AUGUST 30 — Hot on the heels of the triumph of Germany’s football team in Brazil, now it is time for the world’s second most popular team sport to take centre stage with the basketball World Cup in Spain, which gets underway with the opening group games tonight.
24 nations are taking part, and the United States are the obvious heavy favourites to retain the title they won in Turkey four years ago.
Quite clearly, the USA is the most powerful basketball nation in the world, with the rampant popularity of the NBA providing a stream of global superstars. At full strength, no nation on earth could compete with the power and athleticism of the United States.
However, many of the country’s leading lights will not be competing in Spain, with LeBron James and Kevin Durant among those missing the tournament.
And sadly, another absentee has provided the biggest talking point leading up to this weekend’s tip-off, with Indiana Pacers star Paul George suffering a badly broken leg during an internal warm-up game amongst his team four weeks ago.
That incident, which will probably rule George of the entirety of the 2014/15 season, has prompted a number of NBA owners to voice their concern about international tournaments and their reluctance to allow their players to compete with the national team in the future.
Such a scenario would, of course, be a disaster for events such as the World Cup and the Olympic Games. The current situation of basketball’s biggest stars regarding their national team as an afterthought to their club careers is bad enough; not having them involved at all would be a further damaging blow to the credibility of international tournaments.
Considering the rest of the world’s propensity to follow the example set by America, it would also be an extremely worrying scenario for other sports, in particular football.
If NBA owners became successful in preventing their players from representing their national teams, it’s perfectly feasible that their counterparts in football could follow suit; for clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona, risking the health of superstars such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi at mid-summer international tournaments has long been a major bugbear.
For now, though, the United States are still in the frame and heading into today’s opening meeting with rank outsiders Finland boosted by the presence of stellar talent such as Stephen Curry, Anthony Davis and Derrick Rose.
However, they are not the only star-packed roster, and hosts Spain hold realistic hopes of lifting the trophy on their home floor in Madrid after the final on Sunday 14 September.
The 12 Spanish players are evenly split between those who have moved overseas to follow their professional careers in the NBA and those who have stayed in their native country, with six in each group.
Of the American-based contingent, the best known are the experienced Gasol brothers, Pau and Marc, who make their respective livings with the Chicago Bulls and the Memphis Grizzlies and have long been regarded among the NBA’s best imports.
More experience comes from 32 year-old Jose Calderon, a new signing for the New York Knicks who earlier in his career became the all-time assists leader for the Toronto Raptors, while Serge Ibaka has established a reputation as one of the game’s finest defensive players during five excellent seasons with Oklahoma Thunder and Ricky Rubio is firmly installed as the starting point guard for Minnesota Timberwolves.
However, it is the Spain-based players who could provide the greatest X-factor as they appear in front of their home crowds, with the roster completed by four players from Real Madrid and two from Barcelona.
In particular, Madrid’s backcourt duo Sergio Rodriguez and Sergio Llull are capable of taking any game by the scruff of the neck when the mood takes them. They were the pivotal members of their team’s remarkable form last autumn, which saw Los Blancos win a record 28 consecutive games in all competitions and earn plaudits as one of the most exciting teams in the history of European basketball.
However, the season eventually ended in disappointment as Madrid were defeated by Barcelona in the Spanish league final and suffered a heart-breaking overtime loss against Israeli club Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv in May’s prestigious Euroleague final in Milan.
Although they did claim some silverware in the form of the Spanish King’s Cup, that was a meagre reward from such promising beginnings, and Rodriguez and Llull, who will be appearing on their home court if they advance as expected to the final, will have every possible motivation to finish the summer as world champions.
With the experience of the Gasol brothers and Calderon, the defensive power of Ibaka, the creativity of Rubio and Rodriguez and the improvisational point scoring abilities of Llull, it’s clear that Spain possess enough weapons to give the United States a real run for their money.
And with the backing of the home crowd in Madrid, they might well even beat them.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
