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AK Sucks in Olympics Operner Vs. GB -- only scores 35

Eenie-Meenie said:
Saw it too, and was surprised he didn't play those last four seconds when they needed him for defense. Whose decision was it, the coach or the trainer? It looked like a cut and it was bleeding. Maybe because of that they weren't allowed to put him in. But yeah, I thought he should've been in there. It might've prevented that open look for Mills.
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yeah not sure what the story was here as i haven't watched that game yet... but it's worth noting that russia didn't need to win that game. they've already clinched #1 in their group, which means they'll have the top seed on their half of the bracket and not have to face USA until the gold medal game.

ak (26), shved (17), mozgov (11) and others played fewer minutes than their usual. i think blatt recognized that, while it would be nice to finish group play undefeated, russia could afford to give some of their role players some extra opportunities.

still, ak managed 13-6-2-2-1 in 26 minutes. not too shabby.
 
assuming USA beats ARG and ESP beats BRA, here would be the brackets:

A1 USA _
B4 AUS

B2 ESP _
A3 ARG

---

B1 RUS _
A4 LTU

A2 FRA _
B3 BRA

honestly, i don't think russia could have asked for a more favorable bracket. that USA got stuck in a bracket with spain & argentina is lucky news for russia. they're all but assured a medal at this point.
 
France and Brazil have some quality players I think, and Lithuania has had good teams in the past.
I hope you are right, since I'd like to see Andrei's team do well.
 
yeah obviously all 8 of those teams have good players, or else they wouldn't have made the oly top 8. i'm just saying that getting argentina and spain -- two favorites to medal coming into this thing -- to cannibalize each other and then have one knocked off by the USA is good fortune for russia. in a more balanced bracket, you'd have USA, ESP, ARG and RUS spread out. but now one of ESP/ARG will have no hope of getting on the podium, and the other one will most likely have to fight for the bronze.

russia's biggest obstacle to medal will now be france, but even if they fall short of silver/gold by losing to france (doubtful), they still will have a backup shot at bronze.
 
Player Position Height Weight Pro Team

Tony Parker Point Guard 6'2" 180 San Antonio Spurs

Nando De Colo Guard 6'5" 200 San Antonio Spurs

Yannick Bokolo Guard 6'3" 180 Gravelines Dunkerque

Fabien Causeur Guard 6'4" 195 Saski Baskonia

Nicolas Batum Small Forward 6'8" 200 Portland Trail Blazers

Mickael Gelabale Forward 6'7" 215 Khimki Moscow

Boris Diaw Forward 6'8" 235 San Antonio Spurs

Yakhouba Diawara Forward 6'7" 225 Cimbero Varese

Florent Pietrus Forward 6'7" 220 Valencia Basket

Kevin Seraphin PF/Center 6'9" 270 Washington Wizards

Ali Traore PF/Center 6'10" 250 Lokomotiv Kuban

Ronny Turiaf Center 6'10" 245 Miami Heat

Maybe I'm missing something, but I see 6 NBA players on the roster, including one guy who arguably might be the best point in the NBA.

If Kirilenko's team beats Parker's team , I will be impressed.
 
northeast said:
Maybe I'm missing something, but I see 6 NBA players on the roster, including one guy who arguably might be the best point in the NBA.

If Kirilenko's team beats Parker's team , I will be impressed.
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well calling de colo an NBA guy is a little hard since he hasn't played a single NBA minute. and turiaf & seraphin are NBA players, but they're not very good ones. if the goal is just to find a few guys who, without regard for quality, have some kind of NBA affiliation, i can do that with russias roster (shved, mozgov, khryapa, monia, AK).

but the point is that russie is just playing better than anybody right now. they have more depth than france and size that france will have a hard time matching up against.

in the current FIBA rankings, russia is 3rd behind only USA and spain. france is 8th, behind those 3 and also argentina, australia, lithuania and brazil. in other words, it would be an upset if france beat russia. certainly possible, but still an upset.
 
holy crap, brazil beat spain. looking at the minute distribution, it seems an awful lot like spain might have wanted to lose to avoid having to play argentina & USA in the first two rounds of bracket play, but then i didn't see the game. anybody watch that and have an opinion?

anyway, the only pending game from group play is USA-ARG. assuming USA takes care of business, here is the new bracket for 8-team playoff:

A1 USA _
B4 AUS

B2 BRA _
A3 ARG

---

B1 RUS _
A4 LTU

A2 FRA _
B3 ESP

my predictions: USA / ARG and RUS / ESP in the second round. that looks more like what you'd expect in terms of a final four, and now russia's path to the podum looks a little tougher. they squoze by spain once, so if they can do it again they are guaranteed at least silver. but if they come up short against spain, they still have a shot at bronze by beating argentina. they'd be favored in that matchup, but that could go either way, too.
 
I don't know all those guys, they were still good enough to be on NBA rosters, but didn't Diaw just kick Jazz *** in the playoffs? I notice that they've got 3 guys from the Spurs roster, which means they know how to play together.

I've heard Batum's name , I am guessing he is not chopped liver, although I don't know his game. I have seen Turiaf, I know that he used to have skills, so I'll bet he still might have some skills in a pinch, even if he has not in his prime, similar to how Miller for his team came through in the clutch when given the chance in a pressure situation.

and the crown jewel of my argument is Parker, who i notice you neglect to mention.
I'm just saying that they have got 6 guys from NBA rosters, and one of them is one of the best players in the NBA.

Too bad for them Noah is out. I was not aware of the rankings, and I am not arguing with them, I am just saying that if the Russians can beat a France team that includes Parker and several other NBA players , I would say that this is a significant accomplishment for Andrei.
 
northeast said:
I don't know all those guys, they were still good enough to be on NBA rosters, but didn't Diaw just kick Jazz *** in the playoffs? I notice that they've got 3 guys from the Spurs roster, which means they know how to play together.
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diaw and parker have only played together for about a third of one season. de colo hasn't played with either guy in the NBA as he'll be a rookie with the spurs this coming season. (he's a veteran of the ACB, but has never played in the NBA.)

I've heard Batum's name , I am guessing he is not chopped liver, although I don't know his game.
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batum has some potential, but so far is little more than an average small forward.

I have seen Turiaf, I know that he used to have skills, so I'll bet he still might have some skills in a pinch, even if he has not in his prime, similar to how Miller for his team came through in the clutch when given the chance in a pressure situation.
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he's an energy-and-hustle guy, but he has had one season where his PER was above the league average.

and the crown jewel of my argument is Parker, who i notice you neglect to mention.
I'm just saying that they have got 6 guys from NBA rosters, and one of them is one of the best players in the NBA.

Too bad for them Noah is out.
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i only neglected to mention parker because he's the guy i can't argue with you on. when france and russie play, parker will be the best player on the floor, hands down.

but my argument is that, after parker, russia wins the debate on depth. and the FIBA rankings bear me out on that. france is going to be the underdog in any game they play from this point on, especially now that they have to face spain (#2 in the FIBA rankings) to even advance and face russia. there's a really good chance that this france-vs-russia debate will be rendered moot, because spain is the heavy, heavy favorite against france.
 
Spain didn't lose intentionally, but they had a big lead and took out their starters and with both team's benches playing, Brazil caught up, and then Barbosa got on a roll, and they left Spain in the dust.
 
theNBAnerd said:
holy crap, brazil beat spain. looking at the minute distribution, it seems an awful lot like spain might have wanted to lose to avoid having to play argentina & USA in the first two rounds of bracket play, but then i didn't see the game. anybody watch that and have an opinion?
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Nah, basketball isn't that important. Scandals are reserved for the life and death sports like badminton.
 
I believe that Spain did lose on purpose to avoid playing the USA before the finals. I sure hope they lose before that, so we can beat them again for the bronze medal. NO WAY we lose to Argentina. Brazil only lost 1 game so far, to Russia, on a last minute 3 pointer. Two weeks before the games started we made the US "sweat a little" to beat us over in Las Vegas.

Pardon adressing the brazilian team as "we". That's how we're used to saying it dow here :-)
 
I'll admit Ak was pretty awesome today. Got to watch the game on AFN over here in Germany. AK was the player we saw in our first two years.
He was a force on both ends of the court. Really fun to watch.

I think he'll have a good year for the Twolves if he can stay healthy. The problem is I just don't think he can.
His body, and game are meant for Europe. He's a top 5 player over here, and a superstar.
 
I'm not surprised to see AK do well in Olympics just like I wasn't surprised to see him do well for CSKA. The undertone of this whole thread seems to be that we don't recognize that AK has talent.

Just because I think he has talent doesn't mean that I think he deserved the max contract that he got from the Jazz, and I don't think he deserves the 2yr/20mill contract he got from Minnesota.

It has been mentioned previously that AK thrives when he's the best player on the court. This happens a lot in international play, but it rarely if ever happens in the NBA. The Jazz didn't misuse his talents. The Jazz would have been a worse team if they had tailored their game to suit AKs needs. AK needed and still needs to adjust his game to be a valuable 2nd and 3rd option on the court because there is not a team in the NBA where he will be the first option like he is when he plays internationally.

Personally, I really liked AK. My wife had his jersey and we cheered for him loudly while he was here. But, he was wildly inconsistent, often injured, and seemed unwilling/unable to fill the role that we needed him to fill for the last several years of his contract here. I wish him luck in Minnesota, but unless they cater their play style to him, he won't do any better there than he did here. And, since Minnesota has better players, I don't see them doing that.
 
"Russia won its group in the preliminary round, beating medal favorites Brazil and Spain in the process. Those tight wins gained the Russians a few believers, but most international hoop experts didn't think they belonged in the same company with the Americans, Argentina, Spain, France or Brazil."

The associated press does not agree that Russia was ranked above France.
 
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