The International Basketball Opinion

  By ALAN WALLS Welcome to The International Basketball Opinion, the world’s only blog specifically dedicated to international basketball news, business and current events. I’m back… Christmas, New Year’s, COVID, 5-year-old son, work, life… but I am finally back! And with a vengeance. I will attempt to rip off three blog entries back-to-back-to-back. Three-peat if you will, to quote the great Pat Riley. I need to keep them short (somewhat) and to the point in order to get through them. Here we go… In February, the 2022 FIBA Women’s World Cup (WC), which will be hosted by Australia, qualifying tournaments took place in: Belgrade, Serbia (2 tournaments) Osaka, Japan Washington DC, USA   16 team competed for 12 spots in the 2022 WC. Only 12? you ask. Read my take on that here! Each tournament (group) consisted of four (un)competitively balanced teams playing each other in a round-robin format to then only eliminate one team. The four groups were headed by: ...

By ALAN WALLS Welcome to The International Basketball Opinion, the world’s only blog specifically dedicated to international basketball news, business and current events. In an attempt to clean up the federation and get it back on track, extraordinary elections will be held this Saturday in Benin City, Nigeria. Said elections have not been scheduled, organized nor will be held without infighting and controversy. BBF elections to hold as scheduled. For those of you that following African basketball, unfortunately none of this is new to you as corruption, poor management and Nigerian basketball go hand-in-hand. After “shocking” the basketball world by upsetting Team USA in a pre-Olympic warm-up game, the Nigerian (American) men’s national team ( 10 players born, raised and developed in the US ) was expected to contend for a medal at the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games. The opposite happened: 0-3 record in group phase Lost to Australia, Italy and Germany Finished a very disappointing 10th out o...

By ALAN WALLS Welcome to The International Basketball Opinion, the world’s only blog specifically dedicated to international basketball news, business and current events. After back-to-back exhibition game loses to Nigeria and Australia, respectively, and losing four of their last five games dating back to the 2019 FIBA World Cup - where the US finished an embarrassing 7 th place - many in the international basketball community began to question again:   “Has the rest of the world caught up to the US in basketball?”   Sports talking heads Dan Patrick and Michael Wilbon certainly think so.   Heck, even the late great Kobe Bryant said so back in 2019. And they are not the only ones with this opinion around the world. Slow your roll… Let’s not forget, the US has won Gold in the last three Olympic Games. I know they fell flat on their faces at the 2019 World Cup, but the US players put much more importance on the OG than the WC and the US WC teams are a level...

By ALAN WALLS Welcome to The International Basketball Opinion, the world’s only blog specifically dedicated to international basketball news, business and current events.   Yesterday USA Basketball announced the hiring of Grant Hill to replace Jerry Colangelo as men’s team managing director after the Tokyo Olympics. This a GREAT hire by USA Basketball! There is no one more qualified for the position: - Gold medalist with the 1990 USA U18 Americas Championship team - Bronze medalist with the 1991 USA Pan American Games team - 2-time national champion at Duke University (1991 & 1992) - Member of 1992 USA Developmental Team that scrimmaged and beat the original Dream Team - 1996 USA Olympic Gold medal team member - Played on five USA Basketball teams and won two gold medals and one bronze medal and compiled an overall record of 26-1 (.963 winning percentage) - Played 19 NBA seasons: 7-time All-Star, 5-time All-NBA ...

By ALAN WALLS Welcome to The International Basketball Opinion, the world’s only blog specifically dedicated to international basketball news, business and current events.    It was announced this week that the Basketball Africa League (BAL), a partnership between the NBA and FIBA, will finally tipoff May 16th with all 26 games taking place in the Rwandan city of Kigali. This is GREAT news for the NBA, FIBA as well as basketball players, coaches and fans from across the African continent! It is really going to happen! Congratulations to both the NBA and FIBA for their efforts in coming together to grow the game in Africa and push this project through, despite the many obstacles caused by the COVID-19 global pandemic. This is also great news as there is still plenty of time for the NBA and FIBA to reconsider their questionable decisions regarding the naming, branding and imaging of the BAL before the first game is played. Here is what I mean. NAME Actual name: Basketball Africa ...