WC 2006 in Japan

[Gedas]

It will start in about a month, so I thought it needs a thread? Who will win the top-3 places in you opinion?

[kibaxx7]

1st - Argentina
2nd - USA
3rd - Lithuania

[The X]

1. USA (they'll win here, get cocky & lose Olympics )
2. Germany/Spain/France/Italy (not sure which of these teams are in the tourney)
3. Argentina
-----
8. New Zealand
9. Australia

[Gedas]

Well, IMO, USA will choke:
1) Lithuania
2) USA
3) Argengtina

[funk99]

1. USA
2. Lithuania
3. Australia

[Panco]

1st place - USA
2nd place - Spain
3rd place - Argentina, but i hope to see Lithuania here.

I'm not so sure about Lithuania this time, cause we lost our 2 PG's (including Sarunas Jasikevicius) and Siskauskas, which can play as PG as well ( he's the one of the best if not the best SF in Europe at the moment, IMO) will not play as well, so Lithuanian team-play, which is our "main weapon" and well-known in the whole world, will not be as good as usual. Anyway we'll have the best Big-Men in this championship, IMO, and some new young players will join NTeam this year, so who knows..

[Joe']

Wow you believe a lot in the USA team...actually I think they'll finish 3rd, if not 4th.
The first place is actually a lot disputed: Argentina will be looking to repeat what happened in 2004; Italy build up a very good team, and even if Bargnani will not play, they have lots of chances to win it (trust me, I know the players...I've seen them, and I've even played against some of the young ones like Cavaliero and Belinelli); The USA team is angry for the shame that happened to them in 2004, and they'll fight to fix it and make people forget about that; Lithuania has a very good team too and they are surely training hard to win this competition (What's going on with Siskauskas? Is he injured again?); Spain has good players, but most of them are very young and don't have experience so I don't expect them to finish with more than the 3rd place; Other teams like France, Croatia, Slovenia and Greece, have build good players over the last 4/5 years (most of them are playing in the NBA right now) and I expect them to go far on the competition.
As for Germany, I don't know what to say...I haven't watched the Bundesliga and the only team that partecipated to the Euroleague was only Bamberg I think (I had the opportunity to watch the Bamberg U-18 team in the Tournament of Lissone this year too. There were lots of great players there but it was U-18 category so I don't think they were playing at a very high level. They seemed very good players compared to the others, except maybe some Croatians, though).

[Panco]

Lithuania has a very good team too and they are surely training hard to win this competition (What's going on with Siskauskas? Is he injured again?)

Siskauskas needs some rest after past season. Just like Saras.
Speaking about Lithuania , I wouldn't call our team "very good". It's better than EB 2005 team but not good enough to beat USA , Argentina and some other strong teams IMO. As I said we always use a lot of team-play so PG is the main position but our starting PG gonna be G.Gustas who plays in some latvian team.. Also one of best 10 Euroleague players D.Lavrinovic was injured so he's not in best shape, I guess. Same about our "deadly shooter" Macijauskas, who spent almost all the season on the bench and had some minor injury as well, so it's not sure about his shape as well. But again as I said our play isn't based on certain players that's why even with our 2nd team (without 5-6 main players, as I remember) we took 5th place in past EuroBasket with only 1 loss.

[Joe']

I didn't know that so many players will not be able to play...It's a shame though.

[Jugs]

1. Croatia .

[Gedas]

1. Croatia .

Yes, they can play against themselves this summer then surely Croatians will win

[Joe']

I expect Croatia to be in the top 5 teams this World Cup. You shouldn't underrate them.

[Pera]

Croatia won't play at the WC,because Slovenia beated them in Eurobasket.Slovenia qualifyed for WC and got 6th place at the Eorubasket,Croatia finnished 7th or 8th.And only 6 teams qualifyed to the WC from the Eurobasket.

1.USA
2.Argentina
3.Slovenia

[Rip32]

A real Team USA is the best in the world and should win this thing. The roster they brought to Athens wasnt half the team this could and can be, its so much more balanced and with a real coach (K) who lets players play to their strengths and not hgis old fashion slow down game, they can do good. LB tried to make Team USA a half court sqquad when the US athletes are built to run and gun, get a fast break going with Hinrich looking to Bron and Wade? Thats how we should have played Fast, not a slow down game, you cant do that becase the players on that olymipic team needed to ball to make somthing happen, this team should be better.

[MC Hao]

wang zhizhi and yao ming will take china to the finals!!!

one can always dream

[Jing]

the chinese guys better heal properly before the tournament...
when wang went down, i was like, shit they are screwed

[shadowgrin]

I was surprised when I found out that Wang is again allowed to play for the Chinese Team after the incident a few years back.

[Null17]

I read that he apologized to the Chinese government and asked to be taken back to China and the National Team again. I think this happened fairly recently

[DavidLin]

USA has better chances, though they have the most wel-known players, and should get much more notices.but under the control of big K,they can do better than they did 2 years ago
the second choice will be argentina. you know manu is gettin better every year. after 2 years, he comes back, but also with better oberto and someone we don't know but skillful
3rd one also lithuania.the "strange" team did not use much players from nba but still got good results.these means they have better players in europe.but now, you must keep your eye on the king of europe-jaskevicius and good shooter macijauskas.the 2 important players in the team are in nba now
as for italy,no bargnani,but that's no problem for them to go farther;for serbia, i will support them if they have bodiroga and peja;for spain, pau must get better as a team leader;for france, parker and diaw can make it a nice game, but i don't think they have much chances to get into the final.

[Panco]

USA has better chances, though they have the most wel-known players, and should get much more notices.but under the control of big K,they can do better than they did 2 years ago.

USA always has the best chances but thay rarely play as a team that's why they always lose a game or two. Anyway if they'll play as a real team (I guess coach K will make them to do that) USA gonna be unbeatable.

3rd one also lithuania.the "strange" team did not use much players from nba but still got good results.these means they have better players in europe.but now, you must keep your eye on the king of europe-jaskevicius and good shooter macijauskas.the 2 important players in the team are in nba now

As I said Jasikevicius will not participate in WC 2006.
Btw Macijauskas is not in NBA anymore.

[Jing]

well. without Wang and Yao, China lost to Serbia and Montenegro 77-66. I think this shows they are finally getting back into form again, seeing as how they’ve been killed by Spain recently. Yi got 10 points and 13 rebounds. Finally there is some life back in the team. Just hope they can keep it up.

Though at the moment looking at rosters and stuff, I defiantly see the Americans standing on the top of the podium

[Joe']

I just read that Jack Galanda and Gianmarco Pozzecco will not play for Italy. Bargnani neither but we knew about that a long time ago. So I guess Italy's chances to win are less than one, with the only Basile leading the team. The worst thing is that the Italian media is trying to fool people saying that Mancinelli, Gigli and Belinelli are good players, and they sure aren't, they're still kids and they sure aren't as good as college players of their age are (i.e: Joakim Noah): While Gigli played for a shitty team (Reggiana) and scored only like 12 points per game (didn't play Euroleague), Mancinelli scored only 7 points a game in the Serie A and little more than 6 points a game in Euroleague with Climamio Bologna. The only player that could do something is Belinelli (20 years old) who averaged 13 points per game in Serie A and in Euroleague too, but I can't see this team win to much better teams like USA, Argentina, etc. I sure want more Argentina than Italy to win this cup.