Eurobasket 2009

[tamburello]

The playoff for the last spot in Eurobasket goes on, in which France and Bosnia have now huge advantage for the playoff final. If France beats Finland tomorrow, they'll guarantee the spot at final.

Also some preparation tournaments go on as well. A tournament in GB recently ended. Turkey won it by beating GB, Israel and Poland all.

Today I was able to watch the last match between Turkey and Poland. Poland led the majority of the game, but in the last period, Turkey took control and won by 8. Ersan İlyasova, who returned to NBA with Milwaukee Bucks, scored 23 points. I'd really like Bobcats make an offer to him, since he had a great season with Barcelona, he is really versatile forward with a good outside shooting and wonderful rebounding ability. He's also a great athlete for a white guy. He will definitely make his name heard this year. Also Hedo Türkoğlu was defended with double teams during the whole match, but he was able to find his teammates. These two players will carry the load during EB.

On the other hand, Poland looks very improved although Marcin Gortat was out with an injury. Maciej Lampe is the leader of the team. He's no longer the young journeyman of NBA, he's still young but experienced and one of the premier centers in Europe. Maybe you can remember David Logan, who led NCAA 2 in 2005 in scoring average. He was naturalized by Poland and represents them. He is a great scorer and will be very helpful to Poland. But besides those two players and Gortat, Poland has a thin roster and I don't think they'll be able to beat either Lithuania or Turkey in the group stage.

[bing!]

Bosnia must avoid losing by 5+ points tomorrow v Belgium in order to secure the final round of additional qualifiers. Whoever advances must face (Dirk-less) Germany, Latvia & Russia, which gives fair chances to both teams (Bosnia or France).

Tamb, besides Spain, who's your favourite to win the Eurobasket? I say, Greece & Lithuania.

[tamburello]

Tamb, besides Spain, who's your favourite to win the Eurobasket? I say, Greece & Lithuania.

bing, as you said Spain are the frontrunners and they will participate the tournament with almost all of their best players (only Calderon is absent I guess). I could safely bet that Spain would win even if they'd be also without Pau Gasol, since they have 2 more above good centers in Fran Vazquez and Marc Gasol. Rudy Fernandez, Jorge Garbajosa (the man I love), Ricky Rubio, Navarro all will be there. These guys are enough to bring the title.

I think this championship will be a little below the expected level, since majority of the premier teams will participate without some major players. As I said in the other thread, Lithuania will miss Siskauskas and Jasikevicius, defending champions Russia will be without Kirilenko and JR Holden. Germany is always a medal threat with Nowitzki, without him they can barely make quarters.

If they don't meet before, I think final will be Spain - Greece. Greece also has significant missing players (Diamantidis and Papaloukas). They theoratically have the best PG trio of Europe (yes, even better than Navarro-Rubio-Lopez trio of Spain IMHO), they are experienced, tough as rock on defence, they still are the best of the rest.

My dark horse would be France (if they make the champs of course), they are participating with their best roster possible (only Noah is absent). Parker would be the MVP of the tournament regardless where France finishes.

As I said, we can see a surprise team making finals, Greece, France and Lithuania have the best chances, but young Serbia and even my Turkey would make a surprise

[bing!]

Finland beat France 77-73. It' hard to believe, but, there it is.

[tamburello]

Belgium has beaten Bosnia and Portugal consecutively, now France and Belgium will play twice on 27th and 30th. France is very close to the championship.

[bing!]

Well, gag me and throw me off a bridge, Belgium won by 2 points, had they lost, France would be facing Bosnia in the final round. Boris and the rest of the crew shouldn't have any troubles advancing to the final tournament, though, Finland has shown that even the mighty can fall.

[Walt Cronkite]

So things kick off on September 7th? Think I could trouble you guys to give me a breakdown of the team between now and then?

I liked watching Russia play last summer (not that it helped them win, just saying that I remember them being enjoyable to root for. I'm a Bobcat fan after all...), but without Holden and Kirilenko, I guess I should have low expectations? Still, they are a grimy club, so I think they could be surprising. That said, I don't know anything about Latvia outside of watching Biedrins, but that German squad looks pretty uninspiring, so I can't see them NOT making the qualifying round.

In group A, Greece and Croatia look to be as tough as always, how legit is Israel? Outside of Samardziski, I don't recognize a single name on the Macedonia roster list that I'm looking at.

What are Great Britain's chances of making it to the qualifying round? Tamburello, I know you said they recently hosted a tournament, did you see them? How did they look? They have to be the underdog of their group, right?

Look forward to talking int'l hoops!

[tamburello]

First of all, we should not forget that none of the teams out there will join with their full power (excluding the countries without NBA players). That's why any comment here would turn out to be ridiculous in the tournament. Any surprise result can be observed. Anyway, I'd like to say something by dividing them into groups.

In Group A, Greece and Croatia will advance easily, between Israel and Macedonia I choose Israel for elimination. Generally Israel has better players, but Macedonia's naturalized American player Jeremiah Massey will be the best player on the court and he can make difference. Even if Israel wins, they cannot see beyond qualifiers.

Croatia is participating with a solid roster. Almost all of their best players will be there, most importantly Nikola Vujcic will be with them after skipping quite a few tournaments. Croatia is my current dark horse. Greece will be without their two best players to me (Papaloukas and Diamantidis, the best defensive guard of Europe), however I still see them making the finals. Also I really wonder what kind of guy Nick Calathes is...

Group B, Latvia will probably be out. They have a very thin roster. Even Nowitzki-less Germany is better than them. Assuming France wins playoff final, I think they are the best team of this group and they could make all the way up to semis. I said in a previous post, Tony Parker is my #1 candidate for the MVP of the tournament. Germany cannot make quarters.

About Russia, I don't know what to say. They've just recently lost to Lithuania by 17. Kirilenko is a much different player while playing for Russia, without him Russia can make only quarters. http://www.eurobasket.com/Russia/bas...?NewsID=170245

In Group C, GB has no chance to make qualifying round, not at all I've watched their game against Turkey, without Deng, GB is a team with full of players below average. Joel Freeland is a good player but he is a keeper like Nowitzki by no means. Mensah-Bonsu worked out his contract in NBA, might join them, but he's not a difference maker.

Actually this group is the worst group they could be drawn in. Spain is the clear favorite of the tournament even without Calderon. I have nothing to say about them. Slovenia and Serbia has very deep basketball roots, somehow they manage to put mediocre roster in worst case. I don't know but somehow I trust the young guys of Serbia, Teodosic, Erceg, etc. Slovenia is weakened after Nesterovic retired from Int. BB and Vujacic is injured, but they still have Lakovic, Udrih, Nachbar, E. Lorbek.

Group D is an interesting one. Lithuania will play without 4 key players (Jasikevicius, Siskauskas, Songaila, Kaukenas) but they are still the favorites of this group. Turkey would be second, Poland would be third. Poland has a good team but the third of this group will have to face Spain in the qualifying round. I don't see Turkey falling to third spot.

There will be a tournament in my city, Ankara, with participation of Turkey, Germany, Croatia, GB, Latvia and Macedonia starting tomorrow. I've tickets for the all possible games (10) I will watch some teams 4 times, hopefully I'd have better ideas about those teams

[Walt Cronkite]

Thanks for the info! I look forward to reading your thoughts from those games.

[Walt Cronkite]

So, we're a day away... any thoughts?