FIBA World Championship Rankings
With the 2010 FIBA World Championships approaching, it is important to get a feeling for each team’s ranking. FIBA’s ranking system is based on objective results over the past eight years, which has little weight on this year’s championships. For instance, eight years ago Team USA was being led by Paul Pierce and a young, actually productive Elton Brand. Therefore, it is important to have subjective contemporary rankings. Thus, here are the top contenders in this year’s FIBA World Championships:
1. Spain: Sure, Spain may have succumbed to Team USA’s Redeem Team at the 2008 Olympics, but that’s not the Team USA they will be facing in Turkey. Team USA has an entirely new, and not as star-studded, roster and did not exactly blow Spain out of the water in 2008. Kobe Bryant had to hit nearly every bucket towards the end of that game to hold of Spain’s late-game surge led by Juan Carlos Navarro.
Spain is without its best player, centre Pau Gasol, but other than that are fielding essentially the same team that dominated the 2009 EuroBasket and won silver in 2008 in Beijing. Much of the roster is young and has improved since both those periods significantly. At the EuroBasket, Spain won all of its knockout stage games by at least 20 points. Essentially, they are now the European version of Team USA, and should be a frightening opponent for anyone.
2. USA: The United States are overwhelming favourites in Vegas when it comes to winning the championships, which is a troubling sign already. The US has not exactly been as dominant as it has been historically in terms of world basketball, and this year’s team has zero returning players from the 2008 gold medal winning team.
The only player on the roster who is comparatively better in his position this year than Team US had in 2008 is Kevin Durant. Unlike the stable Spanish roster, the members of Team USA have not played together for too long and no matter how amazing Durant is, a lack of chemistry is dangerously possible.
3. Greece: Greece may have played poorly at the EuroBasket, despite their bronze-medal finish. However, during those struggles the Greeks were without their top players Theo Papaloukas and Dimitris Diamantidis. Both will be back for the Turkey campaign. Greece should be a top-contender out of Group C and it’s also important to remember that they are the last team to defeat the USA in international play.
4. Brazil: Brazil is more of an up-and-coming team rather than an established contender, but they will be bringing a very strong roster to Turkey. Brazil finished a dismal 19th at the 2006 championships, but has been dominant as of late. They ran through the FIBA Americas and took gold over Argentina, Puerto Rico and Canada.
Brazil will be bringing a roster chock full of NBA names like Leandro Barbosa, Nene and Anderson Varejao, but its best player might be soon-to-be NBA player Tiago Splitter. Splitter will be playing for the Spurs next season, but was the MVP of the Spanish League last season.
5. Argentina: Argentina is currently ranked as number one by FIBA, but that will certainly change after this tournament. Argentina should still be a challenge in the early stages, but is lacking the depth that brought it atop the FIBA rankings in the first place.
Star player Manu Ginobili is out entirely and Andres Nocioni can't practice. Carlos Delfino and Luis Scola are still around and still rank in the top five for their positions, but they may not have enough to carry the team through.
The only upside for Argentina is a relatively easy schedule that bypasses any teams ranked higher than them here. Regardless, Argentina will still have to face Serbia and Australia in groups and the threat of Greece or Turkey in the knock-outs.
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