Posts tagged ‘fiba’

While a lockout fills pro basketball headlines in America, United States counterpart China has recently made a recovery from potential basketball disgrace. By winning the 2011 FIBA Asia tournament, reclaiming the title from Iran (winners of FIBA Asia in 2007 and 2009), their men’s national team has secured a spot in the 2012 Olympic games. Much of the thanks is due to the massive nation’s current basketball cover boy, and likely former Washington Wizard, Yi Jianlian.

In a country where the government hopes to manufacture basketball success by building a court in every village, making the cut to play in London was pretty important. The problem is the next step, competing with the best in the world; China has played men’s basketball in the past seven Olympics but has never finished better than eighth. And while he is now their star, Yi has done little to cure anxiousness for success.

Guan Weijia on SheridanHoops.com highlights the issue many Chinese have with Yi: “Fans are dissatisfied with his performance in the NBA, believing he is wasting his talent and playing too soft. Yi has many nicknames, none of which are complimentary.”

The Chinese national team was already smarting from the retirement of Yao Ming in July. In August they came up short at the Stankovic Cup, winning one game and losing seven at the China-hosted event. They lost three games to Russia, one to New Zealand, one to Australia, and won just one of three games against Angola. Worth noting, however, that the minutes of Yi were limited during the Stankovic. Bob Donewald, American coach of the Chinese national team, indicated that he wanted to bring him along gradually. Still, the masses were less than satisfied.

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[Linas Kleiza hops past Yi Jianlian on his way to a game-high 30 points. Photo/FIBA]

Had enough of Yi Jianlian yet? I’ve got some good news and bad news. Bad news first. According to a report by the China Daily, and a story on the FIBA website, Yi sat out of Thursday’s game against Turkey with an injury to his Achilles tendon.

China’s coach, Bob Donewald, said that the Achilles was “inflamed a little bit,” and that Yi would be getting an MRI on it. Donewald also called Yi a “warrior,” because he played hurt after sustaining the injury Wednesday against Russia. Surely cringe-worthy news for Wizards brass. Those darn international competitions.

Now for the good news, or actually, bad news depending on how you look at it. Even though China went 1-4 in Group C at the FIBA Worlds, they advanced to the knock-out stage (four out of six teams from each of the four groups do). The Ivory Coast, whom China beat, and Puerto Rico, who beat China, were the two teams from the group sent home. All three finished with a 1-4 record, but China held the three-team tie-breaker.

On Thursday morning (on the East Coast), the Ivory Coast beat Puerto Rico for their first ever win in a FIBA tournament. China was aware of this result heading into their 2 pm Thursday afternoon game against Turkey. Knowing they would advance regardless likely contributed to Yi resting; China lost to Turkey 87-40.

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“Bob Donewald, the coach of China, is buoyant … Energy, Enthusiasm, and Effervescence could well be his middle names. He brings this chump Chinese team to the brink of advancing to that last 16, but only if he can overcome Dallas Mavericks’ Juan Barrea and his Puerto Rican compatriots.” — Nick Bent/Mick Dent/FIBA Commentator?

Coach Donewald wasn’t able to beat Puerto Rico this past Tuesday. Juan Barrea is by no means a stateside superstar, but his play-making skills and command of the offense in FIBA play proved to be too much for the “chump Chinese.”

No, guard play killed the Chinese on this night. As Kyle Weidie plainly pointed out on Twitter:

China’s guards are absolutely horrid. If they had someone halfway decent…. (and no, Sun Yue is not halfway decent).

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Not long after Washington Wizards fans started making preseason plans and deciding what they would do in their down time until training camp leading up to the October 5th 2010-11 preseason opener, the AP’s Brian Mahoney Tweeted that Brook Lopez of the New Jersey Nets would be pulling out of the FIBA World Championships as he continues to recover from mono. His replacement? JaVale McGee.

Now, it’s unclear if this means that McGee has made the final roster of 12 players, or if he’s just replaced Lopez amongst the cut of 15 that now includes Chauncey Billups, Tyson Chandler, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Rudy Gay, Eric Gordon, Danny Granger, Jeff Green, Andre Iguodala, Kevin Love, Lamar Odom, Rajon Rondo, Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook, in addition to McGee.

Common sense would say that, since Team USA was already thin at the center position, McGee will straight up replace Lopez. But what’s common sense worth anyway? Team director Jerry Colangelo has said that they might take a couple of extra players with them as they travel to Europe before the tournament. Team USA is scheduled to play exhibition matches against Lithuania on August 21 and against Spain on August 22 (both to be held in Madrid, Spain). They will play a final exhibition game against Greece in Athens on August 25 before arriving in Turkey, which is kinda in both Europe and Asia … Eurasia, for the FIBA tournament the next day, which is essentially when Colangelo will be required to submit an official roster of 12.

But first, McGee will report to New York City by next Tuesday, August 10, for continued training with the team, including an exhibition game against France on Sunday August 15 at 1 p.m. (EDT) at Madison Square Garden. Yi Jianlian and the Chinese team will take on Puerto Rico following the USA-France game.

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{image via bscup.tom.com}

Reports have surfaced that Yi Jianlian injured his arm playing for China in an international competition, the Stankovic Cup, held in Liuzhou, China, while getting ready for the 2010 FIBA World Championships in Turkey [hat tip to Matt Moore of ProBasketballTalk]. Initial reports only indicated that Jianlian suffered an “injury” to his right arm, and that forced him to sit out the second half of China’s loss to Slovenia. However, Jianlian came back and played in the next game against Iran.

In their first game on July 28th, China lost 64-63 to Australia. Jianlian led the Chinese with 17 points and 10 rebounds in just over 17 minutes of game time. But Australia’s David Andersen, who was recently traded from the Houston Rockets to the Toronto Raptors, scored a basket in the game’s final 10 seconds to give the Aussies a one point victory. Andersen finished with eight points and seven rebounds. Patty Mills led Australia with 13 points.

On July 29th the Chinese faced Iran and defeated them 86-64. Jianlian had 16 points (7-12 from two-point land, 0-1 from three, 2-2 from the free-throw line), 10 rebounds (two offensive), three blocks, one steal, two assists and three turnovers in 28 minutes of action.

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