BigDirty

After leaving New Orleans Fizer played for Murcia in Spain and then for Arecibo in Puerto Rico. He currently plays for Maccabi Tel Aviv in Israel together with Will Bynum. Skita has spent the last years in Russia & Spain in some not so good teams and now plays for Siviglia Wear Teramo in Italy, they aren't very good either.

Day 1 is over and here are the results and stats of NBA players (plus Cenk): Serbia 65-73 Russia Jaric 9 pts, 3 ast 5 reb Milicic 9 pts, 9 reb, 3 blk, 2-13 FG, 38 (of 40) min, wtf??? Kirilenko 24 pts, 12 reb, 3 blk Khryapa 11 pts, 9 reb Israel 66-76 Greece Latvia 85-77 Croatia Biedrins 14 pts, 7 reb, 6 to Markota 6 pts, 7 reb Portugal 56-82 Spain Gasol 19 pts, 3 ast, 4 reb, 19 min Navarro DNP Calderon 1 pts, 3 ast, 14 min Rodriguez 2 pts, 3 ast, 4 stl, 14 min Garbajosa 8 pts, 4 reb, 18 min Czech Republic 78-83 Germany Nowitzki 35 pts, 11 reb Turkey 69-86 Lithuania Cenk 0-1 FG, 4 min Okur 11 pts, 10 reb Türkoglu 18 pts, 5 reb, 3-11 2FG Songaila 12 pts, 6 reb Kleiza 12 pts, 2 reb Jasikevicius 18 pts, 7 ast, 8 reb Poland 66-74 France Diawara 10 pts, 4 reb Parker 16 pts, 4 ast, 4 reb, 5-16 FG Diaw 10 pts, 4 reb Turiaf 7 pts, 2 reb Italy 68-69 Slovenia Belinelli 7 pts, 3 reb, 2-7 FG Bargnani 4 pts, 1 reb, 2-10 FG Nesterovic 6 pts, 6 reb

The European Basketball Championships are only a couple of hours away, so I will post the 10 rosters, that I didn’t post before. You Americans can watch the games online here but you would have to pay $19.99 for the whole tournament or $3.99 per game, you might also be able to catch the games on SopCast, but that might be illegal. Croatia F Marko Banic (Bilbao) C Stanko Barac (Tau Ceramica) C Mario Kasun (FC Barcelona) G Davor Kus (Unicaja Malaga) F Damir Markota (Milwaukee Bucks) G Zoran Planinic (Tau Ceramica) G Marko Popovic (Zalgiris Kaunas) F Nikola Prkácin (Dynamo Moscow) F Marin Rozic (Cibona Zagreb) G Mario Stojic (Vive Menorca) G Marko Tomas (Fuenlabrada Madrid) G Roko-Leni Ukic (Lottomatica Roma) They are definitely able to challenge for a medal. Planinic & Kasun have NBA experience and Ukic, Tomas & Markota were supposed to have NBA level talent. But since they’re a Balkan team, they could totally mail it in and stinkt up the tournament. Greece C Ioannis Bourousis (Olympiakos) G Nikolaos Chatzivrettas (Panathinaikos) G Dimitrios Diamantidis (Panathinaikos) F Michail Kakiouzis (Sevilla) F/C Dimosthenis Ntikoudis (Panathinaikos) C Lazaros Papadopoulos (Real Madrid) G Theodoros Papaloukas (CSKA Moscow) F Michalis Pelekanos (Real Madrid) G Vasileios Spanoulis (Panathinaikos) C Konstantinos Tsartsaris (Panathinaikos) F Panagiotis Vasilopoulos (Olympiakos) G Nikolaos Zisis (CSKA Moscow) The current title holder lives and dies by their teamplay and defense. It will be an advantage that five players play on the same team. Since they lack the big time scorer and the suprise factor, I’ll say no medal for Greece this time. Israel F Lior Eliyahu (Maccabi Tel Aviv) F Yaniv Green (CSKA Samara) G Dror Hagag (Hapoel Jerusalem) G Yotam Halperin (Maccabi Tel Aviv) F Ido Kozikaro (Hapoel Nahariya) C Erez Marckovich (Hapoel Jerusalem) F Matan Naor (Hapoel Nahariya) F Guy Pniny (Hapoel Jerusalem) G/F Jeron Roberts (Amsterdam) G Moran Roth (Maccabi Ramat Gan) C Amit Tamir (AEL) G Meir Tapiro (Bnei Hasharon) The club teams from Israel have a long, successful tradition, but their national team is never on that same level. The only players I know from that team are Green and Halperin, they’re quite good, but I doubt that they’ll be enough so I think the last team to qualify will be one of the first to go home. Italy C Andrea Bargnani (Toronto Raptors) G Gianluca Basile (FC Barcelona) G Marco Belinelli (Golden State Warriors) G Massimo Bulleri (Armani Jeans Milano) C Andrea Crosariol (VidiVici Bologna) F Luigi Da Tome (Legea) - #3 international ‘87 on draft express, #38 in 2009 mock G Fabio Di Bella (VidiVici Bologna) F Angelo Gigli (Benetton Treviso) F Stefano Mancinelli (Climamio Bologna) C Denis Marconato (FC Barcelona) G Marco Mordente (Benetton Treviso) G Matteo Soragna (Benetton Treviso) Italy has some good veterans like Basile & Soragna and they also have talented youngsters like Bargnani, Belinelli and Da Tome, so that’s a good mixture. If they aren’t too soft, they could win a medal, but it’ll depend on the play of their big guys. Latvia C Andris Biedrins (Golden State Warriors) G Janis Blums (Eldo Napoli) F Kaspars Cipruss (Ventspils) C Raitis Grafs (ASK Riga) F Uvis Helmanis (Ventspils) F Gatis Jahovics (ASK Riga) F Kristaps Janicenoks (Climamio Bologna) G Armands Skele (Barons Riga) G Raimonds Vaikulis (Barons Riga) G Sandis Valters (ASK Riga) F Pavelis Veselovs (Ventspils) G Aigars Vitols (Ventspils) I despise Uvis Helmanis, he’s a dirty dirty player, so I’ll say this team sucks!!! Ok, I only know Helmanis, Valters and Biedrins anyway, so I simply guess, that they’ll be bad. Lithuania G Giedrius Gustas (Barons Riga) F Paulius Jankunas (Zalgiris Kaunas) F Simas Jasaitis (Tau Ceramica) G Sarunas Jasikevicius (Golden State Warriors) C Robertas Javtokas (Dynamo Moscow) G Rimantas Kaukenas (Montepaschi Siena) F Linas Kleiza (Denver Nuggets) C Darjus Lavrinovic (Unics Kazan) C Ksistof Lavrinovic (Montepaschi Siena) F Jonas Maciulis (Zalgiris Kaunas) G Ramunas Siskauskas (CSKA Moscow) F Darius Songaila (Washington Wizards) Lithuania is known for smart players and good shooters, of course you can find these kinds of players in this years roster again. They also have twin centers, can it get any better? So smart players, good shooters, twin centers & 3 NBA players, all that just might result in a medal for team Lithuania. Portugal F/C Jorge Coelho (Alimentos Palencia) F Paulo Cunha (FC Porto) G Filipe da Silva (Villa Los Barrios) C Elvis Evora (Ovarense) G Mário-Gil Fernandes (Plasencia) F Joao Gomes (Barreirense) C Francisco Jordao (Pedro Atletico) G Miguel Minhava (Benfica) F Miguel Miranda (Ovarense) F Sergio Ramos (Mallorca) F Joao Santos (Valladolid) G/F Paulo Simao (Belenenses) Honestly, I don’t know any of these players or any portuguese basketball player for that matter, so, umm, next. Russia G Sergey Bykov (Dynamo Moscow) G Jon Robert Holden (CSKA Moscow) F Victor Khryapa (Chicago Bulls) F Andrei Kirilenko (Utah Jazz) F Sergey Monya (Dynamo Moscow) F Nikita Morgunov (Triumph) G Nikolai Padius (Unics Kazan) G Zakhar Pashutin (CSKA Moscow) F Anton Ponkrashov (Khimki) - #1 international ‘86 on draft express, #48 in 2008 mock G Petr Samoylenko (Dynamo Moscow) C Aleksey Savrasenko (CSKA Moscow) F Nikita Shabalkin (Khimki) - #7 international ‘86 on draft express, #50 in 2008 mock They have good forwards, but the PG and C position are kinda weak and in my opinion these are the two most important positions. Also a team that has to nationalize JR Holden doesn’t really deserve a medal. Spain G Carlos Cabezas (Unicaja Malaga) G Rudy Fernandez (Joventut Badalona) F Jorge Garbajosa (Toronto Raptors) F Pau Gasol (Memphis Grizzlies) C Marc Gasol (Girona) F Carlos Jiménez (Unicaja Malaga) F Alex Mumbru (Real Madrid) G Juan Carlos Navarro (Memphis Grizzlies) F Felipe Reyes (Real Madrid) F Berni Rodriguez (Unicaja Malaga) G Sergio Rodriguez (Portland Trailblazers) G Jose Manuel Calderon (Toronto Raptors) The host and biggest favourite for the gold medal. They have a very strong team, that has played together for years. The Raptors allowed Garbajosa to play in the tournament yesterday. Gasol, Garbajosa, Calderon, Fernandez, Rodriguez, Navarro & Jimenez, how can you beat them in Spain? My guess is you can’t and therefore they’ll win it all. Turkey G Cenk Akyol (Efes Pilsen) G Ender Arslan (Efes Pilsen) G Engin Atsür (Benetton Treviso) G Hakan Demirel (Fenerbahce) C Semih Erden (Fenerbahce) F Kerem Gönlüm (Efes Pilsen) F Ersan Ilyasova (FC Barcelona) F Emal Kuqo Kurtoglu (Efes Pilsen) G Ibrahim Kutluay (Fenerbahce) F Mehmet Okur (Utah Jazz) C Kaya Peker (Tau Ceramica) F Hidayet Türkoglu (Orlando Magic) The Erdogan injury just a couple of days before tournament start causes some big problems for Turkey, but it also answers the question whether Demirel or Akyol will be cut. Turkey is rebuilding and I don’t think that the big three, Okur, Kutluay & Türkoglu, can carry them very far. Apparently Germany’s Sven Schultze got injured and coach Bauermann nominated Stephen Arigbabu as his replacement. What a dumb decision. The guy is 35 years old and hasn’t played in the national team for years. Even 5 years ago he was a backup that way maybe good for 5 minutes per game.

link Does anyone think that the Falcons should pick him up? His delivery is slow and he's hurt a lot, but he would be worlds better than Redman as a backup and in my opinion he's much better than Harrington too. I say give him a short contract (1-2 years) so that our QB position looks at least a little bit better for this season.

Quote: Also the EU is not only for European Countries. Wrong again, article 49 states that only european countries may join the EU. Please stop talking about things you have no clue about, it makes you look really stupid when you claim things like "most Russians are Asians" & "European Union is not only for Europeans", it is funny though.

Quote: most Russian's are considered Asian Lol, no. ~26 million live east of Ural, ~12 million in Ural, ~106 million west of Ural. Russia is part of the Council of Europe, so is Turkey, Turkey even wants to join the EU, which is kinda reserved for european countries you know. Latvia and Lithuania are west from Russia, there is NO way to consider them asian.

Did you actually go to school? Now I can understand if someone counts Russia & Turkey to Asia (eventhough it's wrong, especially in sports where even Georgia counts to Europe) but Latvia & Lithuania???

Batista would be stupid if he re-signed with the Hawks. With the addition of Horford his chances for playing time are even worse than last season. He could get more playing time on another team or more money & fame in Europe. Plus he dislikes Woodson since he said that Batista has language problems.

Did you even look at the list? It's a list with current players, not the 500 best of alltime, and of course it's 100% useless.

France G Tony Parker (San Antonio Spurs) G Yohann Sangare (ASVEL) G Joseph Gomis (Valladolid) F Boris Diaw (Phoenix Suns) F Yakhouba Diawara (Denver Nuggets) F Tariq Kirksay (Kazan) F Cedric Ferchaud (Pau Orthez) F Florent Pietrus (Estudiantes) C Frederic Weis (Bilbao) C/F Ronny Turiaf (Los Angeles Lakers) F/C Pape Badiane (Roanne) G/F Sacha Giffa (Strasbourg) France are certainly a medal candidate. Their coach doesn't care about names and left players like Pietrus, Petro and Gelabale at home because he thinks that they don't fit the european style, we'll see if his plan works or if it would've better to nominate them. France's roster is well balanced, but I think they lack that go-to-guy who can take over the game when the rest is struggling. Slovenia G Sandi Cebular (no club) G Jaka Lakovic (FC Barcelona) G Aleksandar Capin (Varese) G Goran Dragic (TAU Ceramica) - #5 international '86 on draft express, #53 in 2008 mock C Rasho Nesterovic (Toronto Raptors) F Matjaz Smodis (CSKA) F/C Uros Slokar (Triumph) G Jaka Klobucar (Slovan) F Goran Jagodnik (Hemofarm) G/F Domen Lorbek (Estudiantes) C/F Gasper Vidmar (Fenerbahce) - #11 international '87 on draft express, #46 in 2009 mock F/C Erazem Lorbek (Lottomatica) Yeah, yeah, they have some nice players, but they always do and they always disappoint, so I think they will disappoint again, especially since they're missing some players. Czech Republic G Maurice Whitfield (Olimpiada) G Stepan Vrubl (Brno) F Jiri Welsch (Unicaja) G Pavel Benes (Nymburk) F Michal Kremen (Nymburk) F/G Lubos Barton (Joventut Badalona) F Ladislav Sokolovsky (Nymburk) F Radek Necas (Nymburk) F/C Petr Benda (Nymburk) F Lukas Kraus (Liberec) C Ondrej Starosta (Zaragoza) C Jakub Houska (Decin) They should be happy to be in the tournament. Maybe it helps that five players are playing on the same team, but I doubt it. The star is obviously ex-NBA player Jiri Welsch.

The European Championships start in a few days and I thought that I could already open a thread to start posting the final rosters so you guys know which NBA players are playing in this tournament. Germany PG Mithat Demirel (no club) C Patrick Femerling (ALBA Berlin) SG Robert Garrett (Bamberg) SG Demond Greene (Bamberg) PG Steffen Hamann (Bamberg) SF Guido Grünheid (Groningen) SG Johannes Herber (ALBA Berlin) PF Jan-Hendrik Jagla (Joventut Badalona) PF Dirk Nowitzki (Dallas Mavericks) PF Ademola Okulaja (Bamberg) PG Pascal Roller (Frankfurt) SF Sven Schultze (Udine) Not a very strong team, the PGs, SGs ans SFs don't have international quality and the big guys are getting older. So like every tournament everything will completely be on the shoulders of Nowitzki, if he plays average this team will exit early, if he plays MVP like then they might get a medal. By the way I hate Dirk Bauermann, the german coach, he's using the national team more for trying out players for his club Bamberg that building a good team. Serbia G Milos Teodosic (Zeleznik) - #12 international '87 on draft express G Branko Cvetkovic (Girona) G Vuk Radivojevic (Fuenlabrada) C/F Dragan Labovic (Zeleznik) - #17 international '87 on draft express G Marko Jaric (Minnesota Timberwolves) C Darko Milicic (Memphis Grizzlies) C/F Nemanja Aleksandrov (Crvena Zvezda) - #2 international '87 on draft express, #27 in 2008 mock G Milenko Tepic (Partizan) - #4 international '87 on draft express, #42 in 2008 mock G Stefan Markovic (Hemofarm) - #15 international '88 on draft express F Novica Velickovic (Partizan) C/F Zoran Erceg (Zeleznik) F Milan Gurovic (Prokom) Serbia have been struggling the last few years and they're in rebuilding mode, but Hemofarm and Zeleznik are starting to produce many good players again, so Serbia could be real good again quite fast. Aleksandrov and Markovic have the biggest NBA potential in my eyes, but I would be lying if I said that I could make an accurate assessment of all the players. In my opinion Serbia is a dark horse candidate for a medal, they don't have the star power anymore, but they do have good, fresh, young talent. Poland G Lukasz Koszarek (Anwil) G Andrzej Pluta (Anwil) G Robert Skibniewski (Turow) G Iwo Kitzinger (Turow) F Filip Dylewicz (Prokom) F Przemyslaw Frasunkiewicz (Slupsk) F Radoslaw Hyzy (Slask) F Bartlomiej Woloszyn (Anwil) F Robert Witka (Turow) C Szymon Szewczyk (Rostov) C Adam Wojcik (no club) C Kamil Pietras (Olimpija) The only player I know is Szewczyk cause he played for ALBA Berlin a couple of years ago, I even think that he was drafted, don't remember by whom, maybe Seattle, anyway he was a german league backup in his prime. Considering that most of the other players play and Poland and not for the stronger teams, I guess they won't play a big role in this tournament. In strange news, polish PF Maciej Lampe, who played in the NBA, is said to be disappeared and he won't answer his phone. To my knowledge the other teams haven't announced their final rosters yet, but I'll post them as soon as I find them.

Zaza's not playing in the Olympics or the European Championship. He's trying to get his team promoted from Division B to Division A. His opponents right now are teams like Luxembourg, Cyprus, Iceland, I doubt he'll learn much in these games.

I know most of you guys won't care (and I'm not sure that I care about this tournament ) but maybe some of you are interested in the stats the NBA guys put up in this tourney. It's a six nation tournament with Turkey, Serbia, Poland, Latvia, Croatia and everybodies favourite China. Day 1: Poland-China 83-66 Sun Yue 1 pts, 2 reb, 1 ast Yi Jianlian 28 pts, 10 reb Wang Zhizhi 14 pts, 2 reb Turkey-Latvia 74-68 Engin Atsür 0 pts, 1 reb, 2 ast Ersan Ilyasova 0 pts, 1 ast Ibrahim Kutluay 12 pts, 2 reb Mehmet Okur 9 pts, 9 reb, 1 ast Hidayet Türkoglu 16 pts, 5 reb, 2 ast Cenk Akyol 0 pts, 1 reb Andris Biedrins 29 pts, 11 reb, 1 ast Day 2: China-Serbia 76-96 Sun Yue 12 pts, 1 reb, 2 ast Yi Jianlian 17 pts, 9 reb Wang Zhizhi 10 pts, 1 reb, 2 ast Mile Ilic 12 pts, 8 reb, 3 ast Marko Jaric 2 pts, 3 reb, 5 ast Darko Milicic 9 pts, 4 reb Nemanja Aleksandrov 13 pts, 1 reb, 1 ast Turkey-Croatia 60-72 Engin Atsür 2 reb, 4 ast Ersan Ilyasova 8 pts, 3 reb, 1 ast Ibrahim Kutluay 10 pts, 1 reb, 2 ast Mehmet Okur 10 pts, 5 reb Hidayet Türkoglu 5 pts, 2 reb Roko Leni Ukic 8 pts, 1 reb, 1 ast Marko Tomas 5 pts, 3 reb Zoran Planinic 13 pts, 3 reb, 6 ast Mario Kasun 14 pts, 8 reb, 1 ast

Damn, and we thought the Braves pitchers are stuggling.

Oooookay, you obviously think you and your "scouts" know more about european basketball talents than Europeans. By the way how many good players have the Hawks signed from Europe? That should tell you how good their international scouting is. They even promised to draft Nikagbatse (but then changed their opinion in the last minute to trade the pick to the Spurs) who isn't good at all and quite the headcase, every german basketball fan could have told you that, but those smart Hawks scouts wanted him. Maybe you could tell me where all the pre-draft hype for Akyol was when he's such a good talent? Oh right there wasn't any hype, everybody was just asking "who?" and those "scouts/experts" claimed that he was a PG eventhough he never played PG. You have to realise that "scouts/experts" will make things up about unknown drafted players so that they don't look dumb (because they didn't know the player) and then can brag if the player turns out to be good. Being drafted and playing for the national team doesn't mean anything. Peter Fehse was drafted in the 2nd round, NOBODY in Germany knew who he was, he played in the THIRD german league which is really really really bad, but because he was drafted everybody assumed he was talented and he even got some play in the national team without ever having played in the first league. As it turned out he wasn't a talent at all and continued his career in the second german league and now he's a 3rd stringer in the first league. So he was drafted, played in the national team, "scouts/experts" said he could be like Nowitzki, so he must have been one of the better talents in Europe.

Quote: Quote: So you think you know better than the scouts? How many times have you seen Cenk play? FYP No one disputes that Akyol had a disappointing season last year. That doesn't discount the fact that he still is one of the better young prospects in Europe. I seriously doubt that you're in a position to judge who are the better young prospects in Europe. Just because he was drafted and played in the national team doesn't make him one of the better talents in Europe, I could give you a looooooooooooong list of players that were drafted and/or played in the national team and never amounted to anything.

Erm, those raving turkish fans have actually seen Cenk play for some seasons while Grover has seen him in WORKOUTS, so I'd say the fans opinion is worth more. Also turkish people are VERY proud people, they wouldn't diss one of their own if he didn't suck. Cenk is also not a PG/SG tweener but a SG/SF tweener, he'll probably back up Kenny Gregory at the 3 spot this season. He averaged 4.2 pts and 1.5 reb in 11:40 minutes per game in the turkish league. In Euroleague games he played 3 minutes per game, yet some of you guys seem to think that he could come here and become a main backup immediately. I'm not saying that he can't be good in the future, but he has to prove that last season was only a result of personal problems and wrong tactics used by the coach. Oh I just found out that Turkey played against Latvia (with Biedrins) yesterday, Cenk was reportedly very bad and finished with 0 points and 1 rebound. You can watch the 3rd and 4th quarter here (I didn't watch it so I can't tell you which number he has): http://latvija.tv/watch.php?id=17042 http://latvija.tv/watch.php?id=17043

Ouch, Smoove and Speedy look really horrible in this diagram.

Quote: However, as the recent case of the wrestler shows (Benoit, I think is his name), steroids have a downside. Bad example, the things Benoit did took several days and were not an act of a sudden rage, Benoit's problems were a lot more complicated. A better example for the steroid mood swings would've been Steve Austin beating his wife (although I don't if roids were the main for this, cause afterall Austin also likes to drink a lot).

Whew, the Braves can thank Harris for the win today, they nearly blew it.

Quote: I should have included a smiley after my post. I wasn't really lauding Ben Johnson, just pointing out that he is looked down on by society for the same thing Barry Bonds has done. Hank doesn't owe him anything. Oops, sorry, you always make serious posts so I thought you were serious on this one too, my bad.

I totally disagree. Cheaters deserve no applause. Let's say you have to do a test for a job and you're the smartest one of all the candidates, but there is one guy who has a better test result because he cheated, you saw him cheating, but it's his word against yours and since you yourself can't prove it he gets the job, do you go over and shake his hand to congratulate him? Or let's say you played poker and it got a little bit out of hand, so that you bet everything you own and your opponent bet everything he owned, but he marked the cards before the game and you lose, another person tells you about the markings, do you go over to the winner and tell him "well, good game, I better start being more careful with my bets"? You only have to congratulate a cheater if you're a cheater yourself and he's simply better at cheating, you know like the Tour de France . So assuming Hank didn't cheat somehow I don't think his reactions are classless at all. Concerning Selig, he didn't do anything against it, so it be considered classless in his case.

Link Quote: by Dave Meltzer Adam "Pacman" Jones has either signed or is expected to sign a short-term deal with TNA according to Hope Hines of the WTVF, Ch. 5, news in Nashville. Hines said the signing was supposed to be kept secret until Jeff Jarrett returned on Tuesday from an international trip. We have independently confirmed that this story is correct. Jones was suspended by the NFL for his link to a Las Vegas shooting at a strip club over the NBA All-Star weekend that left former 1980s AWA pro wrestler Tom Urbanski, who was managing the club, paralyzed from the waist down. The negotiations with Jones are obviously an attempt for TNA to get mainstream publicity, even if the publicity won't be good, for the company. The timing of it, with pro wrestling's public image at an all-time low, will only reinforce the current reputation. Maybe Vick should become a wrestler too if he gets suspended.

I think it was when MLS restarted sometime in the 90s when they did have bigger goals and the shootouts. Good thing they changed it back, cause those things were quite silly in my opinion. But wait are you sure they didn't have shootouts after the year 1999? Cause I think when Matthäus played for the Metro Stars they still had them, but I could be wrong 100%. EDIT: Ok, I just found out that they abolished the shootout rule for the 2000 season (although I don't know if they mean after or before the 2000 season).

Quote: Differences that stands out are smaller courts, zone defenses (no restrictions), shorter 3-point line, jump ball alternate possession(very sissy)in my mind. You don't think these rules are made to keep weaker opponents more competitive? Erm, no, not at all, actually that sounds quite silly. The court size difference is minimal, 20 cm, that's 10 cm on both sides. Zone defense makes defense easier but only if the other team can't shoot, so how is that better for a weak team?!? Weak teams are usually weak cause they are not good on offense, so if the other team plays zone defense all the time it doesn't exactly help the weak team. When a team is fundamentally sound then it picks a zone apart like nothing. You could see exactly that during the USA-Serbia group game in the U19 WC a few weeks ago. USA led by 15 or so, then they switched to a zone and Serbia completely destroyed it and cut the lead to 3 or so in no time. International rules don't hurt good teams, they hurt teams that rely heavily on 1-2 star players and have no good team play. And are you sure that you're up to date with the rules? Cause I know that there are jump balls in international basketball (more than one time I've seen that a short player act injured so a bigger player can lineup for a jump ball ).