While nearly everybody (perhaps too many, in BiE’s opinion) await the final shape of Team USA’s roster going into the 2010 FIBA World Championship, a bunch of other teams spent the weekend making statements. Said statements could take the shape of confirmation of awesomeness (Spain), reminders of “hey, we still exist” (Brazil), and red-alert level warnings (Greece).
Not all the performances were good, of course – just ask the Russians how their weekend was – and the official BallinEurope 2010 FIBA World Championship Power Rankings reflect this progress. In order to prevent any energy-expending shock and outrage at the placement of certain teams, BiE reminds that these are *power rankings* only: They are meant not to predict the tournament’s final outcome (necessarily) but simply to gauge the way teams are trending.
And damn, is Greece trending high right now…
1. (↔) Spain. A jog through Cote d’Ivoire last week followed by manhandlings of Lithuania and Slovenia did little other that remind us that Team Spain and that ridiculous starting five of Ricky Rubio, Juan Carlos Navarro, Rudy Fernandez, Felipe Reyes and Marc Gasol. (Pau Who? Seriously, do you see anything missing from that starting five?) ain’t going nowhere. As Lamar Odom put it, “Creo que España, al máximo nivel de su potencial, es la mejor selección del mundo.” Capisce?
2. (↑) Greece. Damn right, BiE went there. From their assemblage earlier this summer, Team Hellas has toyed with non-contenders like Cyprus and Russia (!) while defeating a top-10 tier team like Croatia with little excess effort. After this weekend, who thinks the Greeks are too old? Who thinks Theo Papaloukas will be missed to distraction? Who thinks this team isn’t a championship threat? No one sane, that’s who.
3. (↓) USA. BiE’s sorry, but inactivity and the fact that JaVale McGee (JaVale McGee!) is destined to stick on Team USA just isn’t going to cut it on these power rankings after Greece turned the Love Cyprus tournament into a circus this weekend.
The latest indignity visited upon “America’s team”: President Barack Obama’s hosting of a charity event for wounded troops and White House interns that featured three of Team USA’s starters … from 2008! I suppose the troops would rather be checking out the likes of Lebron James, Dwayne Wade and Carmelo Anthony as opposed to painfully assessing the youngsters’ chances against the world, but still… Barack, where is the love for the team soon to compete under the U.S. flag?
4. (↔) Serbia. These guys are officially no longer a surprise after handling home team Turkey in the Istanbul Cup this weekend. Returning a majority of the youngest team in Eurobasket 2009, what’s even worse (for the world) is that Dusan Ivkovic is solidifying a nucleus for this national team for years to come.
5. (↑) Brazil emerged from hiding to smoke the lesser competition of Venezuela and African champions Angola at the Super 4 tournament in Brasilia over the weekend. FIBA reports that Team Brazil was able to improve on its rebounding (!) in the two games; we’ll see, as they’ll face slighter tougher tests in New York City this week as they take on World Championship contenders China and Puerto Rico.
What to do with the following four teams who suffered poor defeats last week, yet still performed well enough to establish themselves as a solid second tier after BiE’s top five. Seriously, which of these was the most disappointing result: Losing to upstarts Puerto Rico in a friendly at home; taking a loss to Serbia (whom you should be on the level of) after building up a lead on your home floor; losing one, squeaking past Germany and then at least mostly keeping up with the mighty machine known as Greece; or beating Slovenia only to be smoked by Spain?
We’ll keep these four in the same order they were in; games in Bamberg, Germany, later this week will see Lithuania, Turkey and Croatia hashing things out amongst themselves, so this part of the table will be clearer next week.
6. (↓) Argentina. Though they finally mastered Puerto Rico yesterday in Santa Fe, the best news here is still that the prospective starting no. 4 might be coming off crutches by the end of the week.
7. (↓) Turkey. And now Engin Atsur is out for four months, too. Ouch.
8. (↔) Lithuania. Will we ever figure this team out in time…?
9. (↑) Croatia may someday be thought of as the disappointment in this tournament, though with injuries this rife, they seem surprisingly competitive early on.
10. (↑) France. Les Blues, like Team USA and Lithuania, can claim to be rare in that their sitting-out five is better than their starting five going into this tournament. On the other hand (assuming Rodrigue Beaubois is the last France player to go down), things may be looking up for the team’s confidence, at least. They blew out Tunisia, 77-44, and now go on to face Canada in winnable games on Thursday and Friday. The addition of Andrew Albicy of France’s U20 champions in lieu of Beaubois was also an exciting addition, if not overwhelmingly relevant.
11. (↑) Puerto Rico. Thus far Puerto Rico’s only serious measuring stick has been Argentina, but the islanders have acquitted themselves well, first going to overtime then topping the Blue-and-Whites last week before succumbing yesterday, 93-80. This mouse may yet roar again in the FIBA Worlds…
12. (↓) Slovenia. What does not kill Slovenia can only make them stronger: After losing to Team Spain, 88-68, last week, they’ll try again tonight – but this time in Ljubljana.
13. (↑) Germany. Deutschland’s youngsters did better than expected in Cyprus, taking Croatia to the final shot and beating Russia. Head coach Dirk Bauermann was positively gushy in the afterglow: “We are continuing our positive trend and today again learned a lot.”
14. (↓) Russia. Okay, so we’re still a couple weeks away. David Blatt could turn things around. But after the disastrous showing lowlighted by soft defense – ostensibly Blatt and Team Russia’s specialty – in the Love Cyprus tournament, a blowing-up-of-the-team seems more likely than a podium visit in September right now.
15. (↑) Lebanon. The potential feel-good story of the tournament won their first match in the 10-team FIBA Asia Stankovic Cup over the Philippines easily, 74-59.
16. (↑) Australia. Hey Aleks Maric’s still here! Plus, Group A looks weaker than ever, so Oz swipes the no. 16 spot.
Tags: 2010 FIBA U20 European Championship Men, 2010 FIBA World Championship, adidas Istanbul Cup, Aleks Maric, Andrew Albicy, Barack Obama, Carmelo Anthony, Dirk Bauermann, Dusan Ivkovic, Dwyane Wade, Engin Atsur, Eurobasket 2009, Felipe Reyes, FIBA, FIBA Asia Stankovic Cup, JaVale McGee, Juan Carlos Navarro, Lamar Odom, Lebron James, Love Cyprus Basketball Tournament, Marc Gasol, Pau Gasol, Ricky Rubio, Rodrigue Beaubois, Rudy Fernandez, Team Angola, Team Australia, Team Brazil, Team Canada, Team China, Team Croatia, Team Cyprus, Team France, Team Germany, Team Greece, Team Lebanon, Team Lithuania, Team Philippines, Team Puerto Rico, Team Russia, Team Serbia, Team Slovenia, Team Spain, Team Tunisia, Team Turkey, Team USA, Team Venezuela, Theo Papaloukas
Final of the 2010 world championship: Greece – Spain -> Greece wins 95-93 after Diamantidis steals the ball from Navarro and passes to Fotsis for the dunk.
Would love to see that happening! If we get to the final, I really would like to see us against Spain. We have a really good schedule, since if we finish top of the group (we should, although easier said than done), and so do Spain and USA, then we will avoid them till the final. In 2006 we had the tough schedule, Spain had a walk in the park until the final and we were exhausted after beating Lebron and co, plus we were playing with 3 guards for most of the tournament, as Zisis was out after a career altering elbowing by Varejao. Which reminds me, I’d love to play Brazil too!
No excuses, we did not play well in the 2006 final – as well as we played in the semi (i.e. everything clicking) we could not respond to Spain’s zone. That’s why it’s one game in these tournaments that makes or breaks you. If it was a best of 7 series? You need to be extra prepared and very focused to maintain the intensity and go all the way for gold.
Team Spain looks unbeatable… at HOME! It was always the case for the Spanish side – they play really good in the preparation games when they play at home, but have troubles playing as guests. Same happened yesterday in Slovenia were Spaniards played bad, without passion and managed to win against Slovenia only in OT. Meanwhile few days ago they crushed Slovenia in Vitoria by 20 points. Also don’t forget eurocup 09 – Spain had a good group, but lost first game to Serbia, then had trouble with Great Britain and Slovenia, then lost to Turkey. They are good, but not unbeatable. And You say that Pau is not missed? Well, You’ll see that You’re wrong when Spain takes 4th place is WC. Book it and take it to the bank
let’s not forget that ther spanish refs certainly don’t do their team any justice in prepraring them for the intricacies of refereeing in the WC…
no surprise they lost Eurobasket 07 and Beijing – the team has very little friendlies where the refs don’t hand out flagrants to their opponents at will and don’t count threes followiung quite some time after an off-ball foul
and what happened when they got a taste of their own medicine? check out the friendly against Lithuania before last year’s EC – the Lithuanian refs made some interesting decisions (mostly offensive fouls, if I recall) – but unlike any other team (maybe except for Team USA, but they’re better than that), the spaniards became psychologically traumatised by that single loss… imagine if they didn’t have such talent…. and, of course, imagine if it was only the talent and not the ill-gained euphoria that pushed Spain forward
Well, you are talking here about SPAIN: Euro champs, World champs, and Olympic silver medal.
Any topic about Spain playing local most of the preparation games or the refs being terrible is just hilarious.
I would love more of the Lit trauma if that means gold again afterwards, dudes!
Canada beat China by 20 and are knocked from the list? The two matches this week against France will show that this is still a top 15 team.
Funnily enough, the only time Spain really should have won (I don’t count the Olympics) and did not was IN Spain in 2007. And again I think a major reason that happened was that Spain had to play us (Greece) in a heated and tiring semifinal that was head to head until couple of minutes before the end and were exhausted. Russia beat an already declining Lithuania quite comfortably and they were much fresher for the final. I think it does make a difference how you get to the final.
That’s one of the reasons Greece was destroyed at the 2006 Final against Spain. Semifinal was with USA. But this time things are easier for Greece, and if USA, SPAIN, GREECE win all the matches until the semifinals, Spain will be struggling to win the USA. Good luck with that
I totally agree with you, Pipo, 100%. The real final was Greece-Spain. You just have to check how Russia has been doing after that win (which was legit and no complains about it). I was at the arena attending the final and it was very frustrating, but you learn a lot from that experiences. I remember there was a beautiful girl near my seat, alone for some reason (her friends couldn´t get tickets or something) and she cried so desperately after Pau Gasol missed the final shot that I fell in love with her. She was totally destroyed, weak, ready to be embraced (my guess).
Of course I didn´t talk to her and who knows where she is now. I missed a bigger opportunity than Pau and the whole Spanish team.
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