[Basketball Thursday] The World Olympic Qualifiers

If there ever were a pointless tournament, the World Olympic Qualifying Tournament must be it.

Long story short, instead of having every single team qualify for the Olympic games from their respective tournaments (such as the EuroBasket ' 07 tournament), FIBA decided to make things complicated. As a result, only a handful of teams from each continent from said tournaments, while the rest are now forced to qualify through the WOQT (my own, unofficial abbreviation*).

The result is that the teams in the WOQT had to start their preparations much sooner than the rest of the teams that have already qualified for the Olympic Games, which means they'll be more fatigued. To make matters worse for the teams that will eventually qualify for the Olympic Games, they will have to play in two highly competible tournaments, and not just one. For that reason, I can't really see a team that qualified from the WOTQ to go very far in the Olympic tournament itself, fatigue will most likely be a huge factor. After all, most players are coming from full seasons, in which they got too little time to rest already. These extra games won't help one bit.

Realistically, out of the twelve teams in the tournament, only a few have decent chances of qualifying to begin with. Brazil, Greece, perhaps Germany if Dirk feels like it, Slovenia if they don't choke, perhaps Croatia and Puerto Rico too. It makes me feel like this tournament is pretty redundant, as quite a few games will probably be a blowout. Was there any real reason for twelve teams in this tournament and not eight, or perhaps less?

The obvious answer for this is the fact that then it wouldn't be considered a real tournament, and thus it couldn't be marketed as such, of course. I just can't help but feel a bit sorry for athletes when they're used like that for nothing more than money. They should be given at least one month every year to rest. I can think of players that haven't gotten more than a couple of weeks of free time in the last five years. That's borderline inhumane, in my book.

As far as the WOQT goes though, it's not all bad, at least for the Greek national team, and me as well. The good thing about this tournament is that Greece is going to host it (although I'd really like to hear what the cost for this will be), so at least our players won't have to travel to the end of the world to play these games, which should make for less fatigue. Also, a few extra games at a high level should be good for the team in general, as it's currently going through a transition.

Several players from the team that won the EuroBasket in '05 have left, with the shunning of former captain Michalis Kakiouzis standing out as particularly rude to me, so this new team will definitely need some time to adjust. The easier games in the WOQT should be of help, so long as we don't royally mess them up, in which case this whole thing will be a disaster. Most of the new players are highly talented though, so we should be fine. My only major concern is the lack of an experienced, reliable, center. Bourousis is a good player, but he's more of a tall power-forward than a real center, Big Sofo can't last for more than ten-fifteen minutes per game, and the rest of the guys are too inexperienced. A good center is almost a necessity when attacking a tight defense, 5 on 5, and that's Greece weakest point offensively, as shown in last year's EuroBasket.

We'll see, I guess. I'll definitely watch at least one or two games when the tournament starts next week, and if our level of play is high enough I might watch it all the way to the semis. You can't see me right now, but I'm crossing my fingers already.

*Isn't it funny how the word "abbreviation" is itself quite long?

TL;DR version:

Έλα μωρή Ελλαδαράααααααααα!