Two weeks ago, I watched the Great Britain basketball team crash out of Eurobasket 2009. It was only the second time a British team had made a Eurobasket tournament (England got there in 1981), and as documented here, it represented a massive breakthrough in the basketball fortunes of a country that has about as much basketball tradition as it does volcanic eruptions. And yet they flumped out of it without winning a game.
It was fun, though. They may not have won a game, but they damn well came close. They never really threatened in a 19 point loss to Serbia in their final game, but in their first game against Slovenia, Britain trailed by only four points after three quarters before running out of gas. They hang tough with a vastly superior team, trailed by only 5 after three quarters, and stood up for themselves in a game they were supposed to roll over in.
Even better still was the second game; completely dominated in the early going by a stacked Spanish team, England fought back from a 12-0 deficit in the opening minutes to push Spain to the very end, even taking a 4 point lead with 4 minutes to go. It would have been one of the biggest upsets in the sport's history, and it would have been done by Britain. I was so excited that a little bit of wee came out.
Unfortunately, the lack of talent prevailed. Pau Gasol methodically closed out the game on both ends, including hitting two 3 pointers, and the dream was over. Fun, though. Truly.
(Also note: Britain's three opponents went on to be three of the tournament's four semi-finalists, and Spain were the eventual champions. Serbia came second, and Slovenia came fourth. This makes our little upstart team look even more respectable.)
The dearth of talent between Britain's front court and back court cannot be understressed. Great Britain's playbook was so sparse that Pops Mensah-Bonsu was the beneficiary of multiple wing isolations per game, and if you've ever seen Pops Mensah Bonsu shoot jumpshots or try to spin move, then you'll know why this was a bad idea. It was necessitated, however, by how staggeringly bad the backcourt is.
In the front court, we have European veteran (and former NBA draft pick) Andy Betts, a 7'1 centre with a solid back to the basket game, although he'd struggle to jump over a sheet of paper. We also have Robert Archibald, who plays exactly like a 41 year old David Robinson, and who has had experience with a few NBA teams. Blazers draft pick Joel Freeland is an up and coming young starlet who could probably start for the Bulls at power forward, and then there's the aforementioned Pops, who gets things done on the court, in both good ways and bad. (We try to ignore the bad.)
The backcourt, however, is non-existent. Starting at point guard is nationalised American point guard Nate Reinking, a 35 year old Kent State product who can catch and shoot with the best of them, but who also plays perimeter defense like a 41 year old Solomon Burke. He represents the sole outside shooting option on the team. The other starting guard is Wofford's very own Mike Lenzly, a 28 year old 6'3 off guard playing in the mighty Czech Republic league, whose inability to do anything obvious convinces you that he must be brilliant at the little things. (Note: "must be" is not a synonym for "is.")
The backcourt backups are even better, by which I mean they're even worse. Another naturalised American, 6'4 Jarrett Hart, is a 28 year old former Kansas State backup who averaged 11 points per game in the Cypriot league last year, and who can only hit mid range jumpshots without the handle to create them. And backing up at point guard is Dartmouth's finest Flinder Boyd, a 29 year old naturalised Yank who played in the British league last year. And that's how you can tell if someone's bad.
(For comparison's sake, Spain featured a guard rotation of Ricky Rubio, Rudy Fernandez, Juan Carlos Navarro, Raul Lopez, Sergio Llull and Carlos Cabezas. Three of them have NBA experience; two of them were taken in the past draft; Cabezas turned down multiple NBA offers this offer to stay in Spain. And this doesn't include Jose Calderon or Sergio Rodriguez, neither of whom were in the squad. Overmatched much.)
Explaining who these players are doesn't do justice to explaining how inadequate they are, but hopefully it hints at it. I make it my business to try and know about all the relevant basketball players in the world today, yet even I had to look them up. And I'm English.
Coming so close to a historic upset was both upsetting and heartwarming. It's upsetting that we came so close to making history just to make absolutely nothing at all, and it's upsetting that our first foray into the big stage ended limp and winless. However, it's heartwarming that we were able to compete, despite being completely overmatched and outclassed. There's some pride to be found there.
This needn't have happened, however, had we had Luol Deng.
It was star power that took the Spain game out of Britain's hands. Finding 34 different ways to feed Robert Archibald in the post worked well for 36 minutes, but when Spain stepped up and denied it, we had no alternatives. Britain turned the ball over 16 times in the game against only 57 shot attempts, because when the guards couldn't get the ball to the big men, they couldn't do anything else with it. All the good coaching couldn't mask the lack of talent in the end. But if they had had Luol Deng, Britain would always have had a star option to resort to.
This isn't to say that Luol Deng is a star player, exactly. We know as Bulls fans that that's not the case. We know he's not the primary ball handler, that he wouldn't be single handedly breaking presses and isolating for step back three pointers. We also know that he's far from a clutch time superstar, and that he's more likely to wither like a fig leaf in an electrical storm.
But it's all relative. Deng would have been Britain's best player by seventy jillion miles, and on a team bereft of guard skills and perimeter isolation ability (see earlier Pops comment), Deng would have been an invaluable commodity. With him, I can confidently say that we would have beaten Spain, therefore qualifying from our group, and almost certainly cementing our place in the next FIBA World Championships.
Didn't happen, though. At the Bulls behest, due to his recovery from injury, Deng didn't play. And that's a pity.
It is my hope that if you can see the other side of the coin on the issue, then you may be able to understand the downsides to the Bulls denying Luol's participation in Eurobasket 2009. The arguments for them doing so are obvious and well documented; Deng is recovering from a fractured leg, after all, and after having invested $72 million in him, the Bulls need to insure his health. These arguments are all documented, and they're also really, really valid.
But it's proven to not be a great embellishment to say that an entire nation's basketball health resides on the shoulders and teeth of this one man. If basketball in this country is to get anywhere, then national basketball has to first get somewhere. And while it's been doing so recently, it's only been doing so with Luol Deng. Without him, we're worthless.
By stopping Deng from playing, the Bulls stunted the growth of basketball in this country. They may well have had no choice, and may have been entirely correct to do it. But it still sucks.
I have to reluctantly concede that Deng recovering from a strangely fractured leg is a valid argument for his non-participation. But there will be other summers where he won't have a broken leg, where he will be physically able to play for Britain, and entirely willing to do so. However, he will also still be under contract at the time, to a contract paying him 8 figures a season. Will the Bulls - or whichever team happens to own him at the time - be amenable to his participation then?
I really hope so. The hopes of a nation depend upon it.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Tags: Bad Times, chicago bulls, Eurobasket, Luol Deng
Very fair take. Must be weird being both a Brit and a Bulls fan throughout this ordeal, heh. Ben Gordon wants to suit up next summer, doesn't he?
Yes, but he was sooooooooooooooo busy this September, what with the.....um......well, he said he was busy.
We're also still hoping that Kelenna Azubuike gets his passport in time. He was born in Britain, but he was declined a passport because his parents were illegal immigrants at the time of his birth. If he does, though, then suddenly we're talking. A lineup of Gordon/Deng/Azubuike/Pops/Archibald can compete with almost anyone.