Group A. Day 2: Tunisia vs. USA

[ricklin1982]

I believe the tourney should be expanded. USA is still an outlier in many regards. So the strength of USA should not be a reason to make any decisions.
Europe needs a larger share in both tourneys. That being the WC and Olympics. Americas should be able to get another automatic bid. Africa, Asia and Oceanic should remain relatively the same. If I had my way this years Olympics would look like this:

Group A
USA
France
Argentina
Lietuva
Tunisia
Australia
Serbia
Greece

Group B
Spain
Brazil
Russia
China
Nigeria
Puerto Rico
Turkey


By adding Serbia, Turkey, Greece, Puerto Rico I believe the tournament becomes stronger.

Since you have 16 teams, why not devide into 4 groups and let top 2 of each qualify?

If each team need to play 7 games in the group stage with such tight schedule, FIBA should allow 16-20 players each team, or the players would be exhausted,

[sinobball]

I think ricklin1982's plan is good. JGX's plan isn't obvious as to what to do with 6 teams. As for Visseira's concern, you have to have at least 1 representative from each continent for the Olympics, FIBA is not in a position to eliminate that. Maybe a better system can be implemented for World Cup.

Also, I agree with Raze Lupin that you can't use the score against USA to judge a team's level, Tunisia has the ability to compete and the score against Nigeria showed.

[Raze Lupin]

Since you have 16 teams, why not devide into 4 groups and let top 2 of each qualify?

If each team need to play 7 games in the group stage with such tight schedule, FIBA should allow 16-20 players each team, or the players would be exhausted,

four groups would be just fine.

I think ricklin1982's plan is good. JGX's plan isn't obvious as to what to do with 6 teams. As for Visseira's concern, you have to have at least 1 representative from each continent for the Olympics, FIBA is not in a position to eliminate that. Maybe a better system can be implemented for World Cup.

Also, I agree with Raze Lupin that you can't use the score against USA to judge a team's level, Tunisia has the ability to compete and the score against Nigeria showed.

The level of basketball is increasing. Many temas have NBA and/or Euroleague level players. Look at how Tunisia and Nigeria are competing. Turning this into a 6 team tournament is a backwards move in my humble opinion.

[Visseira]

I think ricklin1982's plan is good. JGX's plan isn't obvious as to what to do with 6 teams. As for Visseira's concern, you have to have at least 1 representative from each continent for the Olympics, FIBA is not in a position to eliminate that. Maybe a better system can be implemented for World Cup.

Also, I agree with Raze Lupin that you can't use the score against USA to judge a team's level, Tunisia has the ability to compete and the score against Nigeria showed.

The World Cup would be the tournament for every continent to be represented. The Olympics should be the tournament for the crème de la crème. Think about it like the ATP World Tour Finals.
I agree it is unfair to judge the level of a team against USA, but you can take today's game as an example. When Argentina got serious they built a big lead with ease. For example, Campazzo looked very good and he will barely play against the top teams if Prigioni is healthy.
There is a big gap and that should not happen in a tournament with only 12 teams.