Hmm, what led to this outburst? I mean we all know the whole “world champions” shtick in basketball and baseball is a bit silly but I fail to see what Noah would accomplish with this unsubtle dig.
Seemed fairly light hearted, really. Still got some panties in a twist, though.
He was just trying to hype up his own sport. Athletics doesn’t get the respect the athletes deserve until the olympics start.
3 Likes
And I think everyone in the world …like “The World” world… Agrees with him.
I don’t see Australian footballers calling the AFL grand final the world championship or world series.
2 Likes
Heaven forbid.
Anyone watching the World Cup final between Germany and Serbia?
1 Like
World champions of what?
1 Like
Me. I’m too furious with disastrous refereeing to be graceful in defeat but congratulations to Germany anyway. It’s not like a Liverpool fan isn’t used to poor refereeing and inexplicable video review decisions.
We shot ourselves in the foot a few times, inexperience of Nikola Jović and Petrušev really showed in key points and too many times. That said, I had zero expectations from this team, so this should be viewed as a magnificent achievement.
3 Likes
What an intense game, i still can’t believe it. What an incredible team effort.
I am neutral and I don’t think the refereeing had much to do with it. There were wrong calls but losing Dobric so early combined with Bogdanovic going missing for the entire 2nd half and Milutinov and Guduric being net negatives, made all the difference.
Avramovic was spectacular but he was desperately alone. Still fantastic achievement reaching the final, with so many players missing including the best in the world. Pity that Serbia weren’t at their best but Germany played a fantastic tournament and fully deserved it.
I never thought that there’ll be a time that Germany has a better basketball than football team but here it is. The difference is substantial too.
3 Likes
I’ll answer anyway - they lost to Germany in the semis.
1 Like
And lost to Canada in the match for 3rd place today.
3 Likes
Many of their best known stars didn’t go, and that will be the excuse, but it needs qualifying.
At the level of competitiveness the other sides now have winning for the US is not so simple as just putting out their top players as the other sides are now good enough to exploit a team that is not balanced and well put together. Any “best” us side is going to be one with a LOT of star names missing out and it’s not necessarily improved by just adding one more of those stars
Serbia were also without the best player who is arguably the best player in the world and a singularly bigger loss to them than any missing American, yet they made the final. And that speaks to the other issue - if you did a poll of who the world’s best player is you would get a LOT of answers that fail to put an American in the top 3. You have to go back maybe 6 years to see an American winning the MBA MVP award.
I’ll add, Americans think that the Olympics is the prestigious world basketball competition, and they view world cup as chance to see B squad/youth. World largely caught up though. MVP race in NBA is between Jokic (Serbian), Doncic (Slovenian), and Embiid (cameroonian- although he could play for france or usa, undetermined yet), and next big thing is French guy just drafted.
Also: no idea if cameroonian is correct or a word.
Don’t forget Giannis. For a long while I just assumed that he was “Greek” as a technicality and presumably grew up in the US, or least did a significantly amount of his development here like Embid did. But nope, another of the absolute elite group of players who grew up and learned the game in a different country and then came to the US and excelled.
FIFY
No they correctly think the best players in the world play in NBA, but are aware and respect Euro leagues. Many Americans play in the Euro leagues that never quite made it in NBA.
The biggest problem that the US team is faced with and will be facing in the future is the very nature of how the game is played nowadays in NBA. They’ve bastardized it into a 3-point spamming fest with no defence allowed, which is borderline unwatchable for the older fans. Their players only know how to run pick and roll, iso and shoot 3s all the while, while travelling and carrying the ball. Most of them wouldn’t be able to post up to save their lives.
As for their defence, that’s the biggest joke of them all. They can’t be bothered in international tournaments and even when they try, they’ve been so handicapped by the current NBA rules that they aren’t even acceptable at it. 113 points given up in the semifinal against Germany and 127 against Canada. Those are numbers that wouldn’t be particularly good in 48-minute NBA games, let alone in the shorter 40-minute FIBA games.
The worst part is their younger generation has been conditioned to play in this way. It will take some effort and they’ll have to recruit their very best if they want a shot at the Gold at the Olympics.
2 Likes
How’d i forget Giannis!! i remember around draft time, nobody knew what to think because most videos of him looked like he was playing against 15 yr old kids in crappy gyms with grainy video quality. He grew 3ish inches after getting drafted as well, which surely helped him.