Boomers fall for 3 card trick yet again

Once again we showed too much of our stuff in the pre-olympic tournament. The cagey Euro teams went to school on us and proceeded to cut us to pieces.

I mean FFS we played both Croatia and Argentina in our first two games and what do we do in the warm ups...play it like the real stuff and give everything away. How stupid are Boy Goorj and his assistants? It was the same shit the last couple of tournaments. Promised well in the warm up games and delivered zip. Some serious thinking needs to be done about the way we approach these international tournaments. I would be organising games exclusively with Euro sides that did not qualify for the olympics. What are Italy doing?

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Anonymous
Years ago

How come Italy didn't qualify? They won silver in Athens!

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Kingjames
Years ago

Gregor Fucka must have retired thats why they didn't make it :P

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J
Years ago

No need to swear, I'm sure gregor is a nice bloke. He does have a brother gaylord though...

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tickle
Years ago

Couldn't agree more. We went the Aussie way and went 100% in the warm-ups, which is admirable but we saw how the European teams have another gear when it comes to competitive play.

One thing that is so evident is the cohesiveness of the European teams. The Greek team is unbelievable to watch. They barely get off the ground, just pass, cut, fake you out of your boots etc.

We need to focus on getting a team identity in that respect. How do you develop such smart players? The guys come out of the AIS show some basketball IQ (Joe Ingles the case in point), but we don't have the team coming together just yet.

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tickle
Years ago

Something to add to my previous post; we have seemed to improved in the production of individual talents. We have NBA prospects coming out of our ears (relatively speaking), so the AIS is doing their job in that respect.

We may have to wait a few years before Bogut, Mills, Ingles, Newley, Jawai, Bruce etc. become wily veterans before we hit our straps.

The better teams in this tournament are playing old man ball, whereas a bunch of kids trying to leap out of our skins; closer to the US than the other side of the spectrum.

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RMM
Years ago

Goorjian the penis with ears!

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DICKO
Years ago

The biggest strength ofthe Greek team is that they have FAR more opportunities to play and practice together. Look at where our guys play their regular seasons and you might start to see a bit of the problem. Greece, Russia, Milwaulkee, Cailfornia, Lithuania...the CORE of our team are spread all over the world.

Even those Countries with spread players have far more money in their programs to get them together, something BA clearly don't have.

That cohesiveness that you see, IMHO, is almost purely a case of getting to play with each other more often. And EXACTLY why our individual talent level improves, yet our team play doesn't.

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Nutwork
Years ago

I see your argument Dicko, but Argentina half play in USA the other half in Europe (Ginobili joined team late due to injury), Russia Kleiza & AK in the US, Germany Dirk & Kaman in US(Kaman just joined team and probably never met his teammates), Dirk didn't even play for Germany last offseason, spent it backpacking OZ. Australia would have as much opportunity as those countries to play together & Have the added bonus of going through the same system at the AIS (not all at the same time).

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DICKO
Years ago

I understand, but there are MORE playes for Australia spread accross more countries, IMHO.

Anyway, it comes down to on emajor problem. Basketball in Australia has no money, so even if those players were prepared to get together more regularly, the finances would not be there to make it happen.

I can ALMOST guarantee that the teams that are currently at the top of the world rankings play and practice together FAR more than the Aussies do.

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Hoops

Boomers fall for 3 card trick yet again

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