htmlOn August 31, the Chinese Men's Basketball World Cup officially kicked off, with the top 32, 16 days, and 8 cities. For basketball fans around the world, it will be a grand event full of expectations.
At this time, the scale of the Men's Basketball World Cup has expanded to 32 teams, a record high. However, compared with the global festival Football World Cup , the basketball World Cup must be prefixed with the "men's basketball team". In fact, the upcoming Men's Basketball World Cup in China is just the second session after its name change. In 2012, the FIBA renamed the event to the World Cup, so Spain, where the hosting site was held in 2014, took over the first Men's Basketball World Cup. Then, in order to avoid the World Cup, the FIBA decided to postpone it for one year and hold it every four years starting from 2019.
The reason for the renaming of FIBA is that "the new name is easier to remember". Three of the five major events in the world today (Olympic Games, Football World Cup, Rugby World Cup, Cricket World Cup, World Baseball Classics) are named after the "World Cup". The International Basketball Association hopes that basketball can also be compared with it. By this year, 32 teams have participated.
The first men's basketball World Championship team
57: The lowest total score of the first game
In the era without a 24-second offensive time limit, all offenses are transmitted to each other from the outside until a scoring opportunity appears. Therefore, basketball games are much harder to watch than today. The lowest score in the history of the men's basketball World Cup ( Egypt 19-38 Brazil ) and half-time score (Egypt 10-9 France) both appear in this session. The first World Championships were far from world recognition: during the 1948 London Olympics, the FIBA decided to hold the championship every four years between the Olympics, but only Argentina bid for the first time. In the end, the host team went to great lengths and won the first championship as they wished. But in fact, only 6 teams qualified for the first competition: the FIBA originally stipulated that 10 teams would participate: the top three in the 1948 Olympics, two teams in Asia, Europe, and South America, as well as the host. However, at that time, Chile and Uruguay had political conflicts with Argentina, and they refused to send teams to participate. At that time, Asian teams were unwilling to come from far away. Spain and Yugoslavia replaced the competition. The US team only sent an amateur team from the Denver Chevrolet Automobile Factory to participate. The Yugoslavia team also refused to play against Spanish due to different ideologies. Even the FIBA official called the first year of the World Championships a "chaotic game": there was an obvious misjudgment between France and Egypt, causing the French team to threaten withdrawal. Argentina won the championship without any recognition from the world. After all, at the Olympics two years ago, this Argentina team ranked only 15th among 23 teams, and never won a single game in the elimination stage.
The American Automobile Factory Team won the championship
226: The United States Passed the Automobile Factory Team's net victory total score
4 After 1954, the World Championships were still held in South America. The original venue of São Paulo, which damaged the roof of the stadium due to bad weather, changed to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Brazilian authorities refused to provide entry visas to the Soviet Union, and in the end only 7 teams were left to participate (including the team sent by Taiwan, the Republic of China). Brazil had to invite 5 American teams to gather 12 teams to participate. The team that won the championship this time was the United States - they once again sent an amateur team in the automobile factory, but this time, Caterpillar's factory team had 6 players over two meters. With their height advantage, they won a total of 226 points in 9 games, taking away the championship like a devastating one.
Taiwan star Chen Zulie at the World Championships stadium
4: China's best result
Political factors have long affected the holding of the World Championships. Unlike the Olympics, most of the countries participating in the World Championships are hosts who refuse to issue visas. In 1963, the former host Philippines refused to issue visas to socialist countries such as the Soviet Union, and the FIBA had to change the venue to Brazil; in 1959, the Soviet Union and Bulgaria refused to compete with the Taiwan team and abstained, and Taiwan, which had 2 wins and 4 losses in the group stage, ranked fourth.
2002 can be called the shame of Dream Team
27: The total number of losses in the United States
Including the first World Cup in Spain, the World Championships have been held in a total of 17 sessions, of which the United States entered the top four 14 times, winning a total of 5 gold medals, 3 silver medals and 4 bronze medals. However, their overall record is not particularly outstanding: in 149 games, they lost a total of 27 games. The American team, which is sent to participate in every session, did not pay much attention to this event at the beginning.
As mentioned earlier, they sent amateur teams from the automobile factory to participate in the competition in the first two sessions, and won the championship in the second session. But in 1963, the American team, who formed a team of low-level teams (official complaints), lost three games in a row and missed the medal for the first time; by 1970, when global basketball strength was significantly improved, the American team, which did not pay attention to, lost three games again, and was squeezed out of the top four by Italy.
It was not until 1982 that Team USA began to send Doug Rivers out. Excellent players such as Anthony Carl (the Cavaliers retired his No. 34 jersey) participated in the competition, but when facing the Soviet Union in the final, the US team could not limit the Soviet team's 2.20-meter-tall big center "Watch Tower" Techashenko, lost to the Soviet Union 92-93, and missed the championship.
After 1989, the FIBA allowed NBA players to participate, but in 1990, the United States still only sent NCAA players (but also included future stars such as Kenny Anderson , Mourning, Leitner, Gatling , and the coach was old K coach). In 1994, the US team sent Meng Er to participate in the competition and won the championship in one fell swoop. However, in 1998, the NBA was suspended, and the United States only sent NCAA and low-level league players to form teams. The biggest card was Brad Miller , and in the end he only won the bronze medal.
However, this is just the beginning of the trough of American basketball. The 2002 World Championships were held in Indianapolis, the United States. The Dream Team led by George Carl suffered the biggest blow. They lost to Argentina and Yugoslavia and missed the semi-finals. They were defeated by Spain in the five battles, and the Dream Team almost stepped down from the altar. The big names refused to apply, and the main factor was the selection of too many singles and mediocre players. The US team also underestimated the vigorous progress of world basketball. However, four years later in Japan, the three captains of LeBron, Wade and Anthony led the team, plus Paul, Bosh and Howard's Dream 7 team, still lost to Greece in the semi-finals, and finally only won the third place. The successive defeats from Mengwu to Mengqi also contributed to the determination of the US team to form the strongest Dream Eighth lineup. After that, the United States resumed dominance, regained the championship after 16 years under Durant's leadership, and successfully defended its title in 2014.
5: Yugoslavia's championship draws the United States
The United States team won the championship in a total of 5 times, and Yugoslavia ranked first with them. FIBA regarded Serbian after the disbandment of the League of Yugoslavia (Serbia) as the successor, so the three Yugoslavia's championships, as well as Serbia's championships in 1998 and 2002, a total of 5 championships. Serbia has produced inmeasurable star players: Petrovic , Kukoc , Divac , and Danilovic all made famous in the NBA. Later, Serbia also produced star players such as Peja and Toodosic . Today, Serbia also has NBA maximum-salary star Jokic , supplemented by Boban, Belica and Bogdan-Bigdanovic , with a strong lineup. However, Yugoslav basketball is not only Serbia, but also Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, , Macedonia, , Montenegro and Slovenia. Just imagine if these teams merge into one, it is unlikely that the US team will win easily.
82.5%: The Soviet Union maintained the highest winning rate
Another team that was frequently affected by political factors was the Soviet team.
The Soviet Union played in a total of 80 World Championships, winning 66 of which, with a winning rate of 82.5% higher than the United States (81.9%). Since the team formed in 1947, Soviet basketball has dominated Europe and even the world. Before the disintegration in 1991, the Soviet Union participated in the World Cup and won 3 championships, 3 Asian and 2 bronzes 9 times, and won 2 Olympics and 14 European Championships.The Soviet Union eventually split into 15 countries, among which Russia, Lithuania and Latvia are still basketball powers. If these countries form teams to compete, they can compete with the United States.
33.7: No one can match the Greek score monster
In addition to the two top players in the league and the Soviet Union, several other superstars have emerged in the history of the World Championships: FIBA Hall-level star, Oscar Schmidt, who scored 49,703 points in his career, played 35 games on the stage of the World Championships, averaging 24.1 points per game; and the World Championships' average score is Greek superstar Nick Garris in the 1980s. He scored 337 points in 10 games, and no one can break it yet. Another achievement remained in the word-of-mouth legend - in 1983, the Greek men's basketball team played an invitational match with North Carolina, and Garys scored 50 points on Michael Jordan's head.
However, Garris' highest score of 53 points in a single game and Schmidt's highest score of 52 points, did not rank first in the history of the World Championships.
54: Xu Zai scored the highest score in a single game in history
won the single game scoring champion. A name familiar to Chinese fans: Xu Zai, the current coach of the Korean men's basketball team. He scored an astonishing 54 points in a single game against Egypt in 1990. There is not much information available about that game, but it may disappoint the fans: a total of 16 teams participated in the 1990 World Championships, and the match between South Korea and Egypt was a qualifying match between 15-16. In the end, South Korea narrowly defeated Egypt 117-115, but Xu Zai did not rank among the top ten in the scoring list. It can be seen that the value of this game is too low, and it can only be said that it "draws" a high score on the weak team.
25.3: Zhang Weiping ranked second in the scoring list in 1978
So Xu Zai's achievements cannot rank among the superstars in the World Championships. Yao Ming , who averaged 22.9 points per game in 14 games, is enough to rank 9th in the historical scoring list, but he is not the player with the highest average score in the history of the Chinese Men's Basketball World Championships: Zhang Weiping ranked third in the historical scoring list with 177 points in 7 games, averaging 25.3 points per game, which is even higher than Schmidt. Teacher Heli represented the Chinese men's basketball team in 1978, and in the end, the Chinese men's basketball team ranked 11th among 14 teams with 2 wins and 5 losses. This once flexible power forward helped the Chinese men's basketball team achieve great success with solid steps and accurate shooting. From the few film and television materials, he may also feel the heroic posture of a teacher when he was young. He used to be an avid dunk enthusiast. But it’s a bit of a pity that year, Teacher Heli did not win the scoring title. The first place was Brabenic from Czechoslovakia. Teacher Heli ranked second with a difference of 1.6 points.
7: The Asia-Pacific region has a World Cup seat
Since 1978, the Chinese men's basketball team has been firmly in the Asian overlord and played 8 times in the following 10 World Championships/World Cups. It only failed to enter the final main match in 1998 and 2014. This time, the Chinese men's basketball team once again competed in the World Cup as the host. The Asia-Pacific region will merge next, and there will be 7 places in the top 32. China is no longer facing opponents Iran , Japan and South Korea, but also Australia and New Zealand in the future. More strong teams have begun to squeeze the living space of middle and lower-level teams. If you want to play in the World Cup, you also need to think about it - Indonesia . The Philippines and Japan jointly undertake the next World Cup in 2023. For Indonesia, which has never played in the World Championships before, this is their first time to participate. If you want to have the next time, you probably have to bid again.
