even if the USA team really deserved to win in 2008 and 2012, my question is: is the difference between Kobe+Lebron+CP3+Howard+Anthony+Davis+whoever megastar you could name having a starter or bench role, and Spain 11 and 7 points, with or without ref bias? How could Scola, Ginobili and two or three guys beat the USA team in the Olympics? How could this 2019 World Championship USA team lose two games and almost lose a third agains...Turkey!, who could not even make it to the semifinals?


Last edited by vedanta on Thu Sep 12, 2019 7:07 am; edited 1 time in total
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 7:07 am    Post subject:

Bogdan looks so good, killed the US today.
POp can’t win without superstars either I guess, lol
Kylie is much better than Kemba. Brown and Tatum won’t be any super stars anytime soon.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 7:14 am    Post subject:

Aeneas Hunter wrote:
yinoma2001 wrote:
You know every top American player will be jumping at the chance to join the 2020 Olympics team.


It will be interesting to see how it unfolds. I won't be surprised if we see guys begging off again. When the top players are making $30M+, will they still be jumping at the chance to play on Team USA? It's fun to think of a team with, say, Towns, Davis, Leonard, Harden, and Curry, but I suspect that it will be tough to get those guys to sign on.


They will jump at the chance, especially after the poor showing of the USA FIBA team. Can be marketed as the "Redeem" Team again, and can cash in so many endorsement/PR opportunities that are not present for FIBA competition. In fact, there will be good players IMO who will be left out b/c our elite guys will all jump at the chance. While I'm not enthused, I'm fairly certain AD/LBJ will play too (LBJ's last Olympics probably).
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 9:17 am    Post subject:

Colangelo won't forget U.S. World Cup pullouts

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USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo said Thursday that when the time comes to start assembling the 2020 Tokyo Olympics roster, he won't forget those who backed out of commitments to play in the World Cup this summer.


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PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 9:35 am    Post subject:

vedanta wrote:
But my main point was not at all to talk about the refs, although I did, and I don´t mind if you think that the USA deserved the win .I am OK with that. My point is that, although the best basketball talents, specially in the physical section of the game, are north american in the majority of the cases, there is some kind of synergy in european basketball that allow those teams to be much more than the sum of their parts, while in the NBA this is not happening. It is an interesting topic, and it can´t be denied. Even if the USA team really deserved to win in 2008 and 2012, my question is: is the difference between Kobe+Lebron+CP3+Howard+Anthony+Davis+whoever megastar you could name having a starter or bench role, and Spain 11 and 7 points, with or without ref bias? How could Scola, Ginobili and two or three guys beat the USA team in the Olympics? How could this 2019 World Championship USA team lose two games and almost lose a third agains...Turkey!, who could not even make it to the semifinals?


This is what I mean by moral superiority -- the idea that there is some sort of magical synergy in the way that Euro teams play. To answer your questions:

1. If you watch the NCAA tournament, you have seen dozens if not hundreds of cases in which the spunky underdog manages to hang with the powerhouse team. Most of the time, the powerhouse blows them out. But if the powerhouse team is not playing at its best or does not take the spunky underdog seriously, and if the spunky underdog makes its shots and picks up some hustle plays, the game can be close. Princeton vs. Georgetown jumps to mind. Every now and then, the spunky underdog even wins. Princeton vs. UCLA and Virginia vs. UMBC jump to mind. This isn't moral superiority (though the media will wax orgasmic about teamwork and hustle and unselfishness). It's just what happens in a single elimination basketball tournament. So Spain managed to hang with Team USA for much of the game. But in the end they lost.

2. The 2019 version of Team USA sucked, and everyone knew in advance that it was going to suck. It wasn't a B team. It was a C team at best. I have doubts about whether we will every see an A team again. But if we do, it is possible that someone will eventually beat them. Ask UCLA and Virginia about that. It isn't because NBA players are egotistical non-team players (which is sometimes a dog whistle, to be honest). It's just the nature of single elimination basketball tournaments.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 9:52 am    Post subject:

Mark Cuban was right about why NBA teams didn't want to let players play in these tournaments. Looks like those players finally bought into it. With max players getting 30-40+ million dollar contracts annually, why risk the chance of getting hurt in a tournament where you get no compensation, and have everything to lose.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 10:45 am    Post subject:

lakersken80 wrote:
Mark Cuban was right about why NBA teams didn't want to let players play in these tournaments. Looks like those players finally bought into it. With max players getting 30-40+ million dollar contracts annually, why risk the chance of getting hurt in a tournament where you get no compensation, and have everything to lose.


Except the Olympics. It's too much good exposure for a top player to turn it down. Plus, you're also going to be on a heavy favorite team so limited downside as well.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 2:57 pm    Post subject:

So apparently we are playing vs Poland in a game for 7th place on Saturday.

What the hell even is a 7th Place game?!
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 3:30 pm    Post subject:

lakersken80 wrote:
Kobesystem wrote:
Fake max players

Fake leaders....


I wouldn't even put the blame that much on the players on the FIBA team.....
When you know you have superstar players (afterall who wants to risk their health on a tournament that means very little to their career), but they don't want to be bothered and want to rest up for the NBA season, this is what you get....a team composed of very young NBA players, little to no chemistry, and a poor result as expected.


I would.

And the genius who assembled the team.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 3:34 pm    Post subject:

lakersken80 wrote:
Mark Cuban was right about why NBA teams didn't want to let players play in these tournaments. Looks like those players finally bought into it. With max players getting 30-40+ million dollar contracts annually, why risk the chance of getting hurt in a tournament where you get no compensation, and have everything to lose.


to learn to get BETTER.

When Kobe was on the dream team along with Kidd, I bet all them youngn's improved....

Kids like Booker who isn't going anywhere with the Suns need to taste victory again.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 3:44 pm    Post subject:

yinoma2001 wrote:
lakersken80 wrote:
Mark Cuban was right about why NBA teams didn't want to let players play in these tournaments. Looks like those players finally bought into it. With max players getting 30-40+ million dollar contracts annually, why risk the chance of getting hurt in a tournament where you get no compensation, and have everything to lose.


Except the Olympics. It's too much good exposure for a top player to turn it down. Plus, you're also going to be on a heavy favorite team so limited downside as well.


Except that they actually did turn it down in 2004. Kobe played a big role in getting the big guns to play in 2008 and 2012. Who is going to do that for 2020?
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 5:42 pm    Post subject:

People are overreacting to this tournament. We’ve known for a while now that if an A or B team doesn’t show up the US can lose. And with games only lasting 40 minutes, the chances of an upset or a close game are higher.

Didn’t the 2014 team destroy everybody despite missing several stars? When Durant pulled out there was plenty of talk about how vulnerable that team was. They were 9-0 and won by an average of 33 points a game. Every win was a blowout. But that team had Anthony Davis and some shooters.

It wouldn’t take much to improve this team a lot. Better shooting, a center or both would make them much tougher to beat. And I don’t understand why the team went away from Mitchell, who was dominating, and tried to ask Walker to win the game when he was really struggling.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 8:10 pm    Post subject:

Glad there are NO Lakers on this mess of a team..

HAPPIER still, that the Celtics have a bunch of guys on the team, hopefully the losing will be carried over to the NBA season for them...!
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 9:50 pm    Post subject:

Steve007 wrote:
People are overreacting to this tournament. We’ve known for a while now that if an A or B team doesn’t show up the US can lose. And with games only lasting 40 minutes, the chances of an upset or a close game are higher.

Didn’t the 2014 team destroy everybody despite missing several stars? When Durant pulled out there was plenty of talk about how vulnerable that team was. They were 9-0 and won by an average of 33 points a game. Every win was a blowout. But that team had Anthony Davis and some shooters.

It wouldn’t take much to improve this team a lot. Better shooting, a center or both would make them much tougher to beat. And I don’t understand why the team went away from Mitchell, who was dominating, and tried to ask Walker to win the game when he was really struggling.


Yep, gone are the days when international teams just had regular NBA players....now they have teams composed of NBA players who are superstars and transcend the game. The bar is just going to be raised higher and higher in future tournaments and the NBA can no longer expect to send their C-squad just to do OK.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 10:01 pm    Post subject:

vedanta wrote:
PRLakeShow wrote:
It's always been crazy to me how some international teams can hang with, sometimes very rarely, beat USA. It's a team full of NBA stars regardless if it's All-NBA guys, All-Stars or just role players vs. Maybe one or two NBA players and a bunch of unknowns. Well at least unknown to us.

I don't know. Maybe the talent gap is not as huge between the NBA and let's say the Spanish league. I remember a guy named Juan Carlos Navarro. Only played a year in the NBA. By all accounts this guy is a "scrub" yet when it came to international ball this guy was a stud. How does that happen? Why didn't this guy stick in the NBA?


His talent was huge, and could have been a 20/25 ppg. guy in the NBA provided he had landed in a team that allowed him to do his thing.

But his physical frame was not made for the NBA. He could not defend anybody, and the physical toll that takes to overcome fast NBA defensive players for a whole season is enormous when you can´t even receive the ball without running in circles like mad avoiding contact with those defenders.


Not to sidetrack this thread to a Navarro talk but this got me thinking, could he make the Hall? You can make the case that he's the most successful non-NBA player in recent times. At least that I can think of. His resume in the EuroLeague is pretty damn impressive and international play as the captain of the Spanish team. How much stock does the Hall put on non-NBA experience? It's crazy to me that this guy has a real shot and only played one year in the NBA. I like it though. I hope basketball continues to grow worldwide and it's not NBA or bust for everyone.
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 13, 2019 8:53 am    Post subject:

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27606497/kobe-titles-no-longer-automatic-team-usa

Kobe's thoughts on the matter....Can't say I disagree with him, the world has caught up and they now also have superstars on their team now.
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 13, 2019 3:40 pm    Post subject:

Aeneas Hunter wrote:
yinoma2001 wrote:
lakersken80 wrote:
Mark Cuban was right about why NBA teams didn't want to let players play in these tournaments. Looks like those players finally bought into it. With max players getting 30-40+ million dollar contracts annually, why risk the chance of getting hurt in a tournament where you get no compensation, and have everything to lose.


Except the Olympics. It's too much good exposure for a top player to turn it down. Plus, you're also going to be on a heavy favorite team so limited downside as well.


Except that they actually did turn it down in 2004. Kobe played a big role in getting the big guns to play in 2008 and 2012. Who is going to do that for 2020?


LBJ. STEPH guys who will probably be on their last Olympic team.
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 13, 2019 4:08 pm    Post subject:

The US will always have a much bigger population than those other countries. So I’m not sure things will change that much except for maybe other countries improving, like maybe Germany for example.
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 13, 2019 4:10 pm    Post subject:

I wonder how much Carmelo could have contributed to this team. I’m not a fan of his at all BUT he does play much better with the US team and was deadly as a three-point shooter which was something this team really needed.

People have been saying the world has caught up for the last 19 years. We will probably hear the same thing in the next 10-20 years when the team has another bad tournament.
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 13, 2019 4:32 pm    Post subject:

Steve007 wrote:
I wonder how much Carmelo could have contributed to this team. I’m not a fan of his at all BUT he does play much better with the US team and was deadly as a three-point shooter which was something this team really needed.

People have been saying the world has caught up for the last 19 years. We will probably hear the same thing in the next 10-20 years when the team has another bad tournament.


The "10 - 20 years" gap will happen because the losses will increase pressure to send better players. The world has narrowed the gap but not caught up.

Think of it as a load management tournament.
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 14, 2019 2:06 am    Post subject:

PRLakeShow wrote:
vedanta wrote:
PRLakeShow wrote:
It's always been crazy to me how some international teams can hang with, sometimes very rarely, beat USA. It's a team full of NBA stars regardless if it's All-NBA guys, All-Stars or just role players vs. Maybe one or two NBA players and a bunch of unknowns. Well at least unknown to us.

I don't know. Maybe the talent gap is not as huge between the NBA and let's say the Spanish league. I remember a guy named Juan Carlos Navarro. Only played a year in the NBA. By all accounts this guy is a "scrub" yet when it came to international ball this guy was a stud. How does that happen? Why didn't this guy stick in the NBA?


His talent was huge, and could have been a 20/25 ppg. guy in the NBA provided he had landed in a team that allowed him to do his thing.

But his physical frame was not made for the NBA. He could not defend anybody, and the physical toll that takes to overcome fast NBA defensive players for a whole season is enormous when you can´t even receive the ball without running in circles like mad avoiding contact with those defenders.


Not to sidetrack this thread to a Navarro talk but this got me thinking, could he make the Hall? You can make the case that he's the most successful non-NBA player in recent times. At least that I can think of. His resume in the EuroLeague is pretty damn impressive and international play as the captain of the Spanish team. How much stock does the Hall put on non-NBA experience? It's crazy to me that this guy has a real shot and only played one year in the NBA. I like it though. I hope basketball continues to grow worldwide and it's not NBA or bust for everyone.


There have been players who made it to the HOF without having an NBA career, but those are rare. In his case, excellent FIBA career, one of the best of all time, but below average NBA resumee.

Navarro proved, when he played against NBA superstar talent, that he could match them offensively in individual games, not sure about a whole season. He came to the NBA with high expectations, imagining that his coach in Memphis will allow him to play his game, and expecting to make a great duet with Pau Gasol, but then the Lakers came, Pau left, Navarro was never allowed to play the way he did in Europe, and the Grizzlies tried to turn him into a shooting specialist, which was below his expectations. BTW, he owed a lot of money to Barcelona team for having left, and he decided to take the secure option, going back to Spain.
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 14, 2019 4:40 am    Post subject:

they should scrap all the older guys and just start with the new era after the 2020 Olympics....

PG: Dlo, Fox
SG: Mitchell, Booker
SF: Tatum, Caris
PF: JJJ, AG
C: Turner, Jared Allen.

Others: Joe Harris, Dejounte Murray, Kuzma, etc.
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