The Final: Spain - France

[Kwijibo]

France, one of the top 2 favorites from the start, is going to win the title. As the trounament progresses, surprises and cinderella teams decrease accordingly. Yes, you can eliminate a better team in a K.O. game, but you can't don that indefinitely. Hence the final between France and Spain. But France is the strongest one. The talent and skillset will eventually pull through. Much the same like the final between Argentina and Spain in the previous World Cup.

Eventually that's all that matters. It's about winning the title.



The truth of the matter is that Spain, so far, has beaten only three reasonable teams. That's Turkey, Germany, and Lithuania in OT. Most people put Spain close to those teams in rankings. So nothing remarkable there. They never beat, France (yet), Serbia, Slovenia or Greece. Spain in my view is still second tier. And France never played according to their potential, until the semi's. If this tournament is going to be played out 5 times, we could have had 5 different results. Being in the final does not mean you are top 2 in power rankings. Although Spain's record is quite good.

In an annual competition system the standings would be:
Spain 7-1
Greece 6-1
France 6-2
Germany 6-2
Serbia 5-1
Slovenia 5-2
Poland 5-3

Followed by teams with more losses and less games. The power rankings were not far off.

This is pure gold

[Kwijibo]

It's actually a testament to how well Brown has played in this tournament.

And Willy, and Garuba, and A. Diaz, and Bo Cruz

[Straight forward]

But you ALSO have a naturalized player, don´t you?

Have you had same moanings in 2017 with Tobey? Sure?

From my side: 0 naturalized players, of course. But we can spend the whole night about the "right" connections to a country and we could or we couldn´t agree.

It's not the same case. Brazdeikis born in Kaunas, lived for three years, both parents are 100% Lithuanians (it will sound racist maybe, but white, without an accent speaking Lithuanians), he speaks Lithuanian himself. Yeah, if not naturalization rule we wouldn't have Brazdeikis (cause he played for U16 Canada team), but you would agree that Brazdeikis case and Brown or Tobey cases are "a little" different, right?

[R1ou]

Complex of inferiority? De facto Greek NT is composed of three Nigerians, one pure American, one half American and why do I feel that I'm still missing something? Off course you won't like my posts and will try conduct me what I should and shouldn't chill with.

Not sure if you actually remember that Lithuanian Nt used to have 2 polish brothers playing for them at the same time.

[SaliH]

O yeah... the favorite topic of the forum- naturalizations and whose team has the purest team of all.


ps Lorenzo Brown is the game changer Giannis, Jokic, Luka, Schroeder, Gobert, Sabonis dream to ever be.

[Chichi Magic]

Complex of inferiority? De facto Greek NT is composed of three Nigerians, one pure American, one half American and why do I feel that I'm still missing something? Off course you won't like my posts and will try conduct me what I should and shouldn't chill with.

sarcasm is the best answer to a xenophobic post like yours.

[paspalj]

It's not the same case. Brazdeikis born in Kaunas, lived for three years, both parents are 100% Lithuanians (it will sound racist maybe, but white, without an accent speaking Lithuanians), he speaks Lithuanian himself. Yeah, if not naturalization rule we wouldn't have Brazdeikis (cause he played for U16 Canada team), but you would agree that Brazdeikis case and Brown or Tobey cases are "a little" different, right?

But the Anteto brothers were born in Athens? Is there a double standard here?

I'm not going to get into this again. Jfc you guys are weird. Before the tournament no one cared about Brown.

There are problems with naturalization rules but they are the same for everyone.

In general you seem very tense with the notions of nationality and who deserves it or whatnot so...chill

[Straight forward]

Not sure if you actually remember that Lithuanian Nt used to have 2 polish brothers playing for them at the same time.

True. And to be honest I don't like them as personalities. Not because I'm some sort of f...nazzi No, far from it. Other reasons. Dudes, committed rape. And till this day I find their craving for publicity and their cringey "humor" unbearable. I won't even make a hypothesis about their actual IQ.

Look, I'm not serious about BROs. But the fact is that Brazdeikis isn't Canadian only because his parents decided to leave Lithuania for Canada, the same with Ante Bros, they are not pure Greeks only because parents immigrated. Do they cut all the ties with Nigeria? (now I'm just curious). IMO, Brazdeikis is more Lithuanian than Canadian, no doubt. I would tend to believe that deep in their hearts Ante Bros feel like they are more Nigerians than Greeks. Could be wrong though.

[Ridirkulous]

That's not my point. We just signed a "random" EL player that no1 cares while we were 7rd or 8rd for bets, but suddenly when we win some ppl want to seem like we singed Stephen curry and only we signs foreing player

Your point makes no sense. First of all even your players were not happy about it at first. Starting from good old Rudy. And the rest of Europe was kind of on alert too. I think you live in your Spanish media bubble maybe. Even the head of FIBA had to officially address the situation before the tournament, since it was indeed a big buzz. https://basketnews.com/news-176773-f...-proposal.html

Second of all, it's exactly the nature of the beast. We all waited to see if this "signing" would be decisive, of course. And it turned out to be. If a competitor cheats at a job interview but I still get the job, of course I spend no energy complaining about it too much. It's a matter of optimising your effort... If I miss on something I worked very hard for instead, different story...

[Ridirkulous]

True. And to be honest I don't like them as personalities. Not because I'm some sort of f...nazzi No, far from it. Other reasons. Dudes, committed rape. And till this day I find their craving for publicity and their cringey "humor" unbearable. I won't even make a hypothesis about their actual IQ.

Look, I'm not serious about BROs. But the fact is that Brazdeikis isn't Canadian only because his parents decided to leave Lithuania for Canada, the same with Ante Bros, they are not pure Greeks only because parents immigrated. Do they cut all the ties with Nigeria? (now I'm just curious). IMO, Brazdeikis is more Lithuanian than Canadian, no doubt. I would tend to believe that deep in their hearts Ante Bros feel like they are more Nigerians than Greeks. Could be wrong though.

Funny enough also your opinion on the other side disturbs me. They seem pretty greek to me when singing loudly the national anthem.

[Straight forward]

Funny enough also your opinion on the other side disturbs me. They seem pretty greek to me when singing loudly the national anthem.

There's something in between right? I'm just curious what's with their feelings towards Nigeria if they ever went explicit on it.

[Ridirkulous]

There's something in between right? I'm just curious what's with their feelings towards Nigeria if they ever went explicit on it.

For fuck's sake. Can't they be both? I feel connected to all parts of my diverse heritage too, and so do a bunch of US Americans with Chinese, Italian, Irish, etc. parents... You should welcome more immigrants maybe in Lithuania, they sometimes teach people one thing or two, even how to play basketball every once in a while

[Levenspiel]

Despite my complaints and whining about the naturalised players here, I don't think we can single out Spain, who did as almost everyone else, just because theirs happened to be the MVP and a perfect fit. They did that part right, too.

[Straight forward]

Oh, never mind...

“I grew up in a Nigerian home,” Antetokounmpo said. “Obviously, I was born in Greece and went to school in Greece. But at the end of the day when I go home, there is no Greek culture. It’s straight-up Nigerian culture. It’s about discipline, it’s about respecting your elders, having morals.”

https://andscape.com/features/bucks-giannis-antetokounmpo-greek-freak-wants-to-go-back-to-his-nigerian-roots/

[Ridirkulous]

Oh, never mind...

“I grew up in a Nigerian home,” Antetokounmpo said. “Obviously, I was born in Greece and went to school in Greece. But at the end of the day when I go home, there is no Greek culture. It’s straight-up Nigerian culture. It’s about discipline, it’s about respecting your elders, having morals.”

https://andscape.com/features/bucks-...igerian-roots/

Again, so what. I also had one culture at home and another one at school, in the media, at the basketball training. It is clear to me again that your notion of national identity is a bit stale...