2020 Olympics New tournament format. Predictions. General talk

[usagre]

It was announced today that the Olympic basketball tournament will change from its historical 2 groups of 6 teams into 3 groups of 4 teams. I don’t like or understand the change. The 4 teams will play each other in a round robin so a total of 3 games per team. The top 2 and best 3 out of the 4 third place teams advance to the quarterfinals. So now the 4 teams that don’t advance are done and will only have played 3 games for the entire tournament. The 8 teams will be put into pots and a draw will take place to create the bracket.
I am ok with this part since it adds some interest and might stop some seeding shenanigans. But that also means that the medal winners will now play a total of 6 games instead of 8 for the entire tournament,
That’s not enough.

[Mindozas]

I don't like it either. Never liked system with that "2 best 3rd place finishers" or similar formats, when teams can't decide their fate between each other and are dependent on other group. Imagine you are getting USA in your group, you're blew out by some 30, and you're most likely out thnx due to worse points difference just because draw wasn't favorable, fck it. It was great format, with lot of great games, but FIBA needs to show that they are working and as usual fcked up. No doubt they pushed IOC to this idea

[JGX]

Weak. I guess this gives them more room to push their 3x3 thing.

Are the other "court sports" like volleyball and handball changing their format too? Or just basketball?

[usagre]

Weak. I guess this gives them more room to push their 3x3 thing.

I hate when people try to reinvent the wheel. I would rather watch women's field hockey or synchronized swimming than 3x3 basketball.

[usagre]

I have never watched a 3x3 game and I plan on never watching it. The last time I watched anything gimmicky like that was like 30 years ago when I ordered on pay per view a one on one tournament between many of the top NBA draft prospects.
I remember Bo Kimble won it by beating Gary Payton in the final.

[Mindozas]

Weak. I guess this gives them more room to push their 3x3 thing.

Are the other "court sports" like volleyball and handball changing their format too? Or just basketball?

It seems they are not. Looking at schedule, for teams there will be 5 preliminary round games, then 1/4, 1/2 and final. Like usual

[Steadysoul]

I want to see it in action before I make any real judgements

[JGX]

I have never watched a 3x3 game and I plan on never watching it. The last time I watched anything gimmicky like that was like 30 years ago when I ordered on pay per view a one on one tournament between many of the top NBA draft prospects.
I remember Bo Kimble won it by beating Gary Payton in the final.

I remember that. There was a PPV one-on-one matchup between Kareem and Dr. J around that time too, Kareem just backed him down and scored every time. IIRC there was a preliminary tournament won by George Gervin as well? One-on-one is just awful to watch.

The FIBA 3x3 could actually be interesting if it had real players, but FIBA wants to own it and create their own stars. Unfortunately for them, it isn't different enough from regular basketball for anyone to believe that the top 3x3 specialists would beat top pros.

[Dtown]

Fewer meaningless games, but unlike the world cup we have the nasty best 3rd place team format. Can't really gauge till I see it in action though.

Edit: Odd quirk because of the new schedule, for the first time I can remember the men will not be playing on the last day of the Olympics. Though that's wikipedia, so who knows.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basketball_at_the_2020_Summer_Olympics

[Mindozas]

Fewer meaningless games

Fewer decent games too

[Jon_Koncak]

Overall for me these are positive changes.I agree that defining the best 3rd team in different groups sucks. On the other hand there'll be less games.A team that reached medal rounds in previous format would have to play 8 games in 14 days.That's a bit of an overkill.With fewer games we could even see NBA teams being less reluctant to let their players compete.

Also the draw after group stage is a nice idea to end the ridiculous tanking,in order to define path and match ups which was so rampant in previous olympics.

[usagre]

So the good news is with this new FIBA calendar we only have to wait a year instead of two for the next world event.
Looking forward with the new format there is a grand total 26 games as opposed to the 38 of previous years. The idea is starting to grow on me. All games will be meaningful now and with fewer games maybe the top players can have a larger workload and seeing more of the best players is always fine by me.

There will be 4 group games followed by 2 group games and followed by an off day. That’s the cycle for the first round.
Then all 4 quarterfinals are in one day (my favorite day of the tournament.) I already did the time conversion and I will be watching basketball that day from 9pm-10am straight. The semi finals follow an off day and then for the medal day the gold medal game will be played first followed by the Bronze game 6 hours later followed the medal ceremony. And medal day will be on Saturday as opposed to the final day of the Olympics on Sunday. For US fans the Olympic basketball specialty channel has been discontinued since its kind of outdated now with all the Smart TV’s and streaming.
I can’t wait.

[reamily]

my proposal should be there is a extra game for the 2 worst third place teams...although they get a extra load, its better than seeing them eliminated

[soulis79]

I don't like the new format. Maybe they want to separate the weakest teams in three groups (Japan, Iran, Nigeria). Maybe NBA and FIBA "advised" IOC for fewer games.

[Victorious]

This is all fine by me. Less games, means more important games. In that case I would in return have allowed four more teams to compete at the Olympics and qualify directly. Or allow the next best seven teams of the World Cup qualify directly. With no Olympic qualifiers. This makes the World Cup also a lot more interesting. More meaningful games as everything counts.

At the Olympics there would be four groups of four teams and the best two would go through. Three group games, then it's all about knock outs.