Team Canada Basketball Thread V4.0

[mojo13]

New FIBA rankings:
1. USA
2. Spain
3. Germany
4. Australia
5. Serbia
6. Canada
7. Argentina
8. Latvia
9. France
10. Lithuania

https://www.fiba.basketball/rankingmen

Happy for Canada but I really do think this updates shows the flaw in FIBA's ranking system.

How on earth, did Argentina, who didn't qualify for the tournament, only fall from 4 -> 7, while teams like France, Lithuania, and Slovenia who qualified and actually won some games, ended up moving down significantly more. I'd be pissed as a fan of these teams.

I think what this shows is that it's average of your Rating Points for the games you play, and because Argentina didn't play any games, their overall average RPs weren't influenced as much as teams that came and lost like France, Lithuania, and Slovenia. They say on their site that they account for this by taking into account games played and penalizing teams for less games played (aka missing a tourney due to not qualifying) but really I think this needs to be way harsher.

I think they need to really switch over to a Tennis Ranking type system. Keep it a little different where you still take into account how you finished in years prior to the current one and weigh them less over time (like they do now) but really focus on where you finish in the tournament as opposed to how much you win / lose by in the games played.

When we beat up on France by +20, we nuked their rating, which is fair, but because Argentina didn't even qualify, they didn't have the opportunity to get nuked by the heavy hitters, so their average score was almost safeguarded. In my opinion, because they didn't even get to show up - they should have been nuked harder than France did.

I could be rambling, and flat out wrong, but this is how I'm interpreting these updated rankings, and if I'm right, the system is ****.

You have correctly zoned in on how the rankings work. Argentina pretty much only lost points because of time decay (a slow and steady eating away of historical points). Over time this will continue to punish them. But you are exactly right, if they made the WC and got smoked repeatedly they would be hit allot harder and quicker. It is seemingly a flaw, but almost irrelevant if they continue to fail to qualify for meaningful tournaments. I think the method is fine as it more forgiving to the Euro teams that don't make the WC or Olympics. I think it is intentful by FIBA as it is so much harder for Euro teams to Qualify and they are likley trying not to punish them too much. Argentina is just the lucky Americas beneficiary at the moment.

[frumble]

I think it kind of makes sense.

If you are trying to determine how good Argentina is, the Worlds gave you no new information to help you make that decision.

The fact that they didn't qualify for the worlds did give you information, but that was from the qualifying games, and was already incorporated in the previous rankings.

On the other hand, if you are trying to determine how good France is, you did get new information on this during the Worlds - they lost to Canada and Latvia, and beat Lebanon, Iran, and the Ivory Coast.

The fact that they made it out of very tough qualifying to get there in the first place was already reflected in the previous rankings.

[TheFutureMM]

New FIBA rankings:
1. USA
2. Spain
3. Germany
4. Australia
5. Serbia
6. Canada
7. Argentina
8. Latvia
9. France
10. Lithuania

https://www.fiba.basketball/rankingmen

Happy for Canada but I really do think this updates shows the flaw in FIBA's ranking system.

How on earth, did Argentina, who didn't qualify for the tournament, only fall from 4 -> 7, while teams like France, Lithuania, and Slovenia who qualified and actually won some games, ended up moving down significantly more. I'd be pissed as a fan of these teams.

I think what this shows is that it's average of your Rating Points for the games you play, and because Argentina didn't play any games, their overall average RPs weren't influenced as much as teams that came and lost like France, Lithuania, and Slovenia. They say on their site that they account for this by taking into account games played and penalizing teams for less games played (aka missing a tourney due to not qualifying) but really I think this needs to be way harsher.

I think they need to really switch over to a Tennis Ranking type system. Keep it a little different where you still take into account how you finished in years prior to the current one and weigh them less over time (like they do now) but really focus on where you finish in the tournament as opposed to how much you win / lose by in the games played.

When we beat up on France by +20, we nuked their rating, which is fair, but because Argentina didn't even qualify, they didn't have the opportunity to get nuked by the heavy hitters, so their average score was almost safeguarded. In my opinion, because they didn't even get to show up - they should have been nuked harder than France did.

I could be rambling, and flat out wrong, but this is how I'm interpreting these updated rankings, and if I'm right, the system is ****.

You have correctly zoned in on how the rankings work. Argentina pretty much only lost points because of time decay (a slow and steady eating away of historical points). Over time this will continue to punish them. But you are exactly right, if they made the WC and got smoked repeatedly they would be hit allot harder and quicker. It is seemingly a flaw, but almost irrelevant if they continue to fail to qualify for meaningful tournaments. I think the method is fine as it more forgiving to the Euro teams that don't make the WC or Olympics. I think it is intentful by FIBA as it is so much harder for Euro teams to Qualify and they are likley trying not to punish them too much. Argentina is just the lucky Americas beneficiary at the moment.

Makes sense especially when you consider the European aspect of it but I do stand by my point, that teams that fail to qualify need to hit harder than they currently are. Europe is compensated for their strength by the amount of births they get to the WC, 12 to the American 7.

It just isn't logical to me that Slovenia, who made the Quarters and finished 7th, ends up being penalized more than a team that couldn't even qualify. Don't like it at all.

[TheFutureMM]

I think it kind of makes sense.

If you are trying to determine how good Argentina is, the Worlds gave you no new information to help you make that decision.

The fact that they didn't qualify for the worlds did give you information, but that was from the qualifying games, and was already incorporated in the previous rankings.

On the other hand, if you are trying to determine how good France is, you did get new information on this during the Worlds - they lost to Canada and Latvia, and beat Lebanon, Iran, and the Ivory Coast.

The fact that they made it out of very tough qualifying to get there in the first place was already reflected in the previous rankings.

More good points but I don't necessarily agree with them all.

I agree with the fact that the WC didn't give me any new information regarding Argentina - they weren't good enough to get to the World Cup and I know this from the Qualifiers.

However, because the qualifying games aren't weighed as much as much as games actually occurring in the tournament and these qualifying games are against seemingly weaker American specific opponents, Argentina isn't losing by as much (therefore they aren't losing as many ranking points), and these losses wont reflect their overall ranking as much as a loss in this tournament (as these WC games are weighed WAY more heavily).

I think if you aren't good enough to even make the tournament, there should be more severe repercussions to your ranking than are currently taking effect, and the updated ranking reaffirms my belief.

I get that no ranking system is going to be perfect and this is very a specific use-case of how it may be slightly flawed but to me it's pretty clear cut. If you don't make a tournament, you should stand to lose more ranking points than teams that do, and lose to tougher competition.

[frumble]

Another factor re Slovenia is that they were bound to suffer a fall in the rankings (barring an outstanding performance in the worlds) as their points from 2016 and 2017 got lower weightings due to the time decay factors.

In 2016 they won their qualifying group for Euro basket.
In 2017, they dominated Euro Basket. 9-0, incuding big wins over Spain and France (and smaller margin wins over Serbia, Latvia and Greece). So 5-0 against top flight teams (the other wins were over Poland, Iceland, Finland and Ukraine).

And their performence at this year's Worlds wasn't that good.
Against top calibre teams they were 2-3 (win over Australia and Italy, losses to Germany, Canada and Lithuania).

[Hair Canada]

Interesting discussion. Here are other anomalies I see in this system, all within the tournament itself:

Latvia was surely disapointed to lose to Germany in the QF. But in terms of ranking, that's probably the best thing that could have heppend to them. Instead of likely losing (maybe even getting blown) to the US and then Canada in the semis and third-place game, they ended up winning two games in the 5-8 ranking games, which mattered little otherwise. These games were weighted X4 for all we know. So they nearly surpassed Canada in the rankings because of that (if Canada lost to the US, they would have) even though we beat them by 26, finished ahead of them in the tournament, and started the tournament ranked higher... The US, on the other hand, only lost points from getting to the semis and would have been better off losing in the QF in terms of their ranking points.

Another problem is that a lot of weight is given to the margin by which you win, while relatively little weight is given to the ranking of your oponents. Beating a weak team (even Lebanon) by 11 is much more advantageous than beating the US by 9 (at a comprable stage)... So Lithuania for example was not very well compensated for its tight win against the Americans (which also meant they had to play Serbia instead of Italy in the QF) while their blowout loss against Latvia in a meaningless game was probably quite costly.

[Hair Canada]

Interesting discussion. Here are other anomalies I see in this system, all within the tournament itself:

Latvia was surely disapointed to lose to Germany in the QF. But in terms of ranking, that's probably the best thing that could have heppend to them. Instead of likely losing (maybe even getting blown) to the US and then Canada in the semis and third-place game, they ended up winning two games in the 5-8 ranking games, which mattered little otherwise. These games were weighted X4 for all we know. So they nearly surpassed Canada in the rankings because of that (if Canada lost to the US, they would have) even though we beat them by 26, finished ahead of them in the tournament, and started the tournament ranked higher... The US, on the other hand, only lost points from getting to the semis and would have been better off losing in the QF in terms of their ranking points.

Another problem is that a lot of weight is given to the margin by which you win, while relatively little weight is given to the ranking of your oponents. Beating a weak team (even Lebanon) by 11 is much more advantageous than beating the US by 9 (at a comprable stage)... So Lithuania for example was not very well compensated for its tight win against the Americans (which also meant they had to play Serbia instead of Italy in the QF) while their blowout loss against Latvia in a meaningless game was probably quite costly.

[aminiaturebuddha]

Hopefully this means that we'll get some easier draws going forward. For instance, I quite like the scenario above, where we wouldn't be in a first round group with either Australia or Serbia (although I guess if Spain doesn't win their last chance tournament, it could slide Australia up into group 1).

If I am understanding what happened with the Tokyo draw, they didn't move teams up and down based on how the last-chance tournaments went. The draw was held using the rankings of the top teams in each of those tournament, and the winner of each tournament just slid into that place.

So, if they do the same this time, Australia wouldn't move up even if a lower-ranked team ended up winning the last-chance tournament that has Spain in it. That team would assume Spain's pot 1 status and would simply slide into whatever spot "Spain" was awarded in the draw.

Confirming your understanding.

"As the four winners of the 2020 FIBA Men's Olympic Qualifying Tournaments (OQT) were yet to be decided at the time of the draw, they were assigned placeholders of "OQT Belgrade", "OQT Kaunas", "OQT Split" and "OQT Victoria". Each of the four placeholders were seeded based on the highest-ranked team in each tournament."

Thanks for clarifying guys. I didn't realize that. That's an...interesting way to seed teams. I guess it allows them to draw from the pools farther in advance of the tournament, but it seems like a recipe for ending up with even more uneven groups.

[frumble]

Thanks for clarifying guys. I didn't realize that. That's an...interesting way to seed teams. I guess it allows them to draw from the pools farther in advance of the tournament, but it seems like a recipe for ending up with even more uneven groups.

Yes, potentially unfair if, e.g., a darkhorse upsets Spain and slides into their Pot 1 drawn spot.

[Chalky_White]

Hopefully this means that we'll get some easier draws going forward. For instance, I quite like the scenario above, where we wouldn't be in a first round group with either Australia or Serbia (although I guess if Spain doesn't win their last chance tournament, it could slide Australia up into group 1).

If I am understanding what happened with the Tokyo draw, they didn't move teams up and down based on how the last-chance tournaments went. The draw was held using the rankings of the top teams in each of those tournament, and the winner of each tournament just slid into that place.

So, if they do the same this time, Australia wouldn't move up even if a lower-ranked team ended up winning the last-chance tournament that has Spain in it. That team would assume Spain's pot 1 status and would simply slide into whatever spot "Spain" was awarded in the draw.

Confirming your understanding.

"As the four winners of the 2020 FIBA Men's Olympic Qualifying Tournaments (OQT) were yet to be decided at the time of the draw, they were assigned placeholders of "OQT Belgrade", "OQT Kaunas", "OQT Split" and "OQT Victoria". Each of the four placeholders were seeded based on the highest-ranked team in each tournament."

Would this also apply to teams in the 1st Pot? In Tokyo the top 3 team by rankings were USA, Spain, and AUS all of whom directly qualified via the 2019 world cup. This time around the 2nd ranked team(Spain) has to clinch via a OQT.
Would be a bad look for the competition if Spain got upset by a minnow and suddenly that team entered the olympics as a 1st pot team.

With how FIBA "operates" these draws, i can easilly see them award the pot 1 places to the highest direct qualifiers in USA, Germany, Australia and then put the Winner of the OQT containing Spain among the 2nd seeds.

In Tokyo they decided to help the hosts by keeping them away from the U.S. in the draw.

[SharoneWright]

Latvia is also LITERALLY just 1.5 points behind us now after they starting at 30 when we started at 15,,, plus we won 3rd and they didn't make the final 4. They nearly passed us!

Edit: all covered by Hair above^^

[TrueNorth31]

Great to see all the work you guys are doing. Here's a backgrounder on the Tokyo draw. I've sort of reached a point that we are good enough to take on all comer's - FIBA draw be damned. Still I suppose nice to try to see the lay of the land though...

https://www.fiba.basketball/news/tokyo-2020-olympic-basketball-tournaments-draw-set-for-february-2nd

[Strategist1]

2027 World Cup in Qatar and 2028 olympics will be 1 yr apart just like this year’s World Cup and the olympics in Paris. Would you rather have it 2 yrs apart like soccer? 1 yr apart has its pros/cons. Teams will be sharp.

[aminiaturebuddha]

2027 World Cup in Qatar and 2028 olympics will be 1 yr apart just like this year’s World Cup and the olympics in Paris. Would you rather have it 2 yrs apart like soccer? 1 yr apart has its pros/cons. Teams will be sharp.

Yeah, pros and cons for each, as you say. With the one-year gap the hope is that there would be a bit more continuity on the team, especially with a core group coming off of a great tournament like we just had. And also the momentum for guys to want to be involved in the Olympics is easier to carry into next year.

On the other hand, it's tough to ask professional players to give up big chunks of their summers in back-to-back years. If the national program keeps going to the 3-year commitment policy for the next window or two, there will be players who will balk at it depending on where they are in their professional careers, especially when it means big commitments in back-to-back years. I think it would be a bit easier if those obligations were separated.

[TheFutureMM]

2027 World Cup in Qatar and 2028 olympics will be 1 yr apart just like this year’s World Cup and the olympics in Paris. Would you rather have it 2 yrs apart like soccer? 1 yr apart has its pros/cons. Teams will be sharp.

Yeah, pros and cons for each, as you say. With the one-year gap the hope is that there would be a bit more continuity on the team, especially with a core group coming off of a great tournament like we just had. And also the momentum for guys to want to be involved in the Olympics is easier to carry into next year.

On the other hand, it's tough to ask professional players to give up big chunks of their summers in back-to-back years. If the national program keeps going to the 3-year commitment policy for the next window or two, there will be players who will balk at it depending on where they are in their professional careers, especially when it means big commitments in back-to-back years. I think it would be a bit easier if those obligations were separated.

I started out not liking it to be honest because it just felt weird to have 2 years of big tournaments (World Cup, Olympics) back to back and then 2 years of no/light comp (no tourney, AmeriCup) but I've come around to it. Reason being that, I feel like this structure is actually easier on our main pros.

S1) You have to commit for 3 "summers" but summer 1 is really pretty light. You play 2 games in Canada (1x in July and 1x in August) and maybe 2 games abroad (the Alexander's didn't even travel for the second one in August - which I think will be the norm for more of the NBA guys going forward).

S2) Summer 2 is actually where it gets exciting. You roll up to an international tournament with all the best teams from Europe and a relatively good US team. As many people here have noted 100x over - this is arguably a tougher tournament than the Olympics. With that said, one of the goals for every team here is to secure a birth to that "more exclusive" Olympic tournament next summer so there are legit implications aside from just winning for your country. I think FIBA was smart here and changed their approach from trying to put the WC on the same level as the Olympics by separating them and instead just turned it into a qualifier. Makes the stakes of their tournament even higher in my opinion. I think this is also more appealing than playing in the AmeriCup (which has 1/100th of the prestige as the EuroCup) for the qualifier for our players too.

S3) You either make the Olympics or you don't. You don't? Great, everyone gets the time back. If not, you go to the tournament that North America has glorified. Pretty much every pro baller in Canada is going to want to be here. No teeth pulling required.

So really you have two big summers of legacy building tourneys and one summer of pretty chill competition that is "mandatory" lol.

Edit: One more thought on this - this whole write-up is also why I don't really support those that want to get in on the action purely from the World Cup on or, even worse, purely for the Olympics. Summer 1 is pretty light. Training camp in Toronto, 2 games in Canada, and 1+ game abroad. It's not really A summer and if you can't make this work while others can, then the others should be the ones going to the Olympics.

[Chalky_White]

Read on Twitter

https://www.thestar.com/sports/basketball/why-change-must-start-at-the-top-after-canada-s-fiba-world-cup-letdown/article_607bf710-9796-577d-ade5-6fdcf2d1a8d7.html

Anyone remember when Doug Smith had the knives out for Rowan Barrett during the 2019 World Cup? Was pretty obvious then that Doug was still salty over his Niagara Falls buddy Triano being let go as head coach and was settling scores. His stated reasons at the time were that Barrett, months into his tenure as General Manager, didn't make the necessary relationships to ensure participation of the top NBA guys(no mention of Steve Nash's largely absentee tenure as GM). How about now that a commited NBA-heavy group led Canada to its best ever World Cup finish? According to Doug it seems the former head coach who left the team weeks before training camp was the mastermind. Its pretty impressive how he avoids the name "Rowan" in his columns.

Basketball coverage in Canada is generally pretty woeful and gets worse when prominent reporters use their columns to push personal agendas.

[mojo13]

Please let me know if you see any mistake or if someone relevant might be missing.

Read on Twitter

[frumble]

Great list - thanks for putting that together.

A few others of some note:

XRM is still active - with Enisey in the Russian league.
Koby McEwen is back with in the Polish league (GTK).
Emmanual Akot (can we still count him as Canadian) is the Dutch league (Den Bosch)
Eddie Ekiyor is in Portugal.
Mo Walker is in the UK (Leicester)

[Crazy-Canuck]

Bennet should have a lot of time, he just got cut from his korean basketball league team... ouch.

[Dino-Might]

Bennet should have a lot of time, he just got cut from his korean basketball league team... ouch.

Wow, how does Bennett get cut from the Korean league? At 6’8 and with his athleticism, he should be dominating all the smaller guys based on physical attributes alone.

How much lower level can you go in professional basketball?