why do you think the rest of the world isn't getting better at basketball?

[Pointguard]

Developmental systems. Other countries can't compete with ours. We rank our kids from very very early childhood. They compete nationally at a very young age, and they compete at a high level almost immediately.

Big schools and the USA program identify them early on and they compete for national rankings.

No one else has anything like this in basketball at the level we do.

Same reason we aren't on a higher level in soccer. We don't have the sort of developmental systems that other nations have.

I can't speak for foreign systems, my understanding is that they are just as good in skill development - or at very least shooting. When you read about some foreign players they started at 9 or 10 years of age which is about average. Anybody on any given day can go out and shoot a ball on a hoop all around the world. I ran into a scout in South Africa. And we never, hardly ever, hear of South African's ball players.

By contrast, there are 13 million people in the NY Metro area and there aren't that many soccer fields. And its hard to start a game up. And I imagine harder to get a great scout to come out.

[sundizz]

People may not want to play the race card but id say african americans here are the most physically athletic people in the world. And if u subscribe to the they bred the most physically capable slaves theory...then of course it makes sense that less than a few generations later that genetic physical superiority exists.

China loves hoops. Ive visited etc. Probably way bigger of a pool of kids love hoops there by volume. However they are not genetically predisposed to having the athletic ability of most african americans.

Stuff like hand eye coordination is athleticism too. Any of you who think.steph curry isnt a top tier athlete are crazy. It is a genetic ability of how fast he can shoot...and even his dribble jukes are undeniably fast.

[Blue&Orange]

what about the size of the talent pool of basketball-first countries??

serbia has a population of 7 mil, lithuania 3mil, slovenia 2mil, greece 10mil...

even spain's 50 mil is a fraction of USA's 300 mil population...

now imagine a team that would include all the major balkan basketball nations (greece, serbia, montenegro, slovenia, croatia etc). I think that they would be able to compete against the US team

And then 90% of that population want to be soccer players and play soccer as kids, not basketball.


Sorry to say but the world doesn't care about FIBA world cup, they care about FIFA world cup.

[swagga]

LMAO at the jingosim and trolling in this thread. I'll answer tho.

The US is a 300+ mil country with a tradition of grooming elite bball talent from early ages. About 30% of the elite athletic talent goes into basketball and with it a proportional amount of money.

You guys are comparing it to freaking slovenia 2mil, lithuania 3mil, and the like. That's like USA vs Oregon. Moreover even in these countries soccer is much more organized. Usually basketball gets about 7-10% of the elite athletic talent because soccer gets 80%+. The money percentage is also comparable but these countries are also significantly poorer than us.

In the big population countries like uk/germany/brazil/spain/italy soccer gets 95%+ of all the athletic talent and 99% of the money so that leaves them at levels that are comparable to slovenia/lithuania/serbia/greece.

If germany would invest 30% of their athletes&money in basketball they would produce enough be a tough match .. as would the french or the british. Just statistics.

In china/philippines the percentage of the athletically gifted population is low for basketball (height being the main concern). Also their money investments are really low compared to other big countries like us/uk/germany/france/etc ... so they produce alot less talent. This applies to soccer too as china only made it once to the world cup in its entire history.

People living under a rock

[dannywpt]

We barely have outdoor basketball courts available in a city of 500.000 people.

It's all about soccer over here

[SpanishACB]

People may not want to play the race card but id say african americans here are the most physically athletic people in the world. And if u subscribe to the they bred the most physically capable slaves theory...then of course it makes sense that less than a few generations later that genetic physical superiority exists.

This is partially right. However, an all white USA team would also be pretty good even though most likely they wouldn't have such an easy time raping all opposition.

China loves hoops. Ive visited etc. Probably way bigger of a pool of kids love hoops there by volume. However they are not genetically predisposed to having the athletic ability of most african americans.

this is mostly wrong. Chinese fathers want their kids to study and become engineers, anything worse is a complete failure. Sure they allow them to understake extra-scholar basketball and even be on a team, but they're also doing piano, table tennis, match club, chess club, etc etc...

[oarabbus]

This is partially right. However, an all white USA team would also be pretty good even though most likely they wouldn't have such an easy time raping all opposition.



this is mostly wrong. Chinese fathers want their kids to study and become engineers, anything worse is a complete failure. Sure they allow them to understake extra-scholar basketball and even be on a team, but they're also doing piano, table tennis, match club, chess club, etc etc...

That's for 1st generation immigrants or Chinese-Americans, not Chinese in China

[SamuraiSWISH]

Athleticism makes all the difference. All white USA team wouldn't be able to dominate like that at all. In fact, I doubt they would win against teams like Spain.

Natural athletic ability is something you can't teach.

Why would Team USA be rolling out strictly white players? This isn't the racial games, it's national teams.

And we don't dominate simply due to athleticism, we have better skill sets. The best players are Americans usually because of the combination of both athletic ability, and skill set.

[Jon_Koncak]

Soccer "stealin" potential bball players is a lame esxcuse.Most soccer players are too short to have a good bball career.The tall ones are usually the center backs who are slow as fvck anyway so they wouldnt cut it for bball either.I mean,does anyone believe Iniesta or Xavi would make a good pro in bball?C mon

[Hittin_Shots]

I wish the basketball set up in Australia was anything like the American version. The focus is just not as strong from an early age in schooling.

[stanlove1111]

People may not want to play the race card but id say african americans here are the most physically athletic people in the world. And if u subscribe to the they bred the most physically capable slaves theory...then of course it makes sense that less than a few generations later that genetic physical superiority exists.

Bingo. End of thread. They can say that Americans have 300 million and its not fair to compare them to smaller countries but lets be honest, its the American blacks that dominate basketball. That's about 12 % of the population.


I have seen this debated before and Euroes can't grasp how superior American black athletes are. I was a really good basketball player when I was younger and I rarely played against a white guy who was as athletic as me and I rarely played against a black guy who wasn't much more athletic then me.This is why I think the thread comparing a couple of soccer players to NBA players or ever Football players in terms of athleticism is laughable.


America will continue to dominate basketball because its an athletic game that American Blacks will continue to dominate. If American blacks start to play Rugby then they will dominate that and any other sport that relies mostly on Athleticism..

[S13M]

yeah, what the other guys said. alot of the players that would of been fantastic at basketball are going into soccer(football) which is the primary sport for the rest of the world. the leftovers pickup basketball. which leads us to where we are at now. absolutely no competition on the international stage

How so? Many of the best footballers are midgets in basketball standards. They're world class athletes, but basketball unfortunately requires a skill that can't be trained.

[SamuraiSWISH]

Besides the rare exceptional foreign born basketball player, the game is still dominated by Americans. The world isn't better now than they were 20+ years ago. There was still rare exceptional talent from other countries, ex: Sabonis, Petrovic, Kukoc, etc People are confusing some one game elimination losses in 2002, 2004, and 2006 as some regression in basketball ability, and the world getting much better. The truth is we simply were coasting, and stopped trying. Now we're rolling out back up squads and sodomizing the competition again just a few years later and people are now crying the world sucks at basketball again? Um, ok. More like some fluke embarrassing losses woke a sleeping giant to get re-motivated.

[oarabbus]

Athleticism makes all the difference. All white USA team wouldn't be able to dominate like that at all. In fact, I doubt they would win against teams like Spain.

Natural athletic ability is something you can't teach.

Are black people born here no longer American now

Why the **** would the USA send an all white team? That's disturbingly ignorant.

[oarabbus]

I have seen this debated before and Euroes can't grasp how superior American black athletes are. I was a really good basketball player when I was younger and I rarely played against a white guy who was as athletic as me and I rarely played against a black guy who wasn't much more athletic then me.This is why I think the thread comparing a couple of soccer players to NBA players or ever Football players in terms of athleticism is laughable.

Steve Nash was relatively unathletic and he would light you up.