Men's Basketball FIBA European Championship 2022

Cobi · September 10, 2022

On 9/10/2022 at 9:11 PM, Makedonas said:

What connection has Lorenzo Brown with Spain? For me, Spain should be embarrassed. They have such great history in the sport, so many great players, big population, and they still had to go and naturalise an American who has never even played in the Spanish league?!

It's bad enough we have countries like Bosnia, Montenegro, FYROM etc always with their token American who never stepped foot in their country before getting citizenship, (and don't get me started on Turkey also), but for Spain this is quite pathetic in my opinion. I am sorry if that sounds rude but they are really better than that and shouldn't have to naturalise players when they are a very good team as it is.

Dorsey's

And before anyone says anything about the Greek team, mother is half Greek and lived in Athens when she was young (and he plays for Olympiacos), the Antetokounmpo brothers were born and raised in Athens, and Calathes' paternal grandparents are from Limnos island (and he played for Panathinaikos for like 10 years), so it's very different.

Expand

I don't see the problem. It is legal to have a naturalised player in your team and this year all the top playmakers were injured or unavailable due to personal reasons (mainly Ricky Rubio and Sergio Rodríguez), so the only decent choices were to call Juan Núñez, who is only 18 and not very experienced against senior teams or call Lorenzo Brown. Spain has reached the semifinals for 10 editions in a row and the federation wants to keep this record going.

There is no much difference between this case and Dorsey, where the only connection is having a parent who lived there for a few years but was fully raised in the US :rolleyes: .

Furthermore, even with Brown, who is not consistent at all, this Spanish team is quite weak after the retirement of Pau and Marc Gasol, Juan Carlos Navarro or Felipe Reyes and also key players Sergio Llull and Ricky Rubio are injured...

Makedonas · September 10, 2022

On 9/10/2022 at 10:10 PM, Cobi said:

I don't see the problem. It is legal to have a naturalised player in your team and this year all the top playmakers were injured or unavailable due to personal reasons (mainly Ricky Rubio and Sergio Rodríguez), so the only decent choices were to call Juan Núñez, who is only 18 and not very experienced against senior teams or call Lorenzo Brown. Spain has reached the semifinals for 10 editions in a row and the federation wants to keep this record going.

There is no much difference between this case and Dorsey, where the only connection is having a parent who lived there for a few years but was fully raised in the US .

Furthermore, even with Brown, who is not consistent at all, this Spanish team is quite weak after the retirement of Pau and Marc Gasol, Juan Carlos Navarro or Felipe Reyes and also key players Sergio Llull and Ricky Rubio are injured...

Expand

My friend, this is just wrong. Dorsey has GREEK ANCESTRY via his mother (in ADDITION to her living in Greece), so he comes from a half-Greek family, and he played for Olympiacos too, that is why I asked what is Brown's connection to Spain. It seems that the connection is none. Spain has the best league in Europe and yet he never even played there...

There are many years where we were missing key players due to injury and instead of trying to find someone from another country, we went with what we had and tried our best, even if the results in the end were not what he wanted. For me I am proud that we show up with what we have and are not so desperate to win.

That's why I am surprised with Spain, especially because they have been so successful. You guys should be above these "cheap tactics." You're better than that.

Congratulations for the win and maybe we meet in SF

Cobi · September 11, 2022

The problem of being successful for so many years is that if you do not meet some minimums, both the coach and the president of the federation would be in trouble. At least in football and in basketball, which are the two main sports in the country.

In football Spain has never failed to qualify for a World Cup since 1978 and has always been top8 in all the EuroBaskets since 1979. Therefore, reaching these levels is a requirement for all teams.

Other big European teams are also using this rule in their favor (Mike Tobey with Slovenia or Joel Embiid with France for the Olympics). And even with Brown, winning a medal is quite unlikely for this team. The main goal of the year was to reach QF/SF and qualify for the 2023 World Cup. Otherwise, it would have been an embarrassment for this sport, specially after failing to qualify for the Women's World Cup.