Euroleague champion fails in Texas

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The current Euroleague champion played two exhibition games in Texas:  Houston & SA.  These were played under NBA rules as opposed to FIBA rules (which is the olympic rules).  This team was demolished under the NBA rules.  But NBA players struggle just as much under the FIBA rules.  Which shows that the rules that the games are called under determine the success of Americans in international competition.

NBA Game Still Quite Different From FIBA

By: Jonathan Feigen   Last Updated: 10/15/07 6:14 PM ET

Legendary Panathinaikos coach Zelimir Obradovic arrived in Texas as dripping with accomplishments as the locals with summer sweat.

He did not need this little side trip, and neither did his team, but in the shrinking world of professional basketball the Celtics green goes to Europe and Greece's 'greens' head to Texas and they interact in a hoops version of Nixon's old 'ping pong diplomacy.

These things are not to unlock any sort of diplomatic impasse or to prove anything about the leagues these teams represent. They are exhibitions, little more. But in Panathinaikos' few days in Texas, Obradovic, his coaches and his players demonstrated something too often forgotten.

By midway through the second quarter of Panathinaikos' first game against the Rockets at Toyota Center, Obradovic was livid, with he and his team overflowing with frustration about the different rules of the NBA and International games. He began screaming, "It's a zone defense, a zone defense."

Official Rodney Mott looked back, looking puzzled as he searched for something to say without inciting any further anger from the enraged Panathinaikos bench.

Finally, he diplomatically offered, "You can't do that here." But the rest of the night, the reigning Euroleague champions were bogged down in all they were not permitted to do here that they routinely do in Europe.

Obradovic seethed until eventually he picked up his second technical foul and an ejection, with security called out to more strongly suggest he leave. By then the Rockets led 90-55, before lead official Sean Corbin, who is also a top FIBA official, hit Obradovic with his team's fifth technical foul.

"Two times they called illegal defense," Obradovic said. "One case we played zone. I don't know exactly why they called it. I tried to talk to the referee the normal way. It was very difficult to see your team shoot two free throws...this is really very difficult to understand. Even though we played with the NBA rules, we know what is a foul and what is not a foul. They called five technical fouls on us.

"I apologized to my players because of the two technical fouls, but it was very difficult for me to watch what happened."

This was not some loony, young coach woefully short on perspective. We're talking about a six-time Euroleague champion, winning his first three in three consecutive seasons with three different teams.

But the rules are different in the NBA, and despite that every other summer when the USA Basketball senior teams struggle, it is usually ignored that changing the rules changes the game.

The rules giving Panathinaikos so much trouble were unique to the NBA. The 'greens' were called for defensive three seconds, moving screens, hand checks on the perimeter – all routine and permissible in FIBA events. Obradovic's somewhat hysterical reaction was no different from Larry Brown's in the Sydney Olympics when he was an assistant to Rudy Tomjanovich, and many more similar tantrums since.

"Zones change everything," Yao Ming, a FIBA and NBA veteran, said last season. "It's a different game."

It is different enough that it has proved difficult for the USA teams to dominate both versions. This week, with Panathinaikos following its 117-70 loss in Houston with a 113-91 loss in San Antonio two nights later, the best team in Europe felt the same way.

The basketball world has shrunk, but the differences between the NBA version and everyone else's is still huge.

The gap could be bridged if the NBA would relent and accept FIBA rules and most of the differences are not too significant to fight. But the NBA's limits to the defenses allowed helps offense and keeps it more entertaining. The NBA is not about to give up any of that, so the rules and games remain different. And for all their preseason meetings, there remains a gulf.

Obradovic, however, can be counseled by the knowledge that he was only caught in that gulf for two meaningless games. Next summer in Beijing, the NBA players in United States uniforms will be fighting that again, and likely will know just how he feels.

[westkoast]

Took me like 15 minutes to read the article as I stopped at each foreign name and tried to guess how it sounds for a few minutes each lol