Anonymous
Years ago
International teams we could beat consistently?
Yet again, we show that we as strong team as we would like, or we think worldwide (yes yes, trolling, and we do well for our size!). Although we all love hoops I really think we have to come to grips with the fact that we are basically a 15 - 20th strength team in the world, if that.
If we had to qualify through Europe we might not be at the Olympics, or if there was a competition such as the soccer world cup (I know FIBA are either looking at that or will do it soon) we would struggle to make the top 12.
If you look at the teams that are strongest in Europe we would not be able to consistently beat many of them at all and have shown that we struggle with the strongest South American teams as well.
So for the sake of argument below is a list of the top 20 international teams. My question is which of these teams could we beat 6 times out of 10, or in a best of 7 series. Assume all teams have all players available.
USA - no
Spain - no
Argentina - no, perhaps in 3 years
Greece - if they were not paying any attention
Lithuania - no
Turkey - wish I could say yes but I have my doubts
Italy - look at their roster NO
Serbia - no
China - yes
Russia - no
France - no
Brazil - no
Germany - dirk and kaman, no
Angola - yep
Puerto Rico - guards are way to good and they have size no
Slovenia - hopefully
New Zealand - yep
Croatia - gonna say yes but not super confidant
Nigeria - Id like ot think so so yep
Dominican Republic - yep
