Greece (V-Span) vs. United States (Battier), 6:30 a.m, Friday, Sept. 1

Depends on the role. I'd assume as a center, knowing there aren't many good around, he'd prefer to go to a team that he has more chances to play a lot for. And to win that, it must come through working and expanding his moves and losing some possible extra weight.

Anyway, I was more referring to the player actually wanting this, knowing what happened with Fotsis, when he rushed to NBA sirens before working on his game enough(If Fotsis waited till this year to make his transition, i believe he'd be succesful). There are still weaknesses in his game.

Besides his contract with the Athenean team is till 2010, though probably he could break it for NBA. But there are other dangers for young players, he must be careful and keep his brain in his head with all the worldwide praise.

 

Who was guarding V-Span?

 

Jonas Kazlauskas and the rest of the coaching staff stayed to watch and study how the other teams play.

The rest of the national team returned to China and was disbanded. Players went home for their vacation (i.e. back to their own cities/provinces), except for 2: Chen Jianghua and Yao Ming.

Chen Jianghua flied Urumqi to join the junior national team to participate in the Asian Junior Championship. China won their first game over a hapless Kyrgyzstan 105 vs 41 today.

Yao Ming stayed in Beijing; but he is too persistent and workaholic that he did not stop his daily strength and conditioning exercises and shootout practice.

http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=2476963&postcount=801

He will spend the next couple of days in Beijing until September 6, when he will fly back to Shanghai to be with his family (and girl friend Ye Li).....He will then be flying back to Houston shortly after his 26th birthday, which is September 12.

 

If I am not mistaken, positional wise, it should be Dywane Wade or Lebron James.

 

im not reading 26 pages to see how vspan did i see the stats but how did he play?

 

He was extremely impressive both on offense and defense. Kill Bill kills!

 

YUP he was so clutch.....His buzzer penetration and layup at the end of 3Q stretched Greek lead back to 12 points; his 3-pointer in the last stretch of 4Q (approximately 2 minutes before end of game) extended Greeks' lead back to 8 points, which virtually put the last nail on the coffin for the USA NBA All Stars.

What I like him best is his demeanours on court.....pretty cool, nice dribble, great telepathy with his team mates, pretty selfless, always seems to find the right team mates to pass, always gives high-5s and encouraging words/gestures to team mates.

I only wish he could have an easy adaptation into the US culture & environment and gel into the Rockets O&D systems seemlessly in the new season....then he + Battier + Yao Ming + TMAC + the other supporting role players could lead this team to NBA Ultimate pinnacle........the Championship.

 

Iverson could have shut down V-Span and taken him to school on the offensive end. he could have take the ball to the hole, split the defense, find Battier or get to the line, and get some steals and draw some charges. at least play better than freaking Hinrich and the inexperienced Chris Paul. oh well. too bad, too sad.

 

so he is a pg or a sg

 

What's the over/under of him starting by the season's end?

 

It's a lot harder to penetrate against a zone defense.

 

How about we change the single elimination format to a more convincing special 4-game series: each game plays 10 minutes, a short break between the games, and the team has higher accumulate score wins. Does that satisfy those luck-theorist?

Although at the end of an elimination game, there are only two outcomes:win or lose, it is not as a simple process as you flop a coin. One game contains many plays. The botton line is, after so many plays in 40 munites and you lose, It is very likely you are not much better than your opponent. And if you are not much better than your opponent, you still have non-neglegible chance of losing best of seven. That is the thing those best of seven guys fail to admit.

 

he shot the best in the tournament. i'm pretty sure that makes him their best shooter.

 

I thought it was consistency over a long period that mattered, and not what happens just in the course of 5-6 games During the course of the Euroleague for example, he shot just 27% while Spanoulis shot 37% (and with more efforts) from the 3p line so one could argue that Spanoulis is a better shooter than Diamantidis. Anyway, I never said he wasn't a good shooter, it's just that I could mention 3 other Greeks that are better shooters than him.

And something to close this debate about if the world championship should be decided in a best-of series or about the difference in rules between the NBA and FIBA. All this talk means just one thing - the gap between American and international basketball is closed. I can't imagine or remember anyone talking about all that when the Dream Team was playing, and rightly so. Or when Team USA won the WC on 94 and the 96 Olympics. They also had to deal with single elimination and they had no problem with it. Back then it would have been considered a folly to ponder whether an NBA all-star team could lose, under any set of rules. These days, it's a hot topic. To me, it sounds like an excuse, which isn't bad in itself, I always try to find excuses when my team loses, it's a natural response to defeat. But the fact that finally, Team USA "needs" to find excuses (the single elimination, the rules, if we had Koby & Shaq etc.) shows that the huge gap has been filled. And that isn't a bad thing at all. The lack of an "unbeatable" team gives much more interest to any sport. Isn't the NBA more interesting now than when you knew that no matter how hard you fought, in the end Jordan and the Bulls would come on top? Being first among equals is a lot better for the sport of basketball and much more satisfying than being first between no competition at all. If USA manages to win the gold at 08 after a lot of hard games, I think it'd be more enjoyable to them than winning it with a 40-point average lead.

 

I only watched part of it ..but I'm very impressed...when they first signed him, I thought he would contirbute but not that much...now I think he can be a 20-25 mintute guy for us if not a starter midway through if he can adapt to the NBA style game...im' so damn excited about the season now....

 

Iverson didn't help the USA win in Athens, where they lost 3 times. Why do you think he'd help now?

 

Iverson wasn't the reason they lost 3 times. He played hard and created incredible matchup problesm on defense where int'l teams simply could not deal with his agility.

 

He wasn't the reason they lost, but his presence alone did not result in victory. He shot .380 for the tournament. It's going to take more than a single guy to break the int'l losing streak.

 

Losing streak? They lost 1 game out of 10, and beat the consensus "best REAL team" handily this morning.

We're talking about one game, anyway. Can one player make a difference in one game? certainly.

The margin for error in a one game tournament is small - but then it's a two way street, isn't it? That's how Rudy took a bunch of scrubs and nearly won the whole thing in 98.

That alone tells me that this thing is an exhibition between all star teams; it's fun, but really to draw grand conclusions from it and act like the basketball world is ending, which people tend to do every time the US doesn't go undefeated and win by a thousand million points, is silly.

 

When I say losing streak I'm talking about wbc 2002 (6th) olympics 2004 (3rd) and wbc 2006 (3rd). That's a losing streak.