This off season is really slow…. can’t wait for the season to start…

Here is an article that most on this site will not like –it rates the top 5 SF in the league. Needless to say that 1 RJ is NOT on the list and one crazy Artest is on the list.

http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?story_id=13628

I agree. I don’t really like RJ and do not think that he will turn to Spurs into a championship team. What will turn the Spurs into a championship team is if Manu comes back like the Manu of old and Duncan can squeeze another great season out. The addition of Dice and Blair, in my opinion, is much more meaningful than the addition of RJ. Still, it will be very difficult to get past the Lakers. I don’t see it happening. However, if both teams are 100% healthy, it is going to be a great series though.

Come to think of it, I’m not sure there really is a good comparison in soccer to Olympic basketball.

Let’s be honest, before the Dream Team (1992), Olympic basketball did not have the best players in the world playing (at least not for the US). Instead college players were used.

Since 1930, the best soccer players from around the world meet to play in the World Cup.

I suppose the main point is that FIFA is a powerhouse and has been around for a long while, while FIBA is just getting its feet wet.

Maybe a more realistic comparison, for argument sake, would be Olympic basketball to Olympic soccer?

While this association isn’t likely to keep players from competing for their NT, it could gain enough leverage to reduce the UEFA/FIFA qualification calendar for the WC or European Championship.
One of the reason European NTs play all year long is that there is so many countries involved in the qualifiers. Huge countries like Germany, UK, France, etc have to play ridiculously weak teams from micro countries (Liechenstein, Andorra, etc. basically one or two in each qualification group). More than the occasional friendly game, these matches are club coaches’ nightmare. Since they are must-win games for NTs, there is no way they rest their best players.

In that regard, FIBA is probably further along. They split NTs into separate divisions, thus reducing the number of teams (and games) contending for berths in Eurobasket. FIBA acknowledged that it’s pointless to have the mighty Lithanians or Serbs playing against countries with no basketball culture and zero talent. But under this system, if Great Britain lucks out and enroll Luol Deng they can move up and then qualify for Eurobasket.

For FIFA and FIBA/NBA the length of the season and number of games are probably the next conflict.

1/ Stern must look at the FIFA WC and the TV money they get and want something similar for basketball. And its obvious that NBA franchises have had financial benefits from hiring foreign players who often bring legions of fans with them (Yao and Dirk are the most obvious examples)

2/ In the end the players have the leverage. If a player like Messi or C. Ronaldo gets offered a contract worth double what they have now, except they cant play for their NT, another team would come along and match it without that clause. Add in the money they can get from sponsors as the face of their NT and its an easy decision.
The same would happen in the NBA. Guys like Lebron and Kobe would not pass up the money, media presence and glory that comes with being a NT player (unless they’d already done it and didnt feel the need to repeat, but they still have a financial incentive). No name guys dont have that leverage, but the players with huge contracts do.

Cuban said no other industry loans 100 million dollar assets and used that to justify blocking Dirk from playing the Euros. Cuban is wrong. Soccer teams do, and even though they bitch they realize the pros outweigh the cons- all the financial stuff aside, they keep that player happy. When Dirk’s contract runs out, another team will offer him the same contract without excluding him from representing his country, and I think Dirk would choose that contract over one that limits him (even if he eventually decided to retire from international ball, I’m sure he’d rather do it on his terms than because his boss ordered him).

I think it’s just silly of Cuban to imply that it is OK for his player to get injured playing for him, but not OK to get injured playing for his country. Its a physical sport where injuries happen and they suck regardless of where. In fact, the NT has to have insurance so financially it is worse for the injury to happen playing for the club than the NT. But that’s besides the point. Cuban as a business man should understand all businesses have risk and that sports are particularly risky. If he is truly concerned about the health of his “assets”, he should lobby to shorten the length of the season or the length of the games themselves.

Football is indeed very popular not only because its cultural, historical and societal roots, but because that’s one of the simplest organised sports.
Only a few important rules that are a little more complex than “eleven per team / put the ball between these posts” have been added to the previous codes of a game that was voluntarily made simple.
The only rules that are hard to understand are the offsides and those related to the goal keeper.
Compared to Rugby or Basketball, that’s a huge gap (travelling violation, shotclock violation, backcourt v., goaltending , three seconds, two-or-three points, fouls limit, pivot foot, timeout and so on…)

Lets put it simply: no sport will top football (in terms of global audience, global revenues, and licensed players) in our lifetime. My guess is my 4 month old daughter won’t see that either, nor any grandchild I may happen to have.

Another interesting point is the fact that USA are (and have been) so dominant in basketball that basically every other domestic league has stated rules that limits the number of US players in their roster. They all wanted to avoid all US rosters, about which — so they thought — people wouldn’t care.

[ Quick thought: I wonder if the contrary would give the same result: if local US fans would cheer the same way an all foreigner team and an all US team (gee, Toronto is in Canada!) and the NBA forcing franchises to foreigners quota. ]

This dominance from US basketballers translates to NBA dominating the basketball world scenery. I can’t remember the NBA stating a new rule to reduce the differences with FIBA rules. Instead, FIBA “recently” went from 30 to 24 shot clock and to quarters instead of halves. the NBA doesn’t need to adopt any FIBA rule to be succesfull whereas FIBA (or rather every other basketball organisation) must stick as close as possible to NBA rules otherwise they might well loose some fans more attracted to the NBA-on-a-screen than the club in their own town.

Is that enough? Do you want me to go on?

could you elaborate on this more? it seems like an arrogant comment to me