Lithuania Down Germany To Take Seventh
3rd September, 2006 - 5:23 am
RealGM.com - Lithuania have beaten Germany 77-62 to take seventh place at the World Championships, leaving Dirk Nowitzki and the Germans in eighth place.
Darjus Lavrinovic scored 18 points for the Lithuanians, Denver's Linas Kleiza had 16, and Washington forward Darius Songaila had 13 points and 6 rebounds.
For Germany it was again Nowitzki who led the way with 18 points and 6 rebounds.
The WC should have been 8 teams max, with best of 5 at each round. Germany isn't anything but a football country. I figured the big, beefy Germans would be at least into international rugby, but aren't.
The world isn't catching up to USA, but Greece, Italy, Spain, Argentina and maybe France certainly are. Maybe when they "catch up" to USA, the USA will actually win the WC or again. Right, now they are enjoying being "behind" the USA.
Last edited by boutons_; 09-03-2006 at 10:35 AM.
In WC, the W stand for world. You can't only have teams from Europe and America. A goal of the FIBA is too to make BB a worlwide sport, you can't do that if interantional compe ions are only open to the best teams.
I like more direct eliminations games than best of 5, it's more exciting. Best of 7 are well suited for nba because deciding a le after 82 regular season games only on one game will be really strange. Don't forget too that if you add games to the WC, NBA teams will be more reluctant to let their players play with their NT.
The only thing that I don't like in the WC format is the first stage with 5 games, most of the games are boring and useless. To me the best format is the same the football worldcup : 32 teams divided in 8 groups of 4 teams with the two best qualified for eightfinals. Teams will play only 7 games (2 less than in this WC) and will be less tired at the end of the compe ion when games are the most interesting.
Having national teams get blown out on the WC stage in pool play and next round doesn't help much of anything.
The Greeks were shooting the lights out vs USA, then totally cold vs Spain.
Fewer teams, say 8, but with 3-game series would prevent such huge swings from one game to the next advancing/eliminating. Greece aren't as good as they were against USA, and they aren't as bad as they were vs Spain.
If only China and one other are best teams from Asia, fine, but we don't need to see also weak teams from KR, JP, NZ, AU in WC.
With 8 teams in the WC tourney, the winner would have to play 6 - 9 games max, not a whole bunch more than now.
It's fine the way it is, none of this silly round-robin for the medal round is needed. This is why many prefer the NCAA tourney over the NBA, teams cannot afford to be complacent, they have to bring it every time they play.
Last edited by ponky; 09-03-2006 at 12:29 PM.
Diasgree.
Even if they are blown out, a participation in a WC really help them : NT improve its level by spending one month to prepare the WC and by playing against best teams in the world, young players are more motivated to improve their level because WC is a very nice goal, kids can decide to play BB after watching the WC with their NT...
WC isn't a 100 games league. Being at 100% on 4 games (eightfinal, quarterfinal, semifinal, final) isn't too much to ask. If a team isn't able to be consistent on 4 games, it doesn't deserve to win.
There still are only 12 teams qualified for the olympics (with at least one team from each continent and the host), you can't have a WC with only 8 teams because teams like France, Germany, Slovenia, Lithuania, Italy, Serbia, Brazil, Puerto Rico... will almost never participate to a world compe ion.
I hate this about FIBA. Who the wants to play for 7th? It's a waste of time for everyone, and the players and fans don't even care anymore at that point. Who wants to keep playing in a tournament once you have been eliminated??? There's no point, once you don't win, it's over, go home.
Think about it. The players playing for 7th, 6th, 5th, etc probably wouldn't want to play because you don't take anything home, you have already been eliminated and aren't motivated enough to care anymore, and it's just another game where you risk getting injured when even if you win the game, nothing changes. And for the fans, do you think they care??? Absolutely not. What's the difference from placing 6th or 7th?
Even the bronze medal game IMHO is a waste of time and effort and more complications for everyone, including players, fans, coaches of the national team and the club teams, having to worry about their players. I guess they have to play the bronze medal game just so they can place the top 3 teams with their medals, but it's just rediculous having to play for 7th, 6th, and 5th.
you're wrong
France is happy to be 5th
they played the games
real compe or do the job until the end
France is happy with the 5th that is true. But the real reason is that they are young and want to ac ulate experience to prepare the next olympics. In that way these games can be usefull. I guess if all the french player were in there prime they would not have play so hard in the last games.
You must admit that some team don't care about being 5 or 8. To know who will be #5 you just have to know who is still motivated.
I think the classification games are boring and useless. Coaches try to reward bench players giving them playing time. Top players are trying not to get hurt instead of trying to win the game...
France is happy to be 5th
and more than happy to waive the white flag at the sight of a slingshot.
USA is failing in Irak the same way you failed in Vietnam. Soon, you will pull down your trousers and go back home. IMO You should avoid this type of comments. Don't take it personnaly I am also upset with french international politics. But USA don't have lessons to give to the world.
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