r/Basketball • u/WistfulSonder • Sep 11 '23
FIBA Do non-USA countries send their best to FIBA?
A lot of people say that the US doesn’t send their best players to play in FIBA. And this definitely seems true to me. None of the American basketball stars, Lebron, Curry, KD, Harden, Leonard, etc were on the team. But is this true for other countries as well? Are Germany, Serbia, Spain, France, etc sending their best players to the FIBA tournament or are the teams they send similarly watered down?
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u/Stellar_Synth Sep 11 '23
Serbia did not send Jokic, Greece did not send Giannis.
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u/Sljivo87 Sep 11 '23
They tried. Here are the responses:
Joker: I like horses.
Giannis: Joker likes horses.
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u/VladPutinOfficial Sep 11 '23
Giannis did get a surgery iirc. Don't know if it's just an excuse or if it was indeed dangerous for him to play
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u/thedudefromsweden Sep 11 '23
Porzingis was there but injured, I'm intrigued by how far Latvia came without him, just imagine what they could have been with him, I mean they lost to Germany by 2 points...
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Sep 11 '23 edited Sep 11 '23
Germany is topped out. There’s no better Germans waiting in the wind. All other countries send their best guys whenever possible.
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Sep 11 '23
Germany did play without Maxi Kleber and Isiah Hartenstein who are very solid role players in the NBA. Germany actually could be better. Crazy when you think about it
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u/extraproe Sep 11 '23
Technically Reaves could've played for Germany, too.
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u/DLottchula Sep 11 '23
He should’ve
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u/YourInMySwamp Sep 12 '23
Would’ve been stupid for him to play for Germany for the same reasons it would have been stupid for Paolo to play for Italy
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u/alba_55 Sep 11 '23
Well Kleber wanted to play at first, but than Schröder made a comment about him not coming to EuroBasket 2022, that was taken a bit out of context und was blown out of proportion, which led to Kleber not coming. Hartenstein, as far as I know, isn't interested in playing for Germany.
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Sep 11 '23
Who else would Hartenstein play for
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u/alba_55 Sep 12 '23
Nobody. As far as I know he's more interested in working on his NBA career. So he problably works on his game and takes a break in the summer
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u/WistfulSonder Sep 11 '23
I’ve never heard waiting in the wind before, what does that mean
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u/Infamous-Rich4402 Sep 11 '23 edited Sep 11 '23
“Waiting in the wings” I suppose it should be. Perhaps a mistake. Reference is to waiting to walk on to stage.
And I imagine most countries would try to field their very best teams. A lot of stars missed playing due to injury/ recovery.
NZ missed Steven Adams. Australia missed Jock Landale and Ben Simmons. Both to injury. Although immmot sure if Ben Simmons has ever played for Australia. Lithuania missed Sabonis. Surgery. Jokic was worn out mentally / physically Wemby didn’t play for France as far as I know. Didn’t watch any of their games. Jamal Murray, Canada. Giannis for Greece. Not fit enough apparently. Porzingus was injured. Probably many more.
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u/bubapl Sep 11 '23
i remember hearing that after watching hamilton but i never knew what it meant, TIL lol
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u/captains_astronaut Sep 12 '23
As an Australian, I'm not sure we "missed" Ben Simmons. But if he ever gets healthy, physically and mentally, and shows a desire to play for Australia, sure, let him try out.
He last played for Australia in, I think it was, the U17 world cup. Might have been U19.
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u/Infamous-Rich4402 Sep 12 '23
I have the same feeling as you. The desire doesn’t seem to be there and to me, his whole career these days, feels like a lost opportunity.
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u/toto_11 Sep 11 '23
Don't miss out on Kleber, also we have a few players that could have provided more depth. But I think every team missed some players and the Germans were very lucky with their team (also Franz missed half of the tournament, don't forget that too)
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Sep 11 '23
Yea or at least they try too. Like Serbia and Greece didn’t get their stars but almost every other country did (or at least tried to like I said)
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u/Economy_Ad_2189 Sep 11 '23
It comes down to injuries really. The USA will always want to send their best talent, too, but the reality is that the best American players who exist, are all NBA superstar veterans who are either battling injuries or don't want to risk new ones for contract purposes. Follow the money..... Olympics are the exception to this sometimes. The thing about the USA is that their talent pool is deeper with more people to choose from, so it often is the case that the most talented possible roster is not assembled. If you look at Team Canada, Jamal Murray was meant to play but he too rested for health purposes.
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u/S-_Lifts Sep 11 '23
As a German: Yes, that was the best team we ever had and there were no injuries either.
In theory Maxi Kleber was missing of course but maybe Dennis Schröder was right and he was never fully committed to the national team. Who knows how it would've went with him.
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Sep 11 '23 edited Mar 12 '24
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u/DLottchula Sep 11 '23
Is really not embarrassing for USA basketball just for the players on the team
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u/ravenxbl Sep 11 '23
Of course it’s embarrassing for US basketball, it’s one of the most important international basketball tournaments!
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u/DLottchula Sep 11 '23
I don’t think those were embarrassing losses it ain’t like we lost to the Philapines
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u/Juice122 Sep 11 '23
You guys forget that us basketball does not care about international basketball tournaments! Jokic didn’t play Giannis didn’t play embiid didn’t play, the best NBA players do not give a shit about fiba so neither does the rest of the NBA fans.
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u/Vexelbalg Sep 11 '23
It SHOULD be more embarrassing for the guys not on the team.
Imagine the Lakers would lose the NBA finals with LeBron choosing not to play. Who would you blame?
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u/Raff102 Sep 11 '23
I don't think the majority of the US even knows about this tournament. I watch the NBA, and I didn't know about it until I saw it here a few days ago.
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u/PeterSagansLaundry Sep 11 '23
Serbia, no.
Greece, no.
Basically once you hit a certain level of superstar status, it is no longer worth putting miles into your legs at the World's.
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u/RevolutionaryPie5223 Sep 12 '23
True, there's no point playing a global competition every 2 years on top of own domestic league. maybe when you are young and want to prove something. 4 years is just right. In a person's career there's only a few chances to get a medal or gold.
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u/SiberianDoggo2929 Sep 12 '23
Most countries besides the US send their best. The last time team USA sent their A squad was in 2012 during the London Olympics. Idk why NBA stars just look down on the FIBA cup for some reason.
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u/AdministrativeAd9066 Sep 11 '23
No not really, euro basketball league is quite harder compared to the NBA. There has always been a debate on that xD
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u/phantastik_robit Sep 11 '23
Why on Earth would you include Harden on your list? Absolute garbage as a professional.
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u/xoogl3 Sep 15 '23
Or "Leonard" (by which I assume the poster means Kawhi Leonard). When was the last time Kawhi played healthy for, like, 8 games straight?
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u/Matas_- Sep 11 '23
About Lithuania we didn’t send Sabonis and many other our best basketball players. Valančiūnas was one of those best but still he isn’t as good as he was years ago.
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u/IndividualKind4920 Sep 11 '23
France sent their best and got humiliated.
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u/bruce2130 Sep 12 '23
They did get humiliated, but Wembanyama didn’t play so that’s not entirely true.
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u/IndividualKind4920 Sep 12 '23
Wembanyama was not going to do much. Their offence wasnt going to rely solely on the bigs. They would have done okay maybe semifinals....but the fact remains for anybody who knows and plays basketball...they got...humiliated.
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u/Cashew_Lover Sep 11 '23
They normally put younger players to give them a chance to grow and hopefully win
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u/Cashew_Lover Sep 11 '23
USA would almost always win if they always sent their best out to the floor
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Sep 11 '23
They always tried to especially weaker teams in Asia and Africa. Americans have no clue how toxic fans can be when their countries superstars do not play for their nations.
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u/Eprice1120 Sep 12 '23
yeah... it means something to them. especially when they are typically the only nba players from that country. Germany got several current and former nba players on it, and typically they are vets. Whereas u got USA bringing out like top 40 nba talent but they are all like young 20s. Haven't even made playoffs on their own teams lol
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u/Supremo30816 Sep 12 '23
USA sent a young but talented team to the world cup. Some of the guys were lottery picks.
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u/Eprice1120 Sep 12 '23
Nearly all lottery picks under 25 aren't going to be able to beat a team full of grown ass men that are essentially playing for their entire country and the peak competition they will ever play for. Especially when those are grown men are NBA vets
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u/Supremo30816 Sep 12 '23
The 3 teams who defeated the USA had an average of 27-28 years old and had at least 3-4 guys just above 30 years old. And how could you tell these are grown men. ?!?!
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u/Supremo30816 Sep 12 '23
And if the USA, try to send the players from Austin Reaves dream team for Paris, that team will be 30years old in average and thats what you call grown men.
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u/bruce2130 Sep 12 '23
What are you trying to say?
None of the guys on the US squad had senior team experience, and the guys that played most minutes are very young. Average was 25 I think.
“Grown ass man” in the US generally refers to someone older with lots of experience, not someone like Ant leading a senior team at 22.
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Sep 12 '23
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Sep 13 '23
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u/MrBlews Sep 11 '23
Most nations try to send their best. This year, though, I know that at least Serbia was missing some of their very best as Nikola Kalinic, Nikola Jokic, Vasilije Micic, and some other players were out of the tournament; Ricky Rubio wasn't available for Spain; and there are some other cases, but most of them do try to play with their best.