August is here and it’s full speed ahead for the 2010 FIBA World Championship in Turkey later this month. In coming weeks, we’ll be seeing the national teams competing in the tournament playing warmup games all over the planet – indeed, some have already begun play.
With the last few big names having declared “yea” or “nay” on participation in the Worlds, BallinEurope figured it was high time to introduce power rankings for the upcoming tournament. Keep in mind that these rankings are not necessarily how BiE is fearlessly predicting they’ll end up when the 2010 Worlds are over, but rather how the squads are currently trending: You know, if the tournament started today…
All rankings are guaranteed to be 100% subjective with some semblance and factoring in of facts, FIBA rankings and sportsbooks’ odds on the tournament; the handy arrows indicate the team’s progress/regress on the chart (BiE’s pretending we ran one last week. Top 15 teams are ranked below the break.
1. (↔) Spain. Beyond the well-worn BiE rhetoric along the lines of “they’re the champions until somebody takes it away,” the truth is Team Spain may be bringing the best team to this tournament, period. While their chief competition returns exactly zero players from the 2008 Redeem Team – possibly the USA’s strongest team since 1992 and definitely since ’96 – Spain is a tight-knit bunch of stars from the highest professional levels.
The roster reads like a Who’s Who of European players: Rudy Fernandez, Juan Carlos Navarro, Fernando San Emeterio, Fran Vazquez, Jorge Garbajosa, and of course Rrrrrrricky Rubio, a certain candidate to have a huge tournament if only to tease those suffering Minnesota Timberwolves a bit more. Who can run with these guys?
And Team Spain’s marquee-name loss, i.e. Pau Gasol, will sure be ably replaced in what is absolutely a dream scenario for the team as burgeoning NBA All-Star Marc Gasol plays the big man this time around.
Finally, there seems to be no denying in the daily more overwhelming fact that 2010 in sports is The Year of Spain. In the past four months alone, Spaniards have taken the football World Cup, the Tour de France, the Euroleague 2009-10 basketball title and the Eurocup basketball title. Throw in the presence of FC Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League semifinals, Valencia’s championship-game appearance in Euroleague Women, and Pau Gasol by winning another title with the Los Angeles Lakers and, well, that’s just one maelstrom of sports dominance.
