Category: International Basketball Blog

International basketball blog

Garcia Reneses quits as Spain basketball coach

The AP reports: Aito Garcia Reneses has quit as Spain’s basketball coach after leading the national team to a silver medal at the Beijing Olympic Games. Garcia Reneses made use of a clause in his contract which allows him to vacate the position after the games, the Spanish basketball federation announced Tuesday. “I don’t want to coach only for two months a year. At present, I prefer to be active throughout the season,” said Garcia Reneses, who is expected to take over at Spanish club Unicaja.

Airline loses Ginobili’s luggage

The San Antonio Express-News (Mike Monroe) reports: After more than an hour on a runway in Beijing, another 12 in the air, an hour clearing customs at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport and three more waiting for a connecting flight, Spurs star Manu Ginobili arrived at San Antonio International Airport late Monday night and discovered the truth about heroes. When it comes to lost luggage, Olympic medalists get no special favors. Missing were three of the four bags he and his wife had checked in Beijing, where Ginobili collected a bronze medal as the leading scorer for the Argentine Olympic team. “I actually got 25 percent — three out of four (were missing),” Ginobili said.

International basketball court to Americanize

The New York Times (Howard Beck) reports: Winning Olympic gold in Beijing depended partly on Team USA’s ability to cope with the unfamiliar geometry of the international game: a trapezoidal lane, a shallow 3-point arc and a contorted array of driving lanes. But in two years, the trapezoid will be dead, the arc will be a little deeper and the international game will be a bit closer in style to the N.B.A.’s. The lane will become a rectangle, emulating the United States model. The arc will move to 6.75 meters (22.1 feet) — closer to the N.B.A. standard of 22 feet 9 inches — from 6.25 meters (20.5 feet). The changes were among several adopted, to little fanfare, by the International Basketball Federation, known as FIBA, in April. The new rules take effect after the world championships in 2010, so they will be in place for the 2012 Olympics in London. The intent is to sharpen the international game and to make it more uniform from one hemisphere to another, at all levels of play. But the changes will undoubtedly provide a subtle lift to a United States team that probably needs no help.

InsideHoops.com editor says: Regardless of which international team it helps in the somewhat near future, the idea that the entire world will be playing on the same basketball court is a good one, and ultimately does benefit the collective basketball universe in the long run.

More from the New York Times (Howard Beck): In FIBA’s view, the 3-point shot has become too common. In 1984, when the arc was added in international play, only 14 percent of all field-goal attempts were 3-pointers, Baumann said. Now, he added, that number is 40 percent and players routinely make 38 to 40 percent of them. “The board felt that’s no longer now an exceptional shot,” Baumann said. “It felt something needed to be done.”

Lakers sign Sun Yue

The Lakers have officially added “the Chinese Magic Johnson” to their 2008-09 roster, but don’t expect anything remotely similar to Magic. Not on the court, and no bad late night talk-show hosting, either – unless that’s a hobby of Sun’s I don’t know about. As for Yue as a player, I’ve seen him in limited doses, enough to recognize that he’s versatile and pretty good. But I think the Lakers will only expect minor contributions from him this season. If they get anything more than that, it’ll be considered a nice surprise and a bonus. –Jeff

Here’s the full news release:

The Los Angeles Lakers have signed Sun Yue to a multi-year contract, it was announced today. Per team policy, terms of the agreement were not released.

Originally selected by the Lakers in the second round (40th overall) of 2007 NBA draft, the 6-9 guard started for the Chinese National Team this past month in the men’s basketball tournament at the Beijing Olympics. In six games, Sun averaged 6.8 points, 1.7 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.33 steals in 28.0 minutes.

Playing for the Beijing Aoshen Olympians of the American Basketball Association for the past three seasons, Sun, 23, was named First Team All-ABA in both 2007 and 2008 while earning Second-Team All-ABA honors in 2006.

Posting a 12-point, 14-rebound, 12-assist, 8-block, 4-steal triple-double against the L.A. Aftershock during his rookie season in the ABA (2005-06), Sun averaged 13.5 points, 6.0 rebounds and 10.5 assists in 2006-07 when the team played its home games at Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, CA before moving to Singapore for the 2007-08 season.

Spurs should be angry at Ginobili

If I was the Spurs, I’d be really angry that a guy I pay an incredible amount of money continues to spend his summers playing in international competitions instead of resting and getting fully healthy for the NBA season.

Ginobili wasn’t fully healthy much of last season, especially in the playoffs. So what does he do this summer? Play in the Olympics, and get injured. This makes me want to look into contracts a bit more and find out how many players have control of whether they play summer international ball vs. how many have to get the OK from the team. Obviously insurance money is a factor, but I don’t know how much of one and now I want to find out.

In the ideal world, if a player participates in non-NBA activity like summer international competitions, and gets injured, his NBA team shouldn’t have to pay him while he heals.

LeBron is all-world unguardable

I’m watching USA vs Germany, in the last game of the preliminary round. And anytime LeBron James has the ball, it’s simply unfair. When he does something, it isn’t just good, it’s mind-blowing and absurd. It’s like he’s being guarded by Division 3 college players.

The USA is up 51-23 with under two minutes left in the first half. Dirk Nowitzki and Chris Kaman don’t add up to anything even close to enough. The USA will win. Next up for the USA is the quarterfinals in two days, and then the tournament is single-elimination.

And, just as I was about to post this, Germany went on a bit of a run. At the half it’s 53-29, USA up.

Anyway, yeah, LeBron’s sorta good and stuff.

Luol Deng may miss Euro qualifying event

The AP reports: Luol Deng could be forced to miss Great Britain’s qualifying campaign for the 2009 European Championship because the team can’t find an insurer to cover the forward’s lucrative new six-year contract with the Chicago Bulls. The national team is exploring solutions to the problem with the NBA and the Bulls, who gave Deng a new deal last month reportedly worth up to US$80 million.

Kobe took stupid, forced shots against Greece

The title really says it all. I don’t care what the stats or scoreboard says. The majority of Kobe’s shot attempts were tough, forced, stupid shots that shouldn’t be taken.

Why does he feel a need to shoot when there’s a defender right on him? Why not drive, and if defenders approach, dish off? And only shoot when open?

He’s been doing this throughout the tournament so far. Stop it, Kobe.