Phx-Suns.Net

Yes Olynyk…I’m not sure who Edey is

Split T wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 25, 2023 11:01 am

Yes Olynyk…I’m not sure who Edey is

A very tall dude playing at Purdue who been bossing college

Gotcha…I pay very little attention to college ball

22/13 with 2 blocks in college last year at 7’4 285 and a 7’10 wingspan. He’s absolutely massive, but doesn’t seem like a big nba prospect. Too slow from what I’m reading. More situational. Seeing Boban being thrown out as a comp.

Fiba play is different though, so he may be more impactful in international play.

Day 1 in the Books



Most games were actually close at half but favorites handled business

Only tight game DR vs Phil was actually KAT vs Clarkson and if you think he has a green light for the Jazz lol.....
Dude goes crazy

Towns had an inefficient 26 n 10
Clarkson 28-7-7

As FF said game of the day turned out to be blowout
Impressive by Canada

Split T wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 25, 2023 11:57 am

22/13 with 2 blocks in college last year at 7’4 285 and a 7’10 wingspan. He’s absolutely massive, but doesn’t seem like a big nba prospect. Too slow from what I’m reading. More situational. Seeing Boban being thrown out as a comp.

Fiba play is different though, so he may be more impactful in international play.

Yeah, he was a projected 2nd round pick this past draft and pulled out late, but he was the Naismith Men's College Player of the Year last year. If this year's draft isn't great, like projected, he could go higher this next year. Especially, if he improves and wins the Naismith Men's College Player of the Year again.

bajanguy008 wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 25, 2023 11:59 am

Day 1 in the Books

Only tight game DR vs Phil was actually KAT vs Clarkson and if you think he has a green light for the Jazz lol.....
Dude goes crazy

Towns had an inefficient 26 n 10
Clarkson 28-7-7

This was the "entertainment" game of the day. Clarkson should have the ultimate green light because the rest of their roster is terrified or incapable of making a play. He played pretty well, kind of a poor man's SGA, but it was such a Jordan Clarkson moment when he fouled out with like 3:30 left in the game.

I really wanted the Philippines to win that game because it was really their only way of making it to the next round. There were something like 33,000 people in that building. Some of the other games, especially those in Okinawa, are like watching NBA during COVID.

Split T wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 25, 2023 11:57 am

22/13 with 2 blocks in college last year at 7’4 285 and a 7’10 wingspan. He’s absolutely massive, but doesn’t seem like a big nba prospect. Too slow from what I’m reading. More situational. Seeing Boban being thrown out as a comp.

Fiba play is different though, so he may be more impactful in international play.

He's absolutely too slow for the NBA. He's quite skilled and will probably play for Canada more in the future, just born in the wrong era for the NBA.

Naismith Player of the Year but went to the NBA combine and they basically told him to go back. Someone will probably take a flyer on him in the next draft but it'll likely be in the second round.

Edit: I didn't get to In2's post before writing.

I watched a lot of Day 1 games. Pretty fun to have high level basketball (mostly) being played in my time zone again.

Group A
Italy-Angola
Angola made a game of it and Italy felt some heat. The officiating was pretty weird in this one though. A lot of foul calls on both sides which I kind of enjoyed because argumentative Italian body language is fantastic. Angola can beat DR if KAT doesn't play to his abilities for whatever reason, but I don't think they're getting out of the next round if they make it. Italy will eventually be a pretty tough out. There's a lot of experience on their roster and Simone Fontecchio can keep up with a lot of the top end athleticism in this tournament. They remind me so much of the Argentinian teams of the past 20 years.

The Philippines-Dominican Republic
This was a weird game for the first quarter. The atmosphere was really affecting both sides, but especially the Gilas. They turn the ball over way too much to be an actual threat in this tournament and really struggle to run a structured set for more than a couple of possessions. I already posted about it, but I really wish they were good enough to make a run. It's fun to watch them in front of a huge crowd. I also got a huge kick out of DR back cutting Clarkson for a layup on their first possession. Then I immediately knew the DR coach is solid, and that became more obvious as the game went on. DR still has quite a lot to figure out themselves, but I wouldn't be totally surprised to see them take down one of the better European squads in the next round.

Group D
Mexico-Montenegro
I watched but didn't really focus in on this game too much. The Montenegrins(?) size advantage was immense and was clearly going to drive them to comfortable win. My most lasting memory of this game will be Daniel Amigo from Mexico (obviously). His name matches his appearance and he's the epitome of the sweaty YMCA guy who'll dive on the court every possession, but he got absolutely rag dolled. Sorry, friend.

Group E
Finland-Australia
Finland is frisky, but I don't think they're getting past the Germans. Much like the Philippines, this was probably a must win game to go on. Australia has a shooting problem. They're loaded with defensive slashing wings and Josh Giddey. It's up to Patty Mills and Joe Ingles to score shooting the ball and they're a combined 70 years old. Dante Exum played pretty well, but he still can't really shoot albeit slightly better than before. His game is kind of interesting to me now. He plays a lot like Joe Ingles, just 3 inches shorter.

Germany-Japan
This is one of two games I didn't watch a second of. I'll go back and check out the condensed game today, but I already knew it would play out the way it did. Germany is quite good and probably my favorite dark horse among the European teams. They'll have no problem with Finland and I wouldn't at all be surprised to see them beat Australia to win the group.

Edit: Just went through the 20 minute version of the game. Germany are so good. They're huge and just never make mistakes. Franz Wagner suffered a pretty bad ankle sprain with about 4 minutes left and I think he's going to miss some games. That could be a problem for them down the line because he was dominating this game. Yuta was solid for Japan and he's going to be really good for the Suns. Looks like he pulled a hamstring late on an alley-oop dunk. Very Devin Booker-ish on that play. The Japanese always play with a lot of pride, so I hope he doesn't push it too much for the rest of the tournament.

Group H aka The Group of Death
Latvia-Lebanon
This was the other game I didn't watch, but I quickly went through about half of the condensed replay last night. These guys can flat out shoot the ball. It's borderline magical in the way Steph Curry sometimes just seems to never miss. Lebanon was significantly overmatched, so I don't want to get too far over my skis, but Latvia has been kicking ass for a good while now and I think odds are they're going to be the team that ultimately knocks out the French in the first round. That's going to be a must watch game.

France-Canada
Billed as the Game of the Night, and it kind of was for the first half. I was watching with a Canadian basketball junkie and he spent the first half trying to convince me that Evan Fournier would be a good bet to win tournament MVP. To be fair, Fournier had a great half and looks to be in great physical condition. But yeah, that tune changed in the second half when Canada stuck Brooks and Dort on him and he completely vanished from the game. The French are in trouble in general. Gobert isn't nearly the FIBA player he was in the past anymore, and they're relying on Nic Batum and Nando De Colo to supplement the scoring. Elie Okobo (remember him?) starts at PG, and while he has developed into a solid player, he still can't consistently put the ball in the basket. It's a shame Wemby isn't out there for them right now. There's going to be a lot of time to talk about Canada, so I'll keep it short. Their achilles heel is Kelly Olynyk. I don't know why he suddenly thinks he's Giannis during these FIBA games. He overdribbles and tries to do a bunch of wild shit that you'd never expect a smart player like him to try. The problem for Canada is that he's really their only playable big man. Luckily for them, they have SGA who did SGA things for the entire third quarter and that was the ballgame.

There's really only one entertaining game on the Day 2 schedule and it's Puerto Rico-South Sudan, believe it or not. I think it tips-off at 1:00am PST, but I'm confident it'll be a fun watch for any night owls.

Sloveina-Venezuela could be interesting, but I'm expecting Luka to eventually take over if that one is at all close in the second half.

The US is going to boat race the Tall Blacks.

Wacky finish to the 4th. I felt bad for S. Sudan, they let the game slip away from them.

Great call on that being a potential entertaining game
Yeah look like turnover city down the stretch

I find a streaming site that seems to be working so will peep some 2nd half of US v NZ

Credit to the Tall Blacks, they made the game far more competitive than I expected. They never let up and made the US work all game.

Edwards pressed way too much for his own in this game. He can get to the rim at will but way too often he's playing for the contact and whistle instead of working into a good shot. Dumb turnovers and missing open teammates really hurt the US early in the game.

Banchero, Reaves and Haliburton were immense off of the bench, especially the former. Paolo can legitimately be the best player on this team and he's only 20. Italians fans have to be raging that he switched to the US because he's really special.

That said, I forgot how much FIBA officials love to screw with the Americans. There were some terrible calls against the Americans, but they mostly did well to keep their composure. JJJ was frustrated with them for most of the game as they let him get held and pushed around off the ball way too much. Of course he fouled out on a play battling for position with the defender flopping. I also think the US gets screwed on a lot of traveling calls. For whatever reason, FIBA officials love to nitpick about one little motion only for NBA players but ignore a bunch of other variations of a traveling violation.

Flagrant Fowl wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 26, 2023 5:03 pm

Good lord for all the cupping marks.

Woke up too late for this......

This one is making the rounds online and I finally looked at it
Yeah this is weird
Yikes......

I know Hollis Jefferson had some fans here a while back as a player to add but it was as a utility guy
Never have I thought of Kobe watching him play so like what's going on here smh

Was surprised to see he's still playing as it seems like forever ago. So it's clearly obvious he is a Kobe guy, some of the mannerisms and stuff here is.......

Ya he does look like Kobe…though doesn’t move with quite the same ease and coordination. He’s clearly patterned his game after Kobe though. He’d never be able to do that stuff in the nba though. At least not efficiently.