Follow Kings players in FIBA World Cup games

as much as we love our NT coach playing career and admire his charisma, he simply sucks at tactics

he was not able to exploit jokić's skillset, boban's size and couple of other advantages

his main concern was team chemistry and he even failed that one. for me, this tournament was team chemistry vs selection duel in terms of how our team will perform, and my humble experience says that you cannot f**k with selection, so i was curious to see the outcome. but since he failed even with chemistry, there's no outcome...

burek, rosa, peja, what we actually played in position offence? there was no pick n' rolls, that for sure, it was mostly passing on the perimeter, or dribble around the perimeter and wait for a... gap, crack in defence, whatever. and ISO of course.
our position offence tactics was a individual inspiration i guess.

not to mention how scariolo (spanish coach) outplayed out coach, how they cutted all our passes in the first qtr, which should be one of our primary weapons, and played 4+1 zone defence in second when our bench guards jumped in.


so disappointing.... revival of golden nineties didn't work.
 
I have at times wished that we had a non professional rule still in effect. I get the best in every sport should represent every country. But I also unfortunately believe I will not be able to watch the USA pull a unbelievable upset like the hockey win I watched many years ago.
 
I always wonder during these tournaments how good Yugoslavia would be.

Dragić/Teodošić
Bogdanović/Musa
Dončić/Bogdanović
Šarić/Bjelica
Jokić/Nurkić/Vučević

Especially in international play where size is more important. All NBA players besides Teodošić who was just in the NBA.

I’m probably forgetting a player or two.
 
I will also add something about Bogdan..

I was saying few months ago that this WC can catapult Bogdan into NBA season, but what i saw is even better.. if you check stats against better teams you get:
Vs Italy 31 pts
Vs Spain 26 pts
Vs Argentina 21 pts
Vs Usa 28 pts

majority of his points came from tough positions, many of them he created.. he was amazing..

now his problem is his head, if he translates this confidence into NBA, next season he will make even Buddy jump, and can be true leader of second unit.. but there were times I was expecting Bogdan to be huge, and he went on a slump, hope this is not that time..

he was not able to exploit jokić's skillset, boban's size and couple of other advantages
well Boban is a super nice guy, great for being part of Toby and Bobi, great for playing garbage time, but nowhere near player that you want to play serious basketball with.. to slow, terrible pick and roll defender and with him your offense becomes one dimensional.. good when opponent has no center like Angola, Puerto Rico and so on..

as far for Jokic you could not use him like in NBA.. due to FIBA rules, paint is full so cutting and low post game is very hard.. if we had some more shooters except Bogdanovic, that could spread the floor, maybe Jokic could be used more..
 
This shows you something we've known for 15 years now, you can't go into international competition with an inexperienced team. The balance in theory shouldn't have been that bad, but you can't hodgepodge a team together in 2 weeks and expect it to do much of anything. A lot of the blame can be placed at the feet of the players who team USA invested the last couple of years in that decided to skip without letting much of a transition period occur. A Kemba/Mitchell led team was probably not a perfect scenario by any stretch but what can you do with such a short window to gain chemistry?
 
I will also add something about Bogdan..

I was saying few months ago that this WC can catapult Bogdan into NBA season, but what i saw is even better.. if you check stats against better teams you get:
Vs Italy 31 pts
Vs Spain 26 pts
Vs Argentina 21 pts
Vs Usa 28 pts

majority of his points came from tough positions, many of them he created.. he was amazing..

now his problem is his head, if he translates this confidence into NBA, next season he will make even Buddy jump, and can be true leader of second unit.. but there were times I was expecting Bogdan to be huge, and he went on a slump, hope this is not that time..


well Boban is a super nice guy, great for being part of Toby and Bobi, great for playing garbage time, but nowhere near player that you want to play serious basketball with.. to slow, terrible pick and roll defender and with him your offense becomes one dimensional.. good when opponent has no center like Angola, Puerto Rico and so on..

as far for Jokic you could not use him like in NBA.. due to FIBA rules, paint is full so cutting and low post game is very hard.. if we had some more shooters except Bogdanovic, that could spread the floor, maybe Jokic could be used more..
I'm hoping this shows that Bogdan is finally healthy. He already made it sound like he was more hurt last year than he let on and this could be the sign that the last surgery did the trick. Fingers crossed.
 
I always wonder during these tournaments how good Yugoslavia would be.

Dragić/Teodošić
Bogdanović/Musa
Dončić 30 /Bogdanović 52
Šarić/Bjelica
Jokić 8 /Nurkić 78 /Vučević 45

Especially in international play where size is more important. All NBA players besides Teodošić who was just in the NBA.

I’m probably forgetting a player or two.
The US would have to put their best 12 (or close to it) to beat that team. You have 5 top 100 NBA players, albeit some positional replication. Bogi and Saric are right on that line of top 100 and Dragic was an All Star at one point.
 
Question for US based Kings fans - You think US is going to send a better team to the Olympics next year? From what I recall, Olympics used to be far more important competition compared to World Cup, at least for the basketball association?
 
Question for US based Kings fans - You think US is going to send a better team to the Olympics next year? From what I recall, Olympics used to be far more important competition compared to World Cup, at least for the basketball association?
Yes definitely. The Olympics has much higher visibility in the US, so I'm sure we'll send a better team to Tokyo. I wouldn't be surprised to see D. Fox starting at point guard, following the amazing season I'm expecting him to have.
 
I felt like last season a lot of people of overlooked his poor efficiency. He has to get better in that department to become a real star.
It wasn’t just inefficiency though, even though that’s true. He was struggling to score period. He had an absolutely awful start to the season. He just doesn’t have the size to be a prime time star. He’s athletic but not hyper athletic like Westbrook. He has some noticeable holes in his game and when his shot isn’t falling he doesn’t look good out there. He’s no defensive stopper either so if he isn’t scoring, he begins to hurt you. He’s just lucky to be on a good team and a solid system.
 
Question for US based Kings fans - You think US is going to send a better team to the Olympics next year? From what I recall, Olympics used to be far more important competition compared to World Cup, at least for the basketball association?
Colangelo and Pop are known to carry a grudge, so no, the talent level will not be significantly better.
 
Colangelo and Pop are known to carry a grudge, so no, the talent level will not be significantly better.

DONGGUAN, China (AP) — USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo said Thursday that when the time comes to start assembling the Tokyo Olympic roster, he won’t forget those who backed out of commitments to play in the World Cup this summer.

Of the 35 players originally selected for the U.S. player pool, only four are in China for the World Cup. The U.S. lost to France in the quarterfinals, ending a streak of seven major international tournaments — four Olympics and three World Cups — where the Americans captured a medal, the last five of them being gold.


continue reading...
 
So De’Aaron Fox is receiving some B.S. backlash for Team USA’s World Cup collapse. On Thursday’s episode of “The Jump” on ESPN, Rachel Nichols, Amin Elhassan and Richard Jefferson turned their attention to Fox and the Kings. “I wonder what De’Aaron Fox was saving himself for,” Elhassan asked. Jefferson then asked: “Will De’Aaron Fox ever be able to play for the USA team?” “No, not as long as Jerry Colangelo is in charge,” Elhassan responded.
This story was reported by Jason Anderson in the SacBee on 9/12:
https://www.sacbee.com/sports/nba/sacramento-kings/article235042487.html
It also appears on Yahoo Sports.
I've also seen interviews by a couple of Team USA players who are pointing fingers at those who decided not to play for Team USA. Guess it'd be asking too much from these young players to be responsible for their winning or losing and not be looking for anyone else to blame when they fail.
 
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So De’Aaron Fox is receiving some backlash for Team USA’s World Cup collapse. On Thursday’s episode of “The Jump” on ESPN, Rachel Nichols, Amin Elhassan and Richard Jefferson turned their attention to Fox and the Kings. “I wonder what De’Aaron Fox was saving himself for,” Elhassan asked. Jefferson then asked: “Will De’Aaron Fox ever be able to play for the USA team?” “No, not as long as Jerry Colangelo is in charge,” Elhassan responded.
This story was reported by Jason Anderson in the SacBee on 9/12:
https://www.sacbee.com/sports/nba/sacramento-kings/article235042487.html
It also appears on Yahoo Sports.
I've also seen interviews by a couple of Team USA players who are pointing fingers at those who decided not to play for Team USA. Guess it'd be asking too much from these young players to be responsible for their winning or losing and not be looking for anyone else to blame when they fail.
Should probably be focusing on why Pop's favorite role player is apparently really important, why the team looks like a mess of shoot-first gunners (I'm looking at you, Celtics players), and why Mason Plumless is anywhere near this roster.
 
as much as we love our NT coach playing career and admire his charisma, he simply sucks at tactics

he was not able to exploit jokić's skillset, boban's size and couple of other advantages

his main concern was team chemistry and he even failed that one. for me, this tournament was team chemistry vs selection duel in terms of how our team will perform, and my humble experience says that you cannot f**k with selection, so i was curious to see the outcome. but since he failed even with chemistry, there's no outcome...

burek, rosa, peja, what we actually played in position offence? there was no pick n' rolls, that for sure, it was mostly passing on the perimeter, or dribble around the perimeter and wait for a... gap, crack in defence, whatever. and ISO of course.
our position offence tactics was a individual inspiration i guess.

not to mention how scariolo (spanish coach) outplayed out coach, how they cutted all our passes in the first qtr, which should be one of our primary weapons, and played 4+1 zone defence in second when our bench guards jumped in.


so disappointing.... revival of golden nineties didn't work.
No matter how much I'm dissapointed in this WC performance, I cannot bring myself to be upset at Djordjevic. I think I'm physically unable of that emotion toward him :).

yeah, I think a lot of things went wrong including selection and tactics. But if Djordjevic is a bad tactician in general, how did we win all those silvers? Was the chemistry of those teams and presence of someone like Teodosic who knows how to run a team enough to cover his deficiencies as coach? dunno...
 

Kingster

Hall of Famer
I will also add something about Bogdan..

I was saying few months ago that this WC can catapult Bogdan into NBA season, but what i saw is even better.. if you check stats against better teams you get:
Vs Italy 31 pts
Vs Spain 26 pts
Vs Argentina 21 pts
Vs Usa 28 pts

majority of his points came from tough positions, many of them he created.. he was amazing..

now his problem is his head, if he translates this confidence into NBA, next season he will make even Buddy jump, and can be true leader of second unit.. but there were times I was expecting Bogdan to be huge, and he went on a slump, hope this is not that time..


well Boban is a super nice guy, great for being part of Toby and Bobi, great for playing garbage time, but nowhere near player that you want to play serious basketball with.. to slow, terrible pick and roll defender and with him your offense becomes one dimensional.. good when opponent has no center like Angola, Puerto Rico and so on..

as far for Jokic you could not use him like in NBA.. due to FIBA rules, paint is full so cutting and low post game is very hard.. if we had some more shooters except Bogdanovic, that could spread the floor, maybe Jokic could be used more..
If Bogs plays as well against NBA competition as he did in WC competition he won't be playing on the second unit.
 
I was disappointed De’Aaron didn’t stick with it. But blaming a guy who was buried behind Kemba, Mitchell, Smart and Brown makes no sense. If they wanted Fox to run the team - different story.
I was shocked ... SHOCKED ... to find out that BSPN was taking shots at the Kings. I'm sure that's the first time that's EVER happened. If it's on BSPN, it must be true, right?
 
Off topic, but since most of the Serbian Kings fans are on this thread ...

As a long-time Fulham supporter, I'm a big fan of Alexander Mitrovic. I saw he scored 3 goals over the international break. I was very happy he stayed with Fulham when they were relegated last spring. I think that with Mitrovic at the front and American Tim Ream at the back, they can climb back up to the Prem after this season.
 
it is official now, Bogdan is best scorer on the WC.. 183 points in 8 matches..

what is more interesting from first 10 players on this list, 7 of them had more minutes played than him..
AND he'd better be resting until training camp begins. Or maybe passing out water with Buddy. But no hoops. Training camp will be here soon enough.