Tuesday, 15.08.2006	posted by Sven Simon 23:55 pm
Category: FIBA World Championship

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ALLEZ LES BLEUS

Guten Tag Everybody,

Today I saw France against Brasil on chinese television CCTV-5 broadcastet on the internet (www.viidoo.com). France won, but the result didn't change my opinion: France is not a contender for the gold medal!

Granted, they are a very athletic team with a lot of NBA players, but this won't translate into a medal for sure. The US team taught us that lession the last couple of years.

Let's take a deeper look at France. They have:

1. Some big, hard working bodys (Frederic Weis, Johan Petro, Ronny Turiaf and Cyril Julian), but no true back to the basket lowpost scorer.

2. A very versatile forward with Boris Diaw. He helps with every aspect of the game, but is not a go-to-guy. Maybe a little bit to selfless, not egoistic enough. Can one have too goos of an understanding of the game? Mister Diaw, think about the movie with Tom Hanks: "Shoot, Boris, Shoot!"

3. Tony Parker, of course. The small guard surprises me every time I see him. It's always like: Man, my coach should have told me that basketball is that easy for a point guard, who cannot shoot. Just drive to the basket and go for a lay-up every time, get a million dollar contract, become famous and get a super model girlfriend. Life is so easy sometimes!
Back to the point: how is it possible, that Parker can drive and finish almost every time he wants? He is not a great shooter, has no range, but sported the best field goal percentage last season in the NBA behind Shaq and Eddy Curry! Impossible! Okay, he is quick, but I still don't get it. Does anybody have an explanation?

4. Finalley, France has a load of swingmen like the Pietrus-Brothers and Mickael Gelabale. They are all athletic, quick and spectacular.

But all these players fit only some aspects of the tactics of France. The whole team will defend very well, and will run a lot of fast breaks, but other teams will try to slow them down to the setplay. And then they will drive and dish, like they always do. But once the defense collapses and they look for the open shooters ... well, there is our problem, because of the lack of shooters.

Lefthander Laurent Foirest, who stole his hairdo from a gas station worker, is the only real shooter in the rotation. Do you remember the game for third place in the EC in 2003 in Sweden? Big surprise: France lost 67:69 against Italy. Parker & Co shot 3/24 from three-point-land. In the whole tournament the team shot 26,8 percent on three pointers, in the EC 2005 29,7 percent. And I saw them three times the last weeks in the preparation for the WC 2006 ... same old story from downtown: brick, brick, brick!

You don't win a tournament without shooters ... especially when everybody knows that your team can't buy a jump shot!

Okay, that's it for now, during the next days we'll cover Team USA and discuss why everyone outside the US of A loves to hate that team. Excuse me? Ask that question once again, please ... I couldn't understand you ...

Ahh, you wanna now about my predictions for the world cup. It is a little bit early, but ... my gut feeling as of today is: France is gonna win. Not because I like them, but because my French co-blogger George Eddy aka "the black hole" will celebrate his comeback and shoot them straight to the gold medal.

spiele hart, spiele smart, lies FIVE (www.fivemag.de), rät der sven.