Again I am throwing out 2017 because of the lack of competition in general for that tournament.
My comparison is 2016 and now. World Events, not a pseudo Eurobasket that was what 2017 was.
2016 you had minutes
Pau. 28
Rudy. 27
Mirotic. 26
Llull. 26
Sergio. 21
Rubio. 17
Navarro. 15
Reyes. 15
I don’t see how you can argue that 2019
Rubio, Rudy, Juancho, Claver, Marc Gasol, Llull and Willy is not a major downgrade.
Pau was a 16 and 11 NBA guy still in 2016 something Marc Gasol even in his prime had trouble duplicating let alone at this stage of his career. Pau averaged 20 and 9 in the tournament. Where will you replace this kind of production ?
Mirotic was a solid second scoring option averaging 13 points a game on excellent efficient shooting. You being downgraded here as well. Rudy obviously at 31 as opposed to 34 was a way better player. Another downgrade. Llull has always been kind of a disappointment when it comes to the National team as opposed to Real but still he’s 3 years older now and not to far removed from a serious injury. Another downgrade. Finally Sergio, Rubio point guard combo is better than now as well.
Another downgrade. Bench is probably an upgrade now since Reyes and Navarro were old and as you have stated more sentimental picks than anything.
The draw is definitely in Spain’s advantage and basically only Italy and Argentina/Russia stand in their way from a semifinal appearance. I definitely think they will get there. In my opinion the difference is that after that I think they lose to anyone they play in the semifinal and in the third place game as well. I will be very surprised if they gain an automatic Olympic birth. They will be in the Olympic qualifying tournament most likely.
Watching Spain these last 15 years in World Events I have come to expect more from them than I do now, that’s all I am saying. Maybe they will surprise me. If they do I will be the first to admit I was wrong about them.
Well, considering our past results in the World Cup, making it out of QFs is already going to be a major leap forward
I am comparing 2016 squad vs. 2017 because I was told that's where the big downgrade in quality happened. I'm arguing that there's not much difference between 2016 - 2017 - 2019. Other than name recognition, and the lack of a go-to scorer. Would I choose a Mirotic-Pau inside duo instead of the current one? For sure, but it's not the end of the world.
Now that you mention production, let's use that as a metric. As you say, Pau averaged almost 20 and 9, but he had to save his energy for doing the heavy lifting on offense, so his defence was lacking, specially in the last couple of games. As an example, he was averaging more than 2 bpg at the beginning of the tournament, and then blocked just one shot on each of the final 2 games in spite (or maybe because) of playing more than 30 minutes. I have no doubt Willy and Marc can match the 25 points and 12 rebounds we got in 2016 from the C position, while providing better rim protection at the same time. Not a downgrade in terms of production considering both sides of the court; but neither is the closer Pau was. I'll give you that.
Mirotic and Reyes combined for 19 points per game while shooting 46% from the field. This kind of offensive production is going to be hard to replicate with just Claver and Oriola. Both are scrappy scorers, but their forte isn't creating their own shots. They will provide better defence and rebounding, but I don't expect combining for even 15 points per game. I accept we're worse off this year at this position.
On the other hand, Rudy and Claver averaged just 13 points per game. I hope Juancho and whomever ends up as the backup SF (Beirán or Rabaseda, at this point) will top that number. To boot, Juancho has 10 cm and 20 kg on Rudy and can do a much better job defending bigger players and rebounding. We'll see, but I think this is a position we have upgraded, and could somehow compensate for the lack of scoring from the other forwards.
As for the SGs, Llull and Navarro combined for 13 points also, albeit with terrible percentages. They connected only on 28% of their three-pointers, while shooting a high amount of them. Navarro was also a defensive liability of the first order. Any other year I'd say we couldn't do worse, but I just cannot predict what's going to happen with our guards this year. We'll probably bring 4 SGs (Rudy, Llull, Jaime Fernández and Pau Ribas) and I can only hope at least one of them gets hot and provides the outside scoring we need. Not holding my breath, though. I'd call it a tie until proved wrong.
Finally, the point guards. Actually if Rubio has a good tournament he'll easily surpass what Rodríguez, Calderón and himself were able to do in 2016. They also scored 13 points (a magic number, it seems) with very poor percentages (28% from three). And a little over 7 assists per game. Backup PG though, is a lottery. We bring other 4 players able to play point in a pinch (Colom, Jaime Fernández, Llull and Ribas) and, for the life of me, I cannot say if any one of them is going to be up to the challenge.
I guess we'll have a better idea after the final roster and rotation are set.
