Eurobasket 2017 - General Discussion

[Italian Pride]

On the opposite side of the Adriatic Sea, the situation is more complicated since the signing of Ryan Arcidiacono with San Antonio to a two-year contract.

Ryan has italian grandpa,he played two years with our sperimental NT and he didn't get yet italian pass,this is unbelievable but not for our Federation!

only our hope is Messina

[Dirtyh]

I personally have been in Turkey couple of years ago (before all this shit with ISIS escalated) and wouldn't mind going there again.
but some of my friends who are usually travelling with me to the games already said they won't be travelling to Turkey if our team will be in the group phase there and possible final round.
what do you guys think?

I will not travel to Turkey and I'm sure that I am not the only one.

Fiba should do their job and remove the competition away from Turkey. If they need to find one new host country in this time there's only right answer. Lithuania. Then again I'm not sure if that's necessary. Maybe Finland, one of the safest places (knock knock), is able to take other group and those final rounds too. Personally I prefer Lithuania and would be more then happy to travel there.

[CoachZ]

As I said before, when you're politically so strong, people never mind not to go there even if there are deadly terrorist atttacks that happen quite often. Funny thing is that French team Monaco refused to get here for security reason just only a few days after a terrorist attack in Nice. Beside France, many team will do the same against Turkey but not against France. You can't be afraid of France due to security reason becu they are stronger than us and all European countries except GB and Germany. Be sure that If Turkey was that strong, you also can't be afraid of us

Actually one of the scariest moments in my life was in France, to be exact Marseille. I was on a conference, and just decided to go and walk around during the break to find some street food to eat since the catering sucked. Of course, having no idea where I was going and what looked like a normal street, I just passed a group of 4 Mediterranean-looking fellows hanging out on the corner. They started following me, so to cut the story short I ended up running and them chasing me. I had a backpack on (nothing inside besides a change of shirt, my passport etc. My wallet was in my jeans pocket. So they caught up to me and tried to take away my backpack, I pulled and another guy just came at me with the knife (fortunately just to cut the straps and take the backpack). They took it, I ran another 300-400m to a bigger street and went into some cafe.

Talking after that with some people who live there, shit is happening all the time and teen gangs are everywhere. The bigger cities can't control the violence, shit is like Harlem in the 70s and 80s. I mentioned before, France has been boiling for a long time and now it's a bit out of control. That is even without the terrorist stuff happening. It will get progressively worse until it breaks the camel's back. So I reluctantly think of going to France as well, or at least when I think of Paris or coastal towns.

Regarding Turkey, like I have said, I have no problem travelling there (by car of course) but no reason to risk it for something that means jack shit, thanks to FIBA. I am just weighing the risk vs the reward.

[Levenspiel]

I understand your objection turk-jugoslav, but when looking at it non-emotionally, all the tournaments should be taken away from Turkey, imho.

Terrorism risk is everywhere, yes, but it's at another level in Turkey these days. Would go to an event in Iraq? The bombs are going off everywhere, so why not go to Iraq or Syria then?

[fasoulaki]

Lets see how Turkey stabilizes in the next weeks.

[Picek]

Basically Turkey is a host after Ukraine's disqualification because of the war situation with Russia.Let's see how FIBA 'll roll into this.

actually, ukraine was supposed to host the 2015. eurobasket.
anyway, news from yesterday are that there won't be any changes.
Turkey remains the host of the group and the final phase.
Demirel stated Turkey is safe and that there were no concerns stated from any of the countries.

[Big Lebowski]

Doellman accepted offer from Kososvo and will be their naturalized player at the qualifiers.Seriously,what was thinking about?

That who cares if money comes from organ trade and human trafficking and a "government" responsible of genocide against the autochtonous Serbs.

Anyway the situation is becoming more and more ridicoulous: "Montenegro looking for a US point guard", "FYROM offered citizenship to Mr. X", "Bulgaria add US born center", etc. At some point even rugby looks more serious: you can have foreign players without passport of the NT they play for, at least it doesn't cover the hypocrisy of Banana Republics that print passports with a mimeograph.

[Dirtyh]

2017 Eurobasket Groups

Draw is in november but when host's are going to select their company team? It's been speculated that Finland will select Iceland. There's Finland vs. Iceland football game in Helsinki in the same week than Eurobasket to make it even more interesting.

[inaminute23]

Draw is in november but when host's are going to select their company team? It's been speculated that Finland will select Iceland. There's Finland vs. Iceland football game in Helsinki in the same week than Eurobasket to make it even more interesting.

Please explain in more detail? Why could each host nation pick a team for their group? How can that be fair?

[R1ou]

Please explain in more detail? Why could each host nation pick a team for their group? How can that be fair?

From Wikipedia

Following on from the exceptional circumstances leading to the relocation of EuroBasket 2015, each of the four hosts was granted the right to select a partner federation for commercial and marketing criteria. These teams would automatically be placed into the same group as their chosen partner country. The selections were;
France and Finland
Germany and Turkey
Croatia and Slovenia
Latvia and Estonia


This year I'll make a prediction for Hungary-Romania and Turkey-Russia.

[Picek]

Draw is in november but when host's are going to select their company team? It's been speculated that Finland will select Iceland. There's Finland vs. Iceland football game in Helsinki in the same week than Eurobasket to make it even more interesting.

Turkey could pick Russia for obvious reasons.
Romania to pick Hungary?
Israel? well, no one wants to go to Israel

edit:

This year I'll make a prediction for Hungary-Romania and Turkey-Russia.

lol, didn't even read your prediction before making mine.

[Dirtyh]

This year I'll make a prediction for Hungary-Romania and Turkey-Russia.

I guess that Romania and Hungary are in same bracket so Romania can't pick Hungary. Turkey most likely picks Russia and Romania maybe picks Greece.

[Terrorizer]

you can not say they were not tested.
if you are to look at it like that.
who tested Hungary&GB?
Belgium&Iceland?
Ukraine&Slovenia?
Russia?

Were you joking, man? Who tested Russia? Bosnia (with Nurkic, Musa, Gordic and to some extent Teletovic) and Sweden is as tough a competition as you can face at this stage. Just imagine what would be a result of any of these two teams against any of Slovakia and Albania. Switzerland & Cyprus could be not some household names in European Basketball but they are decent enough teams. Iceland wasn't having a fun time with them, heck they lost in Switzerland plain and square. Bulgaria is also a much, much better team than either of Slovakia and Albania. Even Luxembourg proved to be a team with some quality in its ranks. Kosovo, Albania and Slovakia were absolutely the worst teams in this competition and two of them were in the same group, making life perfectly easy for both Montenegro and Georgia. Moreover, Kosovo at least had some moments while Albania and Slovakia weren't doing anything. I don't even know how one can argue with that. Well, you can say that their level of opposition was too high but we're talking about a tournament where Portugal hang on with Poland till the last minutes of the game, Denmark beat Germany in double OT and Switzerland upset later qualified Iceland, all in the games which mattered.

And, yes, this format is terribly unjust and idiotic. Especially having in mind that all four host teams failed to secure their placement either in Rio or at least in Olympic qualifiers (well, Turkey had bribed their way into Olympic qualies once again). Why Sweden and BiH have to face Russia while Romania has secured its place among EuroBasket participants? Something like first teams in groups securing their place in EB directly with seconds paired against thirds in different groups would be the best. I don't know how they can arrange a matching number of teams but that should not be a terrible problem (playing a pre-quali with some teams like Albania, Slovakia, Kosovo, maybe Luxembourg also, is a 'last resort'). Yet here we are talking about FIBA which failed to lure just one team more in this tournament. I mean, what are the reasons which prevented them from inviting some Norway or Armenia (as 'small countries EuroBasket' champion)?

besides, Montenegro which was in the same group with Georgia will play important role next year.

Chances are high that Russia would play even more important role next year than Montenegro but somehow that didn't help either BiH or Sweden to qualify. Quite contrary.

it would be a shame if they haven't qualified.
solid team which played without a naturalised player this time.
with 5 minutes to go it was a tied game and at the end they lost with double digits which almost cost them heavily.

Well, I'm not saying that Ukraine should not be among the teams which qualified but I don't think that Netherlands or Bosnia are certain to have a worse EuroBasket showing if they had a chance to appear there. I have a ton of reasons to root for NL but an opportunity to see their coach's classy 70ish moustache in EB was totally enough. Extremely sad they missed this chance in such a foolish manner. Ukraine may be a decent team but aside from their underperforming and overweight centers Kravtsov and Fesenko their current squad definitely lacks players with respectable pedigree in European club basketball. Their starting five's players are coming from the teams like Quimper and Bulgarian Lukoil Akademik which is not exactly a sign of supreme quality.

[Italian Pride]

Romania will pick Italy

[Levenspiel]

does anyone know the seeding?