That's right - a team of very talented youngsters.

What is disappointing for mine was this takeaway from Brett Brown:

"When we approached the Greek national federation to bring a team out to Australia to play the Boomers we always understood that, because of Greece's commitment to the London qualifying tournament, it would be a national team filled with younger players," said Brown. "The side Greece has named is exactly that and includes some very talented young athletes."

Why were not BA open about the fact we were only ever going to see the Greek national junior team?

I'm still glad to be able to watch the Boomers on home soil, I would have liked to know up front that it would not be the Senior team which BA obviously knew about...

Will still be a very very high quality team.

A lot of the players are not too young --- some 22, 23 and even 25! I think youl find some are also from the 2008 U20 Euro champs or 2006 U18 Euro champs.

Giannopolous avg 12.4 points in Grek A1 and will enter 2012 Draft; considered a fringe prospect.

Katsivelis is another NBA prospect- 20 yo 6"5 SG. One of the top SG's in International 91 class.

Pappas--needs no introduction. Dude will be in the NBA, if he was more athletic. Absolutely kills teams at the International level.

A lot of tall timber - 6"11/7"0.

I would expect a close game/series

Since this is the case then we should load up our team of young guns. I'm sure that would equally be good to watch.

MACDUB. A lot of tall timber. Would this tall timber be the same tall timber that Baynes had his way with in the Greek league minus the better ones who play domestically that are in their top team. I know there is some talent there but I honestly don't expect them to be any tougher opponents than China.

Not just talking about the Center position. Greece have height and length right across the board.

Pappas at PG is 6"5

They have 6"7-6"8 2 guards and 6"10 PF's.

But agree with you re: Baynes. He put up great numbers (14 and 9) in Greece, and had good games against Olympiacos and Panathiniakos even when his team lost by 40 +

The gap between Greece and NBL has certainly reduced.

But, A1 Greek is still considerably better IMHO.
It was ranked the 3rd best competition in Europe behind Italy and Spain until 2007.

Now it is considered the 2nd best domestic league in Europe, with Spain on top.

Better than leagues in France, Germany, Turkey, Lithuania.

Anon #959,

First of all, I never said Jawai was not great!!
He should be in the Boomers no matter what!

Secondly, im not a selector. Don't attack me.

Anon. I was useing Baynes, who I don't rate very highly, as an example of why I think this team will not offer a huge challenge to the now almost full strenth Boomers.
MACDUB. Their overall length will help in getting the Boomers a workout against a team with similar size to many that they will expect to match up against when the real stuff starts.

#964,

ULEB has actually ranked Greece as the 2nd best domestic league in Europe.

Did you think I just made up the statement that the A1 Greece was the 2nd best league??

ULEB ranks the leagues based on 70 % competition results of all teams (and 30% arena capacity, sponsorship, revenue), so I think you will find that all teams in Greece were evaluated.

Plus the Greece financial struggles are not having too big of an impact on the league, because ULEB evaluated their sponsorship and revenue level and they must have fared well in the 30 % aspect of the test.

^ The rankings were 2012 btw, so you can't exactly claim that the league isnt what it used to be.

Australian Boomers vs Greek Junior NT, being prompted as Greece Vs Australia. Only could BA pull that off. BA knew from day one this was a 2nd/3rd rate team but kept it quiet. The Australian public deserves better, this is the Argentina series (3rd or 4th team at best) all over again.
If I paid full price for these tickets months ago I'd be pissed.

A training session would be a better viewing than this.

Can't wait til Australian media report the Boomers beat European powerhouse Greece, because you know it will happen just like when we beat gold medalists Argentina in Australia.
Disgrace.

Average, you are whats wrong with basketball. You would rather watch the team train then play, even if its not the best quality team. LMAO!

You people will winge about everything, just shut up and support basketball in australia. Obviously they werent going to send there best team with the qualifiers on the way were they?

And for those who are saying the NBL is anywhere near the Greek league... Just No! Dont even bother. Next you will be saying the D league is a quality comp.

BALLER: You are missing the point. I have no problem with them playing an b or c team, just don't pull wool over the publics eyes and advertise it as the A team. And your D league comment shows how silly you are, most imports in the NBL have played D league throughout their pro careers at one point or another....

There is little to base an argument either way in the relative merits of each league. Baynes may be the point of comparison.

He was named best centre and selected in the Greek league first team.

Does anyone think that would be the case if he played NBL?

Of course the big two are better than NBL clubs but the league as a whole I am not so sure.I would back Perth or NZ and probably a few other NBL clubs to be better than the rest of the teams in Greece because the drop off after Panathinaikos and Olympiacos is quite severe.

On ABC1 7.30 report Thursday ; " Can the Boomers win their first medal "
Looks like an interesting show .

and what if they clean us up !

Average, I dont think at any point they advertised it as Greek A team vs Boomers?

And how many imports have the 36ers got from the D league and have been busts in the past 5 years?
D League might have similar talent to the NBL but its not a competition its a showcase for the individual player!

I agree with that. The level of talent in the NBA D League is just as good as the NBL, Greek League and many other good OS comps (if not better). One of the best guards in Greece this year was an OK player in the NBA D before heading over there, while Cedric Jackson was a standout in both.

But overseas leagues tend to play with a system, structure and passion that is generally lacking in the NBA D that make them superior as competitions.

Baller: I was advertised as Greece. Which would imply the first team. So NBA players who played d league are NBL Level? Check this link out http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/1203/nbdl.notable.players/content.10.html

Aron Baynes was NOT voted as the top center in the Greek League.

Mike Batiste was.

This was the Greek League team:

PG Vassilis Spanoulis (MVP)
SG Dimitris Diamantidis
SF Kostas Papanikolaou
PF Georgios Printezis
C Mike Batiste

Not that Baynes isn't a good player, because he is. But he was definitely not voted the best center of the Greek League.

Also about Kommatos "leading the Greek League in scoring", I think you guys read too much of eurobasket.com

The actual scoring leader was Dionte Christmas.

It's sad that people trust eurobasket.com as an official site for their info.

And what D-League guard was this that was "one of the best guards in the Greek League this year?

And Cedric Jackson? I don't even recall someone by that name playing in Greece. I think you have the Greek League confused with the Cypriot League. Please don't pretend that the Cypriot League is comparable to the Greek League.

Some of these comments are too much...

I was talking about Cedric Jackson playing in the NBA D and the NBL, not the Greek league!!

Sorry.

But anyway, you guys should understand that the stats and awards at eurobasket.com are not actual and official. They are just the opinions of that site.

For example, the actual awards of Greek League:

Best Center: Mike Batiste

http://www.esake.gr/main/index.php?pl=2&lng=gr&pfpar=YXJ0aWQ9NTY5MA==

Best Power Forward: Georgios Printezis

http://www.esake.gr/main/index.php?pl=2&lng=gr&pfpar=YXJ0aWQ9NTY5Mg==

Best Small Forward: Kostas Papanikolaou

http://www.esake.gr/main/index.php?pl=2&lng=gr&pfpar=YXJ0aWQ9NTY5MQ==

Best Shooting Guard: Dimitris Diamantidis

http://www.esake.gr/main/index.php?pl=2&lng=gr&pfpar=YXJ0aWQ9NTY5Mw==

Best Point Guard: Vassilis Spanoulis (MVP)

http://www.esake.gr/main/index.php?pl=2&lng=gr&pfpar=YXJ0aWQ9NTY5NA==

These are the actual official awards. Now compare that to what is it at eurobasket.com which is just the personal opinion of that website's own bloggers:

http://www.eurobasket.com/Greece/basketball-League-A1_2011-2012.asp

As you can see, it has no relation at all. Eurobasket.com is just a couple bloggers making up whatever they want to. It's not the actual awards.

Same with the stats. You can't trust them for those league leaders, because almost every year they have it wrong.

Bottom line, eurobasket.com is a great site, but you have to understand those awards and stats are not official and the awards are not even actually real.

Andros, I think the confusion re Baynes came after eurobasket.com announced him as their centre of the year and BA publicised it without making that distinction, so most fans here would have taken that as a league award. Here is a link from the official site for the voting for best centre, Baynes is fourth:

http://www.esake.gr/main/index.php?pl=2&lng=gr&pfpar=YXJ0aWQ9NTY5MA==

But Andros you appear to be splitting hairs about Kommatos not leading the league in scoring though, Im not sure why, it is irrelevant, he had a big year. Youd be better making the point that he played for a woeful team and somebody had to score points for them.

Here are the links from the official site for Kommatos and Christmas:

http://www.esake.gr/main/index.php?pl=12&lng=gr&pfpar=cGxheWVyaWQ9NzYx

http://www.esake.gr/main/index.php?pl=12&lng=gr&pfpar=cGxheWVyaWQ9MTk2Nw==

Kommatos played in a youth team. Maroussi went bankrupt during the year and had to dissolve. So they were given permission for just the one season until it ended to play with youth players.

So they just had Kommatos, Gagaloudis, and someone else and then the rest of the team was high school players.

So I think it is certainly very odd to claim that Kommatos was the leading scorer when he played on a team full of high school players. BTW, Maroussi is now dissolved and no longer exists.

Anyway, Kommatos isn't a bad player either. He used to be considered one of the best players in all of Europe.

But the real point would be that eurobasket.com is factually wrong. Because Kommatos didn't lead the Greek League in scoring.

Christmas did. The Greek League has rules for how the qualifications are counted, just like the NBA does.

So, the point I think Andros was making is that since Kommatos didn't actually lead that league in scoring, it's wrong to say he did. Which pretty much I think was the point he was trying to make that eurobasket.com uses their own methods to count stats and awards.

They don't go by what the league's themselves officially use. The official league leader in scoring was in fact Dionte Christmas and not Kommatos.

So Andros had a valid point.

What's the fixation with eurobasket.com? And why so much interest in who the leading scorer was? The official league site lists Kommatos as scoring 20.4p across his 16 games, he had the highest average of any player - but why does it matter?

Kommatos didn't lead the Greek League in scoring.

They have rules for picking the league leader. How many games and how many points.

Once again.............the OFFICIAL league leader in scoring was Dionte Christmas.

And this is confirmed at the official Greek league website, under the heading of "league leaders".

So yes, eurobasket.com is wrong about that. But it's no surprise, because if you look back, they were wrong on such things many times.