3 x 3 basketball to be played in the Olympics

[kAzE]

FIBA has hosted three 3x3 world cups (2012, 2014, and 2016), and the sport has been around much longer than that. Zero NBA players have participated. Why are we assuming NBA guys will play in 2020?

Because NBA players care about Olympic gold medals, and don't give a crap about FIBA. Just compare every FIBA team USA vs every Olympic Team USA. This Olympics tournament is going to get global TV coverage. What channel was broadcasting the 2012 3x3 FIBA world cup?

[Olympic Fan]

I'll be interested to see how the team is chosen.

Some posters in this thread are projecting guys like Curry, Durant, Leonard and Kyrie or LeBron.

That would be great in a vacuum, but aren't most of theses guys going to be on Team USA?

Do we take the top 12 on Team USA and players 13-16 on our 3-man team? Or is there a special skill-set that is required for the 3-man game? Or is the 3-man game so different that we need veterans of that game and not NBA players used to the 5-on-5 game?

Like I say, it will be interesting to see it play out.

[JasonEvans]

Sounds like a fun game to watch but I'm not sure that adding more sports is what the Olympics needs to do. Pretty soon the number of participating athletes and coaches are going to out number the number of attendees. The costs of holding 18,621 different events is going to make hosting the games to costly to host. Ok, I'm off my soap box.

Apparently, the IOC heard you when you were on your soap box. They have reduced the total numbers of athletes at the game by 285, most of the losses coming in Track and Field. I think they are going to make it a little bit harder for a nation to qualify athletes in some sports or something like that.

[kAzE]

I'll be interested to see how the team is chosen.

Some posters in this thread are projecting guys like Curry, Durant, Leonard and Kyrie or LeBron.

That would be great in a vacuum, but aren't most of theses guys going to be on Team USA?

Do we take the top 12 on Team USA and players 13-16 on our 3-man team? Or is there a special skill-set that is required for the 3-man game? Or is the 3-man game so different that we need veterans of that game and not NBA players used to the 5-on-5 game?

Like I say, it will be interesting to see it play out.

Why would we be limited to 1 team? There should be some sort of qualifying round, in which several teams would compete for the opportunity to be one of the 8 teams in the final tournament. If more than 1 team from a country is allowed, and it's based purely on merit I imagine USA would have at LEAST 2 teams in the field of 8, and probably more like 4. Outside the US, France and Canada might have good teams for this event if their best guys participate.

Who wants to watch NBA players dominating non-NBA players? Or even worse, a full tournament of amateurs? Everyone wants to see the best play against the best.

Also, I wonder if players would be able to pull double duty for the 5 on 5 tournament and the 3 on 3 tournament. It would depend on the schedule, but since the 5 on 5 games are shorter than NBA games, and these 3 on 3 games are really short and you even get a sub, I don't see fatigue being a huge problem. NBA players play WAY more on a regular basis during the season than they would even if they did both events.

[Billy Dat]

The debate over core and non-core Olympic sports and which non-core sports get added/subtracted each Olympics is pretty interesting to follow.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...t-got-weirder/

I was pretty amazed that wrestling was going to be booted from the core list but there was a pretty big backlash and it is staying.

How soon until E-Sports are added? The influence of the X-Games on the Winter Olympics has been huge.

[Truth&Justise]

Because NBA players care about Olympic gold medals, and don't give a crap about FIBA. Just compare every FIBA team USA vs every Olympic Team USA. This Olympics tournament is going to get global TV coverage. What channel was broadcasting the 2012 3x3 FIBA world cup?

I agree that interest will be higher, but there's still a lot of hurdles to clear: NBA has to give permission, USA Basketball has to decide that it wants to pursue NBA players (instead of guys who have experience playing 3x3, including whoever helps us qualify for the Olympics), and then there's the issue of asking guys to play 3x3 when that would be an admission that they didn't make the cut for the main basketball squad. So there's still two big questions to answer for this tournament:

1) Will NBA players be eligible?

2) Will there be multiple entries allowed from the same country?

Or is there a special skill-set that is required for the 3-man game? Or is the 3-man game so different that we need veterans of that game and not NBA players used to the 5-on-5 game?

Excellent questions. Most of the skills look the same, and my guess is it would simply be a matter of practicing and tune-up games to get a sense for the rhythm. But other teams might have experience playing under this set of rules, and this this is obviously a place where USA hubris could get in the way of winning games.

[JasonEvans]

Here is the US team for the upcoming FIBA 3-on-3 tournament.


The team members are:

Damon Huffman, who played his college basketball at Brown and a college called Moore that I have never heard of.
Daniel Mavaraides, who played at Princeton
Zahir Carrington, who played for Lehigh
and Craig Moore, who is by far the most accomplished player on the team having averaged about 14 ppg while hitting 40% of his threes for Northwestern a decade ag

o

Ummmmm... if four nobodies who didn't even play mid-major NCAA basketball represent the US in the Olympics and they fail to win the Gold Medal, there is going to be some serious pushback on USA Basketball.

This could be a major TV ratings event if you allowed NBA players to participate. In my imaginary world, there would be a 10 team field. You would have 2 pools with a 4-game round-robin. The bottom team in each pool is eliminated and the rest play an 8-team tournament to determine the winner.

USA 1 (Warriors - Curry, Durant, Thompson, and Green) They would probably win as they would already have teamwork on their side
USA 2 (Harden, Westbrook, Kwahi, and either Davis or Butler) Tempted to take Harden off and just put Butler on the team. The D these guys would play (minus Harden) would be scary.
Canada (Wiggins, Murray, Cory Joseph, and Olynyk) A medal contender, but probably the 4th or 5th best team
Spain (Gasol brothers, Ibaka, and Rubio) Too big, not enough outside shooting
Germany (Dirk, Denis Schroder, Paul Zipser, and... uhhhhh... I dunno) Might surprise you, but probably the 6th-8th best team
Australia (Ben Simmons, Paddy Mills, Dante Exum, Thon Maker) This could be a real sleeper. Could sub Delavadova for Maker to give you more outside shooting
Dominican Republic (Towns, Al Horford, Charlie Villaneuva, and we need a guard!) Can Charlie still play?
France (Parker, Fornier, Gobert, and one more) Parker is likely over the hill by 2020
Adriatic team [Italy, Greece, Turkey] (Greek Freak, Marco Belinelli, Danilo Gallinari, and Ersan İlyasova) This team could win this thing!! Major medal contender.
And I am sure China would want to field a team, even though they would get their butts kicked.

-Jason "Make this happen, FIBA and NBA! " Evans

[mattman91]

Here is the US team for the upcoming FIBA 3-on-3 tournament.


The team members are:

Damon Huffman, who played his college basketball at Brown and a college called Moore that I have never heard of.
Daniel Mavaraides, who played at Princeton
Zahir Carrington, who played for Lehigh
and Craig Moore, who is by far the most accomplished player on the team having averaged about 14 ppg while hitting 40% of his threes for Northwestern a decade ag

o

Ummmmm... if four nobodies who didn't even play mid-major NCAA basketball represent the US in the Olympics and they fail to win the Gold Medal, there is going to be some serious pushback on USA Basketball.

This could be a major TV ratings event if you allowed NBA players to participate. In my imaginary world, there would be a 10 team field. You would have 2 pools with a 4-game round-robin. The bottom team in each pool is eliminated and the rest play an 8-team tournament to determine the winner.

USA 1 (Warriors - Curry, Durant, Thompson, and Green) They would probably win as they would already have teamwork on their side
USA 2 (Harden, Westbrook, Kwahi, and either Davis or Butler) Tempted to take Harden off and just put Butler on the team. The D these guys would play (minus Harden) would be scary.
Canada (Wiggins, Murray, Cory Joseph, and Olynyk) A medal contender, but probably the 4th or 5th best team
Spain (Gasol brothers, Ibaka, and Rubio) Too big, not enough outside shooting
Germany (Dirk, Denis Schroder, Paul Zipser, and... uhhhhh... I dunno) Might surprise you, but probably the 6th-8th best team
Australia (Ben Simmons, Paddy Mills, Dante Exum, Thon Maker) This could be a real sleeper. Could sub Delavadova for Maker to give you more outside shooting
Dominican Republic (Towns, Al Horford, Charlie Villaneuva, and we need a guard!) Can Charlie still play?
France (Parker, Fornier, Gobert, and one more) Parker is likely over the hill by 2020
Adriatic team [Italy, Greece, Turkey] (Greek Freak, Marco Belinelli, Danilo Gallinari, and Ersan İlyasova) This team could win this thing!! Major medal contender.
And I am sure China would want to field a team, even though they would get their butts kicked.

-Jason "Make this happen, FIBA and NBA! " Evans

May not be the most talented, but I bet they blow the competition out of the water when it comes to IQ.

[House P]

Here is the US team for the upcoming FIBA 3-on-3 tournament.


The team members are:

Damon Huffman, who played his college basketball at Brown and a college called Moore that I have never heard of.
Daniel Mavaraides, who played at Princeton
Zahir Carrington, who played for Lehigh
and Craig Moore, who is by far the most accomplished player on the team having averaged about 14 ppg while hitting 40% of his threes for Northwestern a decade ag

o

Ummmmm... if four nobodies who didn't even play mid-major NCAA basketball represent the US in the Olympics and they fail to win the Gold Medal, there is going to be some serious pushback on USA Basketball.

What do you mean "nobodies"? Zahir Carrington is perhaps the greatest player to ever wear jersey #126!!! A quick Google search reveals that someone by the name of Zahir Carrington is currently a "medical device sales representative at Olympus". Olympus is almost the same as Olympics, so I don't see how you could possibly leave him off the 2020 team.

Seriously, it is somewhat telling that only one of the guys on the US Team is taller than 6'4". I assume that speaks to the relative importance of three point shooting.

[JasonEvans]

May not be the most talented, but I bet they blow the competition out of the water when it comes to IQ.

Basketball testing time!!

[Billy Dat]

Gonzaga's Zach Collins, the #11 pick in the DBR Mock Draft, played in the U18 3x3 Worlds a few summers ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt_hp9a0lC8

[Richard Berg]

I'll be interested to see how the team is chosen.

Some posters in this thread are projecting guys like Curry, Durant, Leonard and Kyrie or LeBron.

That would be great in a vacuum, but aren't most of theses guys going to be on Team USA?

Do we take the top 12 on Team USA and players 13-16 on our 3-man team? Or is there a special skill-set that is required for the 3-man game? Or is the 3-man game so different that we need veterans of that game and not NBA players used to the 5-on-5 game?

Like I say, it will be interesting to see it play out.

I don't see why the A-listers can't play both events. It's not like we make Michael Phelps choose between freestyle and backstroke.

[NSDukeFan]

Why would we be limited to 1 team? There should be some sort of qualifying round, in which several teams would compete for the opportunity to be one of the 8 teams in the final tournament. If more than 1 team from a country is allowed, and it's based purely on merit I imagine USA would have at LEAST 2 teams in the field of 8, and probably more like 4. Outside the US, France and Canada might have good teams for this event if their best guys participate.

Who wants to watch NBA players dominating non-NBA players? Or even worse, a full tournament of amateurs? Everyone wants to see the best play against the best.

Also, I wonder if players would be able to pull double duty for the 5 on 5 tournament and the 3 on 3 tournament. It would depend on the schedule, but since the 5 on 5 games are shorter than NBA games, and these 3 on 3 games are really short and you even get a sub, I don't see fatigue being a huge problem. NBA players play WAY more on a regular basis during the season than they would even if they did both events.

If players played both 5 on 5 and 3 on 3 would the bigger worry be tired legs or the emotional fatigue?

[sagegrouse]

Yeah- I think this is a ridiculous way to give the US another gold medal. This made-up sport in an Olympic sport but cricket isn't? Congrats, Olympic committee - taking another step to look as inept as Fifa.

The Olympics games are only two-and-a-half weeks? Is that even long enough for one cricket match, let alone a whole tournament?

[JNort]

I agree that interest will be higher, but there's still a lot of hurdles to clear: NBA has to give permission, USA Basketball has to decide that it wants to pursue NBA players (instead of guys who have experience playing 3x3, including whoever helps us qualify for the Olympics), and then there's the issue of asking guys to play 3x3 when that would be an admission that they didn't make the cut for the main basketball squad. So there's still two big questions to answer for this tournament:

1) Will NBA players be eligible?

2) Will there be multiple entries allowed from the same country?



Excellent questions. Most of the skills look the same, and my guess is it would simply be a matter of practicing and tune-up games to get a sense for the rhythm. But other teams might have experience playing under this set of rules, and this this is obviously a place where USA hubris could get in the way of winning games.

In 3 on 3 basketball it's all about Iso play and in the case of shots being counted as 1s and 2s then the 3-pt shot becomes even more valuable.

So offensively you look at guys who can Iso and shoot 3s:


Curry
Kyrie
Harden
Kemba
Isaiah
Those are the top guards that come to mind real quick.

[JNort]

Why would we be limited to 1 team? There should be some sort of qualifying round, in which several teams would compete for the opportunity to be one of the 8 teams in the final tournament. If more than 1 team from a country is allowed, and it's based purely on merit I imagine USA would have at LEAST 2 teams in the field of 8, and probably more like 4. Outside the US, France and Canada might have good teams for this event if their best guys participate.

Who wants to watch NBA players dominating non-NBA players? Or even worse, a full tournament of amateurs? Everyone wants to see the best play against the best.

Also, I wonder if players would be able to pull double duty for the 5 on 5 tournament and the 3 on 3 tournament. It would depend on the schedule, but since the 5 on 5 games are shorter than NBA games, and these 3 on 3 games are really short and you even get a sub, I don't see fatigue being a huge problem. NBA players play WAY more on a regular basis during the season than they would even if they did both events.

Nah in the Olympics I want the USA to dominate, hate the close games. Heck even in our regular sports I want my team to win every game in a blowout. Only time I like close games is when watching two teams i don't care about at all.

[BD80]

Can colleges create a 3x3 basketball team and give out scholarships? Undoubtedly they would not be allowed to play 5x5 basketball while on 3x3 scholarship, but they could practice with the 5x5 team for a year or 2 while on 3x3 scholarship, and then switch to 5x5.

[hallcity]

Can colleges create a 3x3 basketball team and give out scholarships? Undoubtedly they would not be allowed to play 5x5 basketball while on 3x3 scholarship, but they could practice with the 5x5 team for a year or 2 while on 3x3 scholarship, and then switch to 5x5.

Sounds like a great idea to me. Have the 3X3 teams play during the summer when there's nothing else to televise on the ACC network and I'm Jonesing for some college hoops.

[Neals384]

Basketball testing time!!

Q10. E. None of the above.

[Neals384]

3 x 3 hoops, which is essentially the official form of half court hoops, is now an Olympic sport.

https://www.usab.com/mens/3x3.aspx

It's very cool and I wonder if becoming an Olympic sport will draw more of our marquee players to this exciting format

The game is played on a half court, a size 6 ball is used for all competitions and teams are made up of three or four players (three on the court, one substitute).
-There is a 10-minute clock, which is stopped for dead balls and free throws.
-The first team to 21 points, or the team ahead at the end of 10 minutes, is the winner.
-There is a 12 second shot clock
-A field goal inside the arc is worth one point, a field goal outside the arc is worth two points and a free throw is worth one point.
-After six team fouls, an additional free throw is awarded. At the 10th team foul and beyond, the opposing team is awarded two free throws and gets the ball back.
-If there is a tie, the first team to score two points in overtime wins the game.
-After a made field goal, the opposing team must dribble or pass the ball beyond the arc before attempting to score.
-For a missed field goal, if the offensive team gets the rebound it may continue to try to score without returning the ball to beyond the arc. If the defensive team gets the rebound or gets
a steal, it must get the ball beyond the arc before attempting to score.
-Substitutions can be done at anytime when the ball is dead, prior to the check-ball. One teammate must leave the court prior to his/her teammate entering the court.
-Like tennis, no on court coaching allowed

Here's USA vs Serbia during last year's World Cup
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD9M4XiaqLM

which arc for the 2-pt shot? NCAA, NBA or Olympic?