25th FIBA Asia Championship 2009 [Aug 6-16 China]

[joesmoove059]

ok 2007 championships is now history, let's start the conversation and arguments all over again in this thread!
let's keep the rivalry rolling.
China, Iran, Philippines, Jordan, Lebanon, Korea, Japan, Taiwan... you name it.

I hope the mods would push through this thread.
thanks guys .

how do you think your country will do in the upcoming FIBA Asia 2009?

Philippines, because it's my country. Philippines will be a lot tougher and bigger compared to the last team formed in 2007.

and hey there's no more Marc Caguioa and Jimmy Alapag, ironic is that they were the leading performers for our NT last time around.

'mga pards, ok lng ba to? kasi baka na spoil ko na ung NT natin, paki sabi lng ieedit ko nlng'.

[nardy]

I am predicting Kazakhstan would be a team to watch come 2009. With the continuos improvement of 6'10 Anton Ponomarev, am seeing this former Soviet Republic finally making a serious bid to challenge the usual Asian Basketball Powers for the FIBA-Asia crown now worn by Iran. A number of their other players are playing in Russia and in other former Soviet states, this would really improve their competiveness,

[Khalid80]

I am predicting Kazakhstan would be a team to watch come 2009. With the continuos improvement of 6'10 Anton Ponomarev, am seeing this former Soviet Republic finally making a serious bid to challenge the usual Asian Basketball Powers for the FIBA-Asia crown now worn by Iran. A number of their other players are playing in Russia and in other former Soviet states, this would really improve their competiveness,

I agree with you bro.
Kazakhstan is a very dangerous team and their progress over the last few years has been very impressive.
I still think that China and Iran are currently the top 2 teams in Asia followed by a group of teams that consist of Lebanon, Korea, Kazakhstan, Jordan, and the Philippines (Lebanon and Korea though have an advantage over this group in that we have both qualified to previous World Championships and we have the required international experience). Japan, Chinese Taipei, and Qatar also have a slim chance to make it to the quarter finals even though it will be tough.

[karim]

1-China(even without YAO if he doesnt play)
2-Lebanon(if khatib comes back and they replace vogel or atleast keep him)
3-Iran
4-RP(with new center)
5-South Korea
6-Jordan
7-Qatar(unless they get more africans)
8-Japan
9-Kazakhaztan
10-Taiwan
11-Syria(unless they naturalize a player and get the brazilians/syrians that they coulnt in 2007)

These will be the results for the top 11 teams , i dont care for 11-16th teams their not even worth my time to write them down

[daniab]

Jordan is a good team,with the new naturalized player Mike Christensen and 3 jordanian abroads coming lately the 208cm Center Mitch platt,The 6-5 shooting Guard and Minnesota Div 1 NCAA Jamal Abu Shamala and 6'1 Arkansas team Imad Qahwash.

As for lebanon,we need at least to know if the Tiger is coming back,and if we are gonna get some of our lebanese abroads.

[interxavierxxx]

Jordan is a good team,with the new naturalized player Mike Christensen and 3 jordanian abroads coming lately the 208cm Center Mitch platt,The 6-5 shooting Guard and Minnesota Div 1 NCAA Jamal Abu Shamala and 6'1 Arkansas team Imad Qahwash.

As for lebanon,we need at least to know if the Tiger is coming back,and if we are gonna get some of our lebanese abroads.

is Joe Vogel returning? Any players from the youth team like Vincent Khoury and AHmad Ibrahim?

[daniab]

is Joe Vogel returning? Any players from the youth team like Vincent Khoury and AHmad Ibrahim?

Joe may return to the team,nothing confirmed yet.
Ahmad is busy in US But he will return to lebanon to play for the youth team again next year with the new coach Paul Coughter.
Vincent,i highly doubt.The guy might stop balling.

[GodKaile]

my ranking

Tier 1
China

Tier 2
Iran Lebanon South Korea (any order)

Tier 2·5
Kazakhstan Jordan

Tier 3
Taiwan Qatar Japan Philippines (any order)

Tier 4-5
...........


MVP
Yi Jianlian

Teams Who can surprise
Kazakhstan

[rensquared]

Joe may return to the team,nothing confirmed yet.
Ahmad is busy in US But he will return to lebanon to play for the youth team again next year with the new coach Paul Coughter.
Vincent,i highly doubt.The guy might stop balling.

What about El Khatib bro? Will he play again too?

[daniab]

What about El Khatib bro? Will he play again too?

Im sure he will be back,he's very young to retire...just 29-30 years..still can play for at least 3-4 years.
during the summer he reduced his weight,and now he's back in shape..yesterday he posted a 24pts against a team from KSA.



he will be back

[Charbel Sakr]

ok 2007 championships is now history, let's start the conversation and arguments all over again in this thread!
let's keep the rivalry rolling.
China, Iran, Philippines, Jordan, Lebanon, Korea, Japan, Taiwan... you name it.

I hope the mods would push through this thread.
thanks guys .

how do you think your country will do in the upcoming FIBA Asia 2009?

Philippines, because it's my country. Philippines will be a lot tougher and bigger compared to the last team formed in 2007.

and hey there's no more Marc Caguioa and Jimmy Alapag, ironic is that they were the leading performers for our NT last time around.

'mga pards, ok lng ba to? kasi baka na spoil ko na ung NT natin, paki sabi lng ieedit ko nlng'.

i don't have a good feeling abt this tournament, things aren't looking pretty for us right now and there are actually 3 teams (if not more) that can perform better than Lebanon.

So good luck for us, we might need it this time

[spider]

lebanon and syria will qualify from waba after waba only have 3 places, jordan already qualified after winning stankovic cup.the tournament is in syria so the lebanese and syrian teams will win. then in china we will be in final, if we have a fine day we will beat china. we're coming for you............

[Khalid80]

i don't have a good feeling abt this tournament, things aren't looking pretty for us right now and there are actually 3 teams (if not more) that can perform better than Lebanon.

So good luck for us, we might need it this time

Well at least there is someone else that thinks that we're not in the best of conditions. I honestly believe that even with our full roster available (including Vogel and Khatib) we're still way behind China and to a lesser extent Iran. Jordan is preparing and naturalizing players left and right. Korea is always a threat. Kazakhstan and Philippines are on the rise. And we're still where we are .

[Khalid80]

lebanon and syria will qualify from waba after waba only have 3 places, jordan already qualified after winning stankovic cup.the tournament is in syria so the lebanese and syrian teams will win. then in china we will be in final, if we have a fine day we will beat china. we're coming for you............

With the level of bball that we've been playing since the last World Championships in 2006 I don't see this day coming anytime soon
We still have a long way to go to catch up with China (Maybe in 5 years with players like Bassel Bawji, Ahmad Ibrahim) and after Yao Ming retires from the Chinese NT, then we might have a very small chance of beating China.

[Khalid80]

"Bahrain Loses First Match (by Yousef Ahmed)

BAHRAIN suffered a disheartening 67-75 defeat at the hands of Kuwait yesterday in their opening game of the basketball competition in the 19th Gulf Cup taking place in Oman, reports PATRICK SALOMON.

The Bahrainis were thoroughly outplayed in the tie, played at the Nizwa Sports Complex, often looking lost in a chaotic offensive scheme while allowing big gaps in their porous defence.

The nationals should have went down by a bigger margin, but successive three-pointers from small forward Mahmood Ghuloom late in the fourth, and a triple at the final buzzer from veteran enforcer Yasser bu Naffour, cut the losing deficit to single digits.

In Bahrain's loss, the nationals appeared to take to the court without the team chemistry head coach Walter Pereira praised them for prior to the tournament. Players often took it to themselves to make a play, but eventually wound up turning the ball over or forcing a bad shot.

They began the contest in promising fashion, taking the lead on back-to-back three-pointers from Manama Club teammates Mohammed Hussain and Ghuloom, before conceding a narrow four-point deficit at the end of the first (14-18).

The Kuwaitis then began to pull away in the second period with their superior spacing and ball movement. They built a comfortable 10-point advantage (34-24) at the interval, and they would never look back.

The victors maintained their strong showing to start the second half, when their Bahraini counterparts struggled mightily to find a basket. The nationals managed just another 11 points in the entire third, when they went down by as many as 20 points (31-51), but managed to close with two straight field goals to cut the gap to 16 (35-51) heading into the fourth.

The Bahrainis attempted one last fight back in the final canto, cutting the lead to 10 points (41-51) on a driving lay-up from Hussain with more than eight minutes still to play. The young guard was also sent to the line on the play, but he failed to convert his free-throw, and the missed opportunity was succeeded by two straight Kuwait baskets which extended their lead to 14 (55-41).

The Bahrainis failed to further threaten their opponents late on, and finally conceded the opening day loss in what should have been a winnable game.

Bahrain's only players to make significant contributions in the losing effort were star big man Ahmed Al Mutawa (199-F/C-81, college: Broward CC) who had a double double with 15 points and 11 rebounds, Mahmud Ghuloom with 20 points and great hustle plays by Omran Abdulredha from Manama Club"