The international windows

[sm11]

Hello everyone, to get this new forum going i thought i would set a thread about my personal favourite basketballing debate of the last decade, i think this might be the first thread on here unless some one whips up one while im typing. Not necessarily uk basketball related but effects all of basketball really.

Whats peoples opinions on FIBA going back to its earlier (1984-2003) style of staging its qualifiers during the season rather than lumping them all in the summer.

Its been an extremely controversial debate within world basketball and would like to see people opinions of it in here.

So do you like it or not.

I like them, it took me time to convince me but i got there. I will get round to typing why in a bit.

[Deleted]

It boils down to player welfare for me

[SamH]

Personally I don't see why players can't play in the summer when it doesn't interfere with their contractual duties. Guys don't stop playing in the off season anyway, they practice and play pickup games, so why not play for your country and kill two birds with one stone.

[spacejammer]

Jan 9, 2022 21:47:46 GMT SamH said:

Personally I don't see why players can't play in the summer when it doesn't interfere with their contractual duties. Guys don't stop playing in the off season anyway, they practice and play pickup games, so why not play for your country and kill two birds with one stone.

I think it depends on who you are, as i remember someone on the old board said if you play for your country and get injured badly you risk damaging your team career if you need to sit out or can no longer play.

I also believe it may have something to do with insurance as well which has stopped Team GB affording their past NBA players and if the country's sports governing body is willing to invest.

After London 2012 and every Olympics sports England/UK sport reviewed and took away funding from alot of sports including basketball that had little to no chance of success.

On the personal perspective if your an NBA player and playing 82 games a season plus playoff matches sometimes you need a rest and recover after such a long season.

If it was me and got the chance to represent my country in any sport at any level I would take pride in it and try to get involved in the national team as much as possible.

And if your in the the NBA but not from the US where countries don't have unlimited NBA talent options to chose from your probably more obliged to play unless you have a good excuse not to.

[sm11]

Yeah i hate it when i hear about how nba players are discouraged by there coaches/agents to skip international tournaments, after all as you say sam they have to train some where and you know what history shows that showing up at these tournaments often leads to a player making huge improvements the following season, see Derrick Rose in 2010 and Stephen Curry in 2014 going from ok players to MVPs following a showing at the World Cup.

But when it comes to qualifiers it goes even lower down the priority list and there are growing examples of NBA players and Euroleaguers often skipping them anyway regardless of in or out of season. I dont think the squad line ups of the current in season qualifiers would turn out that horrendously different than if you lumped them all in the summer.

The big controversy that has arose of course is that Euroleague dont stop for these qualifiers meaning that some of the best european based players often join the national teams late, or for only the second game or not at all.

A lot of fans (thankfully not all) but a lot of vocal ones online at least defend euroleagues stance, they want to be treated equally to the NBA who obviously would never stop for this, i can see where they are coming from but there are still some fundamental differences in all of this.

For decades FIBA and the Olympics had no interest in the NBA, they were amateur and the NBA was professional. Back in say the 50s and 60s i wouldnt be surprised that if offered the NBA would have jumped at the opportunity of having its players in the Olympic games and perhaps a more respectable approach to the international caldendar may have developed within the NBA back then, but the NBA was shunned. Obviously eventually they married up much later when the NBA had already established itself in the global sporting market and therefore doesnt really owe FIBA or the olympics anything. Im grateful that they have agreements to allow players to join up in the off season for tournaments (even if certain people involved try to mess that up) but i dont think FIBA can tell them to reshape there season at this point. If NBA decide to one day stop these qualifiers, they never will, but if they did then it will be there choice to do so.

But when euroleague decides to play there games during qualifiers it doesnt sit comfortably with me. There trajectory through the history of basketball is much different to the NBA's. They start out as a football style champions league, british teams would often enter as national champions and its popularity has risen with the international side of the game. For every Maccabi Tel Aviv that inspired there countrys interest in the sport there is a Soviet Union, a Yugoslavia, a Greece, a Germany whos booms begin as certain National team exploits occurred. ULEB led the breakaway of the Euroleague into an independent competition at the start of the millenium but the bottom line is that they owe a lot of there popularity to international basketball so its incredibly disrespecting of them have the stance that they are adopting when all FIBA is asking is for 2 weeks, just 2, when they could easily just slot those rounds into another couple of double weeks not to mention that phantom week off they didnt used to have at the end of the regular season, theres 1 easy week to use.

I do like the Euroleague i would love to see the day that the euroleague is seen in the same light as the NBA, i in some ways already do and im not alone in that, but international basketball is what will help them achieve that, approaching this situation with a bit more of a sharing attitude will help there public image far more than the stance they have now. Considering the harm to there image that closing up the league more and more over the years has done to them, then throw in the whole Football European Super League being condemned by prime ministers and folding within days, the proposed football league competition model was identical to that of Euroleague. I think Euroleague should be worried about there public image right now and stopping for the qualifiers will be a big step in the right direction.

Regardless of all the above politics i still prefer having these qualifiers in the season, as i alluded in another thread ive adopted 2 different BBL clubs as my team in the past and both would fold. National teams are all i will now probably ever have so to spread there activity through out the year a bit is for myself far more satisfying.

[stepback3]

Its no surprise to me that GB has benefitted from the in season qualifiers. More guys available of an even standard.