It's September 1st of another year, and everyone knows that this is the day when the annual new school year begins, and each of us starts our student careers on this day of a certain year.
But September 1, 2022, for basketball fans, there is still a little special, even a small festival, because it may be the best basketball game in the world, from this day to start: the 2022 men's basketball European Championship will start in Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, Georgia four countries at the same time, a rare event in the history of international basketball is about to start.
The reason why this European Cup may be the best game, first of all, is because this tournament can be described as a star gathering, especially the three strongest players in Europe, Antetokounmpo, Jokic, Doncic, all of which lead the team out, which makes this European Cup will not only be the overall collision between the great powers, but also the amazing performance of the superstars.
How strong are the alphabets, Jokic and Doncic now? Here are some simple facts:
The NBA has experienced the longest period of MVP vacuum for American players in history, the Americans have been missing MVP for four consecutive years, and all the MVP trophies in these four years have been divided between Antetokounmpo and Jokic, two European superstars.
At the same time, the players who have been selected for the league in the NBA in the past two years and have maintained the highest level of play, no Curry, no James, no Durant, only three people have done this, it is precisely Doncic, Alphabet and Jokic, of which Alphabet has entered the league for 4 consecutive years, and Doncic has also been 3 consecutive years.
In the NBA playoffs just this past, only three players in the league averaged more than 27.5 points per game, I believe that this time there is no need to prompt, you already know the answer. But outrageously, Alphabet, Doncic, and Jokic averaged 31.7, 31.7 and 31.0 points per game in the playoffs, respectively.
So we had a rare opportunity to see MVP-caliber players face each other head-on internationally in the offseason.
It is true that in the high-level wildball game in the United States, there are also MVP duels such as Durant vs Harden in these two days, but after all, it is not a life-and-death duel representing the glory of the country.
Indeed, in the history of European basketball, there has also been an era of superstars, Gasol, Parker, Nowitzki have also played in the European Cup many times in the player era, these three legendary stars have the NBA career bonus of the championship ring, but on the absolute ability of the star, the current European three super giants may have surpassed the predecessors.
This European Championship was actually supposed to be held at the same time last year, but because of the postponement of the epidemic for a year, which made the European team participate in a large number of warm-up matches and 2 World Cup qualifiers before the start of the European Championship, Serbia and Greece were in the same group in the World Preliminary Tournament, so Jokic and Alphabet, the two MVPs have already had a collision.
In that game, the two superstars can be described as fighting in the dark, a game under FIBA rules, Alphabet scored 40 points, 8 rebounds and 5 assists, Jokic scored 29 points, 8 rebounds and 6 assists, although Alphabet won the data, but Teacher Yo reproduced the key killer nature, leading Serbia to defeat Greece in overtime.
This level of confrontation is bound to appear at this European Championship.
The allure of this European Cup, the presence of three super giants can be called a golden signboard. But what really reflects the charm of the European Cup is the quality of the game, the evolution of European basketball, which is probably the most gratifying place in the past 10 years on the international basketball map.
As we all know, the world basketball pattern can be described as a superpower, the United States team has the strongest strength, the deepest foundation, but in addition to the United States team, almost only Australia in the world has the strength to fight with the European powers.
A simplest example:
Take a look back at the world-class basketball game of 2021. The first was the Olympic Defeat Tournament held at the end of June and the beginning of July, in which 24 teams from all over the world divided into four divisions to compete for 8 places to qualify for the Olympic Games, and as a result, 7 of these 8 places were eventually occupied by European teams, with only Brazil becoming the only exception.
In the men's basketball arena of the Subsequent Tokyo Olympic Games, European teams played a large number of matches against other continental teams, except for the United States and Australia, which were able to face European teams to maintain victories, and european teams maintained full victories in other competitions.
Therefore, the current situation of world basketball is like this, with the competitiveness of Brazil and Argentina greatly declining, the level of Asian teams is insufficient, and African teams have not yet risen, almost has formed a picture of European basketball standing out in the global map - fortunately, this time, all of them are internal competition between the 24 strong teams in Europe, especially Group B in the four groups, France, Slovenia, Germany, Lithuania, Bosnia and Herzegovina are all divided into the same group, while France has just lost against Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Germany.
Therefore, there is a saying among football fans that the European Cup is better than the World Cup, and now this sentence can be almost transplanted to basketball intact, expecting that it will be a cold game.
So what are the dramatic changes specifically within European basketball?
Simply put, the pace of European basketball is faster than before, and the impact of offense on the game has become stronger. The representative team is Slovenia, led by Doncic.
Looking back 5 years ago, the small country of Slovenia was a big hit, a country of 2 million people stood on the top of Europe, and in the past two years, from the Olympic defeat to the main tournament, and then to the recent World Cup qualifiers, Slovenia has continuously shown their strong style of play: a 40-minute game, they can constantly bomb 95 points or even more than 100 points of high scores, announcing that European basketball is no longer stuck in the era of only emphasizing confrontation and position warfare.
Today's European basketball, it can be said that the 24 teams that can play in the European Championship, almost all have good physical confrontation and good tactical literacy, but the strongest teams are often able to maintain the intensity of confrontation, the accuracy of cooperation and shooting accuracy at the same time.
To a certain extent, in contrast to the dazzling NBA game, European basketball games also emphasize individual ability, the three super giants are still the only ones on this stage, but European teams obviously emphasize the integrity of the team, they will not let the game fall into a situation of rotation and single-handedness, and superstars will not directly override the team, which is the fundamental reason why European teams have continuously narrowed the gap with the United States team in the past 20 years, and even have representatives to beat the American team.
And we may also need to recognize that this is the state basketball really should be.
In addition to the above reasons, there are many small factors, such as: the game is not procrastinating, the referee does not whistle casually, the audience has a different style, and even the game and work hours do not conflict.
But what is most worth watching is that Chinese basketball should realize what level of basketball has developed in the world through such a game, and how we should build our own basketball industry.
On the one hand, China's population base engaged in basketball is already quite large, and it is even likely that the country with the largest number of basketball players in the world, the popularity of the "village BA" game, including many folk golfers, has a fairly good fan base among fans; But on the one hand, the pyramid of Chinese basketball has not become more tall and compacted, just this past summer, the Chinese men's basketball team did suffer a large number of unexpected incidents, but the content of the game presented is difficult to say satisfactory in any case.
Between the good mass base and the declining combat effectiveness of the national team, there are obviously still many links that have not been opened, which is by no means solved by any basketball industry insider alone. But looking at the European Cup games, if more children like this way of playing, if more coaches are willing to emphasize the integrity of the team, then for Chinese basketball, it is even a little help.
It is a pity that Chinese players who have not been able to have a national level for many years have chosen to play in Europe at their peak, but Zhou Qi's improvement in the NBL league in the past year has told everyone very well: the NBA is the most glorious temple, but the academy that can help us improve is not limited to this.