There is a drought for Aus mens basketball in winning a medal and since this current team is the Golden Generation i cant help but draw parallels with Socceroos.
The circumstances are very similar . we have a great crop of talent playing overseas yet the domestic comp was a basketcase like the NSL Does anyone feel the same

Edited by Socawho: 26/6/2015 02:29:17 PM

no

I reckon that's not a bad comparison actually.

Possibly your best post Socawho :)

I dont follow basketball, but found my self checking the sports news daily to see how the Aussies were doing in the finals. Pretty good analogy. Just need them to do the business in a tournament now.

I didn't even know anything basketball was on :lol:

Edited by M.L.: 26/6/2015 04:22:58 PM

Australia does basketball?

Basketball and football can't be compared literally (too many differences and variables), but if we were to try...

Let's look at the Socceroos starting line-up which started in the Asian Cup final and write the sort of clubs they would be playing at if they were playing at the same level as the basketball players do at club level:

Ryan (Schalke)
Franjic (Stoke)
Sainsbury (Juventus)
Spiranovic (Ajax)
Davidson (West Bromwich Albion)
Milligan (Tottenham)
Jedinak (Crystal Palace)
Luongo (Barcelona)
Kruse (Leverkusen)
Leckie (PSV Eindhoven)
Cahill (Everton)

Edited by quickflick: 26/6/2015 07:38:47 PM

:d WTF

Precisely. The comparison doesn't exactly stand because the two aren't quite comparable (different number of players per team, different rates of participation, different participation rates around the globe, football has a host of leagues of similar quality at the top whereas basketball just really has the NBA).

If you try to reduce it in such a way that you say imagine that the footballers are playing at the NBA quality equivalent football club, then you get a starting line-up better than that which we saw in 2006.

In fact, give you've got Mills, Bogut and Dellavedova all playing NBA Finals in the last two years, you could really add a third Socceroo at a Barcelona, Juventus quality club. There seems to be quite a bit of depth for Australians in the NBA at the minute

Edited by quickflick: 26/6/2015 07:51:41 PM

Edited by quickflick: 26/6/2015 07:53:30 PM

Edited by switters: 26/6/2015 08:04:33 PM

NB- I fully appreciate that a guy like Andrew Bogut is nowhere near the level of a guy like Derrick Rose (albeit different type of players) but as the Warriors won the Finals and the Bulls didn't make the Finals, this criteria would seem to have a guy like Bogut in a higher category.

I'm simply saying if the football players (irrespective of how good they are) played for teams which, relatively speaking, matched the quality of the sides in the NBA at which the Australian players are representing (irrespective of how good they are compared to other players in the NBA).

Just about teams.

Bogut would be like a Harry Kewell...playing in a top league for years...sole Australian go to guy for ages in the Olympics and not to mention the injuries he's had.

Mills would be like a Timmy Cahill type player.

The rest of the guys are just role players...very similar to the bulk of the class of 06.

Edited by SocaWho: 26/6/2015 10:36:58 PM

That's fairly true, I think. There's probably a higher incidence of guys doing the business at the top in basketball compared to the 2006 Socceroos (I mean when you've got 3 guys in NBA Finals in two seasons). But beyond that, as you say the other guys are just role players. Although in 2006, I think guys like Grella, Neill and Culina were more than just role players or at least not a long way off what we saw from guys like Kewell.

One difference though is that there wasn't a huge amount of talent immediately after 2006. The failed generation followed and that's one of the reasons we really struggled to rebuild. Whereas look at basketball. We have the likes of Dante Exum, Thon Maker and Ben Simmons making their way through.

Elite Australian football would love to be in elite Australian basketball's position right now.

Comparing apples and oranges again.

Granted. Nevertheless, Australian basketball, at elite level, is doing much better than Australian football.

Somehow I don't think the the Soccerooss would knock back the the prospect of having two Australians competing in this year's Champion's League final and one in last year's. Plus every other member of the Socceroos playing Premier League/Bundes Liga/Serie A/Eredivisie football. Plus some of the most talented talented young footballers in the world.

This it does not have (yet) but basketball has the, rough, equivalent of.

How do we comply why the Australian National Basketball is so strong and why they are producing so many good players given the NBL is a state dismay?

I guess we can learn from them as they dont have alot of resources to spend, they riding on a good wave of talent.

Yeah I think it's more important to have the domestic infrastructure in place to produce golden generations regularly than to fluke one from time to time. So football's in better shape in that regard (but I won't be happy until we have A-League academies below under tens, a second division and adequate instruction and implementation of 1 vs 1 skills in the NC).

But it is curious to note that at the elite level at least, Australia is doing substantially better at basketball than at football.

The key is the AIS ...without it the colleges would turn a blind eye to any players we produce

I think
colleges give basketball players the security they need and are generally well run and want to help players succeed..if they dont make the NBA then someone can still make a good career in Europe.
Whereas I find the dealings in football are a more results driven business and they give football players very little time to develop...id also think there is more chance of being out of favour with the coach in football and careers can stall rather quickly

Edited by Socawho: 27/6/2015 01:43:05 PM

the AIS has done a tremendous job with our junior basketball players.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIBA_Under-17_World_Championship

we're regularly competing against the USA for gold medals.

IMO, Oz basketball's pressing issue is to bite the bullet & ditch Oceania for Asia like the FFA did @ that very point in time:idea: ('05-'06)

lol :lol:

Bump for SocaWho

thanks buddy

Anytime pal