How are they going to win FIBA when a lot of those players were on the same team that couldn't win an NCAA championship?
Bye bye USA
- Thread starter Catman100
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I still think what you're missing is there were plenty of NBA caliber guys out there not playing in the NBA. I mentioned Sabonis earlier. You also have guys like Dino Rada, who played 8 years professionally in Yugoslavia before he came to the US in his late 20's and averaged 20ppg for the Celtics. Kukoc coming to the US at 25 and having a decent NBA career. It was just different back then.
I agree that some countries are making major strides in basketball (most notably Canada), but simply comparing how many international guys were in the NBA in 1992 compares to now doesn't tell the entire story.
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read a couple of articles that really tore Kerr up. Claims he & staff were totally out coached by the German coach, refused to make changes in the starting line up even tho others were producing more than the starters. No wonder there was so much pouting going on.
Yep, and the other issue was that, before 1992, NBA players permanently lost their eligibility to play internationally for their country. Quite of few European stars declined to try the NBA solely for that reason.
I know Brazil's famed super-scorer Oscar Schmidt is another example of that. He had offers from NBA teams, but instead chose to play his pro ball in Europe because he didn't want to lose the right to also play for Brazil.
There were lots of issues besides player quality that suppressed the number of foreign players before 92.
Got destroyed on the boards and 28-4 on second chance points I believe.From the box score, it looks like we shot the ball very well. 23-24 from the line, 48 percent from deep, nearly 60 percent from the field. Yet still lost. Weird.
Germany 113-111 United States (Sep 8, 2023) Box Score - ESPN
Box score for the Germany vs. United States FIBA game from September 8, 2023 on ESPN. Includes all points, rebounds and steals stats.www.espn.com
Hakeem actually played for the US in the 1996 Olympics because you can have a spot for one naturalized citizen. We are trying to get Embiid to use that for the Olympics. He can choose us or France.
If they were good enough to be in the NBA, there would have been enough money thrown their way to convince them to play. Also, many if not all countries have the NBA to thank for their involvement in their major improvement. A number of those countries have young men playing college ball in the US which has also improved their play.
This is just not how it worked back then. In the 80s and early 90s, there were foreign players easily good enough to play in the NBA but who didn't because of geopolitical and national team considerations.
Hell, Arvydas Sabonis likely would've been the number 1 overall pick if he'd come out of an American college ...that dude was absolute force of nature before injuries wrecked his athleticism (he used to embarrass David Robinson in international games). You don't think NBA teams wanted to throw money at him? But that wasn't yet an option for a cold war era Soviet Union kid.
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That’s not how it worked back then. Here is a part of an article about Sabokis:
It was inconceivable that someone would leave the USSR and move to a Western country to live and work there. The Soviet government applied restrictions not only to the general public but also to the top athletes, scientists, and artists of the country. Not only was Sabonis unable to join the NBA at the time, but he also didn't even know that the Hawks had drafted him.
Yes, you provided one good example but that didn't apply to players from other countries. They simply weren't good enough.
There were more players like him. He’s the most used example because he was potentially the #1 pick in the draft. 2 other things play into this…NBA teams did not have scouts outside the US and players who played in the NBA prior to 92 couldn’t play in the Olympics.
European basketball has obviously improved drastically and the numbers wouldn’t be close to what they are today, but there were international NBA caliber players back in the early 90’s that were not playing NBA ball.
Hopefully some day soon Dilly and Wags can restore American prominence in the world of basketball
If you saw the reaction of the Serbian players immediately after losing today's Gold Medal game, you might've noticed another difference. Their guys were in literal tears because they were that devasted by the loss. You certainly ain't gonna see American players in tears over a FIBA World Cup loss.
Their players simply care about these games far more than ours do.
Their players simply care about these games far more than ours do.
I didn't suggest that there weren't those types of players; however, because they never played in the NBA it is only ones' guess as to how good they could play. Also, the ones that might have been capable of playing at the NBA level were seldom if ever playing alongside a teammate who was at that level, so it was easy to shut down the one very good player on the team.
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