FIBA World Cup 2019

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Rubio seems to have evolved in this competition. I wonder if signing with Phoenix also helped that. He knows he is going to be the ball-handler in Phoenix. He knows he will have his own team. He must be salivating over the thought of being able to throw the ball to Book, Ayton, Oubre, Mikal, and even Baynes.

I like to hear all this. If Rubio can distribute the ball like we know he can, it could make for a surprisingly good season for the Suns.
 

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The only place where the Olympics are seen as more important is in the US. Worldwide, the World Cup is a bigger deal.

I don't know that this is true. It was only recently even called the "World Cup", you don't rebrand something that is in high esteem. It wasn't even on TV in a lot of places until the last few tournaments.

It might start to get there, it used to compete with the actual World Cup, the FIFA one and I'm sure that was a killer for it's exposure.
 

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Here in Croatia I would say that the basketball Olympics are still more important than the World Cup, but the soccer World Cup is infinitely more important than the Olympics soccer.

The big difference is that in soccer when there are international qualifications for the World Cup all major soccer leagues have a scheduled 1 week or 2 week break, so all players can participate. In basketball however the FIBA World Cup qualifications clashed with NBA schedule, and even Euroleague schedule. So none of the NBA players and Euroleague players participated. If you think your D-team didn't do well, imagine Croatian D-team with no depth whatsoever. This means the qualifications were absolutely abysmal and the games were a joke (in one game our team shot threes 1-27 and lost by only 2 points). Croatia didn't even qualify this time around and we could have a team with Bogdanovic, Saric, Zubac, Hezonja (and Bender lol).

Basically for most European teams the players playing in the qualifications don't actually play in the final tournament which is absurd. What kind of motivation can these players have, knowing that even if they do win they will most probably be replaced for the final tournament? Now because of this we couldn't qualify directly for the Olympics but instead need to play in the Olympics qualifying tournaments, where we face the same problem of NBA schedule clashing with those games, so it is quite possible that this generation of Croatian players might never play together for the national team again.
 

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Baynes - groin injuries are a tough one to overcome, one of those injuries where it feels fine then you re-injure it again right away.
 
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Here in Croatia I would say that the basketball Olympics are still more important than the World Cup, but the soccer World Cup is infinitely more important than the Olympics soccer.

The big difference is that in soccer when there are international qualifications for the World Cup all major soccer leagues have a scheduled 1 week or 2 week break, so all players can participate. In basketball however the FIBA World Cup qualifications clashed with NBA schedule, and even Euroleague schedule. So none of the NBA players and Euroleague players participated. If you think your D-team didn't do well, imagine Croatian D-team with no depth whatsoever. This means the qualifications were absolutely abysmal and the games were a joke (in one game our team shot threes 1-27 and lost by only 2 points). Croatia didn't even qualify this time around and we could have a team with Bogdanovic, Saric, Zubac, Hezonja (and Bender lol).

Basically for most European teams the players playing in the qualifications don't actually play in the final tournament which is absurd. What kind of motivation can these players have, knowing that even if they do win they will most probably be replaced for the final tournament? Now because of this we couldn't qualify directly for the Olympics but instead need to play in the Olympics qualifying tournaments, where we face the same problem of NBA schedule clashing with those games, so it is quite possible that this generation of Croatian players might never play together for the national team again.

Appreciate the insight.

It's interesting to know that European teams have some of the same issues as the U.S. fielding a representative World Cup team in basketball.
 
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Baynes - groin injuries are a tough one to overcome, one of those injuries where it feels fine then you re-injure it again right away.
Had it before. Probably most here have. He has time to recover.
 
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Had it before. Probably most here have. He has time to recover.

At least the Suns have time to rest him although he might miss some Training Camp or preseason games.

The Suns play the Wolves in preseason on October 8th.

Their season opener is at home against the Kings on October 23rd.
 

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I'm not worried about Baynes being ready for the season, he has plenty of time for that, but I was hoping Ayton would be able to work against him in training camp. I suppose there is still a good shot at that happening but I wouldn't bet on it. I think he'll play a bigger role off the court this year going against Ayton in practice than he will on the court for us, but I am more excited about what he'll bring to the court after the world cup.
 

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I'm not worried about Baynes being ready for the season, he has plenty of time for that, but I was hoping Ayton would be able to work against him in training camp.

Agreed. I was looking forward to Baynes working Ayton's butt off in practice.
 
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