SUGGESTIONS TO FIBA
CONTENTS
POINT-DIFFERENTIAL SHOULD NOT COUNT IN GAMES THAT GO TO OT!!! THE UNFAIRNESS OF THE NEW KORAC CUP SYSTEM FIBA SHOULD HAVE BETTER COMMUNICATION WITH NATIONAL FEDERATIONS DETERMINING THE HOME-COURT ADVANTAGE IN THE EUROLEAGUEPOINT-DIFFERENTIAL SHOULD NOT COUNT IN GAMES THAT GO TO OT!!! The latest victim of this stupid rule is Peristeri. Having won Aris 85-79 in the first round of the 96-97 Greek A1 League, tied Aris 67-67 in the last seconds of their second round game. In the last seconds of the OT Aris scored a basket to win the game 80-73, that is by 7 points, 1 more than the 6 they had lost by in the 1st round. The bottomline is that Peristeri was penalized for tying the game in the last seconds of the regulation. It is STUPID to perpetuate counter-incentives for a team to score a basket. The following text is a part of 2 private emails. ... Do you remember our recent discussion about counting point differential in OTs? Greek media commented about the disgrace that happened in the Malaga-Ulker game (they commented also on the indifferent CSKA losing to Antibes, but at least Antibes' win made justice to Ulker). I don't know if you read the details about the Malaga-Ulker game, but here's what happened: Ulker had won by 8 in Turkey and was down by 1 with less than 1 minute to go. A Turkish player missed his 1st free-throw (which is OK according to you in order get the rebound and score a basket when you are down by 2), but apparently he did so awkwardly and the refs threatened Ulker with some kind of punishment (like what?, a technical? that's what fitted Ulker's plans!). In any case, the poor Turk made his 2nd free-throw (I gather by mistake) and tied the game. Then the Spaniards went 2 times to the free-throw line and missed all 4 free throws! The game went to OT, where Malaga won by 9, that is 1 more than they had lost in Turkey. But Antibes' win caused a 3-way tie in which case, Malaga needed to win by 10! Justice after all. But this comedy proved what I was saying: it's ridiculous to give incentive to teams not to score or to score against their own team. If Malaga missed on purpose 4 free thorws, Ulker should have slam-dunked in their own basket! Why, are the Spaniards more clever? Games that go to OT should not contribute to point-differential. It's a fair solution (since everybody would know that in advance), consistent with the current practices in the European and Korac cups where games can end in a tie, and reasonable in the sense that they make long-term (advancing) and short-term (winning the game or losing it with smaller difference) goals, consistent rather than potentially contradicting! ... -------------------- >>A Turkish player missed his 1st free-throw (which is OK according to you in > ^^^^^^^^^ > >I don't know how to spell it, but that guy was an American named: Schakelford >or something When I wrote my email I didn't know who the player was. The term "Turkish" meant "player of the Turkish team" in this context. I didn't care whether he was a Turk or an American anyway. >>the poor Turk made his 2nd free-throw (I gather by mistake) and tied the game. > ^^^^^^^^^ >???? I hope you can use the same word when you learn that poor person was an >American, not a Turk. See above. The term "poor" was actually a euphemism for IDIOT! His team was struggling for 14 games to advance, and he endangered all that. He should have thrown the ball to the stands! What would the refs do? Give him a technical? That's what Ulker wanted! What was your coach doing all this time? Or was he an American too? It's more HIS resposnibility rather than the player's. My experience is that these Americans who come to play basketball in Europe don't care that much about all these details and rules. In US basketball, point differenetials NEVER count. It's the coach's job to make sure his players understand what they should do and why.
THE UNFAIRNESS OF THE NEW KORAC CUP SYSTEM
The new Korac Cup system is unfair. The 2 potentially best teams in the whole tournament, both having an 8-0 record up to this point, may face each other at the round of 16. So one of the theoretically deserving to be finalist teams may not make it even to the round of 8. PAOK is not doing great this season in the Greek league, but I still deem it's unfair for a team that has an 8-0 record (now 9-0, after winning the 1st game in the round of 16) to have to face the leader of the Italian League to adavnace to the round of 8, while other teams with worse performance in the Korac Cup are facing much easier opponents. In the past system such "random" pairing occurred only in the semi-finals. Now the good teams play MEANINGLESS games in the groups, and then rely on predetermined luck to set their opponents in the subsequent rounds. I understand that FIBA wanted to give the opportunity to inferior teams to play at least 6 games in the season, but it should have taken measures to avoid the aforementioned problem. Probably, after the single elimination games in the round of 32, the 16 remaining teams should form 4 new groups of 4 teams each, as used to be done under the old system. This would increase the number of games by 4 (6 games in the round of 16 instead of 2), but it would still keep it under the number of games that Euroleague teams have to play. Even under the current system, I don't understand why it's OK for FIBA to set the initial groups in such a way that does not allow 2 top teams to be in the same group, but does not do the same in numbering the groups so that the 1996 European Cup finalist and top representative of Greece in the Korac Cup does not have to face in the round of 16 one of the top Italian teams that made it to the 1996 European Championship final-8?FIBA SHOULD HAVE BETTER COMMUNICATION WITH NATIONAL FEDERATIONS
FIBA has arranged so that the 4 positions in the Euroleague are filled by teams from the countries that had the previous year a team in the final-4 of the EuroCup (I omit the other details). The problem is that many Federations, especially those that send more than 1 teams to the Euroleague, having stuck to the traditional single elimination system in Cup competitions, end up with weaker teams in the European Cup than in the Korac Cup. Of course it's up to them to change the rules. But FIBA should apply some pressure in this direction. It's not fair for individual teams to suffer due to the different approaches that FIBA and their local federation follows. If FIBA suddenly decides to connect the European Cup to the Euro league, it should first take measures so that the European Cup has indeed the second-best representation. The Italian Federation sent during the past 5-6 years an A2 or of similar caliber team to the European Cup, while other very strong Italian teams dominated the Korac Cup. The solution is simple: the national Cups should carry only "interior" importance, and their winners ONLY (not runners-up, or semi-finalists) be rewarded with participation to the Korac Cup, if not qualified otherwise. And the federations should send to the European Cup the best teams next to the ones that they send to the Euroleague. It's not the right approach to give complete freedom to the national federations to arrange these details. These are FIBA competitions, and FIBA should have a stronger saying in the criteria that must be met by the teams that participate in these competitions.DETERMINING THE HOME-COURT ADVANTAGE IN THE EUROLEAGUE
Once again FIBA has apparently set a foolosh rule that gives an incentive for teams to lose games! According to the info I have available on 17/2/97, if a team that finished 4th in the Euroleague groups eliminates in the round of 16 a team that finished 1st in the groups, then it gains the home-court advantage in the round of 8 against teams that finished 2nd or 3rd in the groups! This is contrary to the tradition in national (e.g. Greek) European cahmpionships, as well as in the NBA, but, most importantly, it's unfair and contrary to any logical criteria! A team taht finished 4th, by making a win on the road against a team that possibly i smissing key players at that particular time, erases the significance of the 16 games that teams have played in the groups and gains the home-court adfvanatge against teams that performed better than them! This is UNFAIR! Even if one argues that they did something impressive by advancing without the home-court advantage, the same could be said for a 3rd team that advanced against a 2nd team, also without the home-court advantage. Eliminating the 1st team, DOES NOT AND SHOULD NOT MEAN that the 4th team inherits all the advantages that the 1st team had gained by its strong regular season/group performance! On top of all that, this silly system creates again incentives for teams to lose games! Let's say that a 1st and 2nd team are of approcbximately equal quality. Why should a team try to finish 3rd to play the 2nd team without home-court advantage, and then play in the next round again without the home-court advantage NO MATTER WHAT, while the 4th team, if they advance, will play WITH home-court advantage no matter what? Why shoudl the 2nd and 4th teams be treated EQUALLY, having to play by definition one game with and one game without home-court advantage to reach the final-4? I hope that FIBA realizes soon their mistake, and determines that the team that finished in a higher position in the groups, would have the home-court advantage in the round of 8. Otherwise teams would try to finish 4th rather than 3rd. And probably that's why Maccabi lost, or didn't try that hard to win, last week in Belgium...Disclaimer
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