Minnesota Sports Forum

KiwiMatt wrote:I have just traveled through Philippines over the last few weeks. They are basketball mad there. Was a welcome change from the football (soccer) mad countries I had traveled through prior.

Indeed kiwi. They are really passionate about basketball. You can see courts in the middle of the street there and people play in sandals, slippers or even bare footed there.

They actually has pretty good guards. I will say they have the best guards in asia, The height factor is their disadvantage, hence they recruited blatche to match up with centers of other countries.

monsterpile wrote:

worldK wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

Blatche is like half Filipino that's the connection. I didn't know that before this summer.

Actually Blanche has zero Filipino blood. He was recruited and agreed to be naturalized as a Filipino citizen. He gets paid handsomely for his services and became a citizen of the Philippines as well, making it legally for him to do and own business and lands there. I think there is a rule in fibs that allows 1 naturalized player to play for a team. The Philippines has a different naturalized player representing them in other tournaments. Can only play one naturalized player per tournament.

I misread wikipedia. -hangs head in shame-

Monster, not sure how to take your posts. Was just relaying on what I know.

Senegal just beat Croatia. That's a huge upset. Gorgs leading the way!!!!

Q12543 wrote:Senegal just beat Croatia. That's a huge upset. Gorgs leading the way!!!!

This result is a shock to anyone who watched Senegal's first game...they looked terrible. This indeed is a huge upset. GD was 27 and 8 with 2 blocks, and made 11 out of 12 free throws. What a terrific tune up for the season for Gorgui.

longstrangetrip wrote:Ricky's game today against Egypt was more of the same...again only 1 for 4 from the field, but another 7 assists and 5 rebounds in only 19 minutes. And he had six points total with 4-4 on free throws. Spain is winning big, so the optimist in me wants to say Ricky is doing what he needs to do for them to win...facilitating on offense, playing great defense and hitting the boards. But the pessimist in me worries about him going 1-4 from the field in both games. I guess we'll find out what he's really got as they start playing closer games.

It was nice to see Dieng lead Senegal past with 18 points, 13 rebounds and 2 blocks. Barea didn't pl...never mind...nobody cares!

Another reason why it's silly to think Rubio is just going to all of sudden start shooting better because hes the man now with Love gone.

What is silly, is basing anything off a couple of games in which he took about 4 shots, and more importantly isn't playing in a system anywhere close to what he will likely be in with the wolves. Furthermore, if Ricky was able to consistently post a TS% of 52 while putting up the other stats listed, we will likely be winning a lot of games.

Nemanja Bjelica had 18 pts, 10 reb & 2 assists against Iran.

I'm watching Spain vs Brazil right now and it's still early but here are my observations so far:
-Brazil has a talent, but Spain has all world talent, and it's clear they know how to play together.
-Spain has some real scorers
-Rubio's scoring is still clearly lacking, but even with that, I don't know how anyone can mistake his talent. He's been disruptive on defense and absolutely lethal in creating for his teammates. Clearly he's being given more rope in running that offense now than he was in previous FIBA/Olympic events. We cannot afford to lose this kid.
-Rubio's body is maturing into a man's body
-Man it would have been fun to see Pau Gasol in Minnesota to play with Ricky. There's a real chemistry between their games, and Pau looks very good still.

Hockey, I watched most of the Spain/Brazil game too and agree with your observations. It's good to see that Rubio has clearly established himself as the #1 PG in the rotation.

The problem is that Ricky has the exact same role he plays with the Wolves - as a set-up guy first and foremost and a scorer only if absolutely necessary. I'm not faulting Spain for using him this way and I'm not faulting Ricky for wanting to play for his country. But these FIBA tournaments do absolutely nothing at this point to help him become a better player. It's just something we'll have to accept, as clearly these guys are all passionate about playing for their country.

Dieng on the other hand is benefiting big-time in my opinion. Unlike his role at Louisville or the Wolves, he is THE focal point of his team. He is forced to be an alpha dog scorer, something that has never been expected of him. The results are impressive. He is the 4th leading scorer in the tournament and the 2nd leading rebounder. He leads everyone in "Efficiency", which is FIBA's flavor of an all-around impact statistic. He also leads all players in minutes played, having averaged 37 MPG after three consecutive games. Impressive stuff.

While Dieng will never be a top-flight offensive option in the NBA, that's not we need him to become. We want him to be a solid offensive threat (just like we want Rubio to be an average shooter/scorer). Unlike Rubio, I think this tourney is helping Dieng make strides to become a very credible offensive threat to go along with his defense and rebounding.

Dieng is really impressive, Croatia is pretty strong team their frontcourt is pretty good also, Tomic is 2 time Euroleague MVP 7'2 center with young duo of Saric/Hezonja at forwards, Croatia is definitely much stronger team than Senegal, but Dieng carried so hard today that Senegal managed to grab a W Dieng finished with 27pts/8rebs/3ast/2blk

Dieng performance is really encouraging. He is the only nba player on his team so he is living up to expectations. 1 thing I really like about him and pek is that both are very good ft shooter for a center. That makes a big difference as you can play them in a traditional lineup down the stretch in close games as they wont be a liability from the ft line.

Ive talk about this a couple of times already but I have to give props to the philippine team. Its their 1st time in the world in 30 years and they are holding their own. Loss by 4 to #3 rank argentina. Loss by 3 to croatia in ot and 12 to greece. Their asian counterparts china and iran are getting blown out by the competition here while they are hanging with other teams. They did have a naturalized player in blatche but blatche has been playing injured since their 1st game and only scored 6pts in their 4 pt loss to argentina. Always nice to root for an under dog team.