FIBA And Olympic Tournaments: What type of effects may players competing in the FIBA Basketball World Cup this summer have on the NBA season of 2023–24?
What happens to athletes after they compete internationally for their nations is frequently influenced by that experience. This might be helpful, as seen by Kevin Durant’s ascent to superstardom in the playoffs after he, at the age of 21, led the United States to victory in the 2010 World Championship (now known as the World Cup).
On the other hand, exhaustion from playing extra games throughout the summer might be held responsible when players endure NBA seasons marred by injuries. Because famous examples are so much easier to recall than athletes who merely repeat the same NBA season following international competition, both claims are susceptible to proof.
I went back and examined players who participated in the significant FIBA And Olympic Tournaments beginning in 2010 to better understand the effect that foreign events have on NBA performance. Consider what the outcomes will reveal about Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Anthony Edwards, Luka Doncic, and other key 2023 FIBA World Cup competitors.
NBA Players’ Reactions To FIBA And Olympic Tournaments. Check them out.
Fears about injuries?
The season after their participation in a significant international competition, players do miss more games due to injury than they did the previous season. The average number of games lost due to injury after international play is 10.4 as opposed to 8.7 the previous season for the 213 NBA players who saw at least 250 minutes of action in the season before to the World Cup or Olympics and returned to play at least 250 minutes the following campaign.
Before drawing any conclusions regarding the effects of the increased workload, it’s necessary to keep in mind one crucial point: healthy players are far more likely to be selected for their national teams, especially given the USA’s rich talent pool.
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Only one American player in this period, Derrick Rose, who was on the squad for the 2014 World Cup, missed more than 31 games due to injury the season before being chosen. After missing the last 72 games of the 2013–14 season due to meniscus surgery, he participated in the tournament.
Fluke injuries like Kevin Love’s 2012 Olympics-related fracture of the third and fourth metacarpal bones in his shooting hand, which recurred midseason and ultimately lost him 64 games, are hence likely to result in the total increasing by chance.
Then, we must examine the outcomes of players who were equally healthy the season before international competition in order to create a more accurate comparison group. I tracked down the player with the most identical prior season in terms of games played, minutes played, points, rebounds, assists, and blocks per game for each player who competed in the World Cup or the Olympics but did not go.
The average number of games missed the following season across this control group, which was mostly comparable in terms of age and skill, was 10.5 — nearly the same as the average of 10.4 players who participated in international competitions over the summer. Additionally, the comparison group had a little higher chance (13% vs. 11%) of missing at least 25 games the next season due to injury.
There is undoubtedly a danger of injury in every competitive game. Paul George, who missed the first 76 games of the 2014–15 season after sustaining a complex lower leg fracture in a warm-up game before the 2014 World Cup, was not included in my analysis.
Danilo Gallinari suffered an ACL rupture in a World Cup qualification game last summer, which caused him to miss the whole 2022–23 NBA season. However, there doesn’t seem to be any data to back up the notion that players are more prone to injury following international involvement.
Taking the next step
I must admit that I have been dubious of the notion that playing summer basketball abroad will result in improved play the following season. After all, it’s a little twisted to say that Durant’s FIBA stardom came before his breakout. In 2009–10, Durant had already set a league record with 30.1 points per game, garnering first-team All–NBA recognition. After losing their first playoff game in Oklahoma City to the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round the season before, it was Durant’s club that advanced to the conference finals in 2010–11.
Given that, I was a little taken aback to learn that representing the USA in particular does seem to have an impact. My SCHOENE projection algorithm predicted that American players from 2010 through 2021 will average 2.1 points per 100 possessions better than the league average the next season based on performance over the previous three seasons and the growth of comparable players at the same age. They collectively outperformed it by a whole point, scoring 3.1 points more than the norm.
There doesn’t appear to be a clear reason why this is just a coincidence. International competition hasn’t been as beneficial for non-USA athletes, and the control group employed to examine injuries performed almost exactly as predicted the following season.
Playing basketball abroad for the United States has several advantages, including the chance to practise with some of the best players in the league. Observing Kobe Bryant’s work ethic while competing for the USA Select squad before the 2008 Olympics, according to Durant, was a formative experience. It makes sense that competing in a tournament with the United States would be more valuable than competing with other national teams, who have a tendency to stick together for a long time and have less elite quality.
It’s odd that Durant’s 2010 has become an example of the advantages of playing for the USA while one of his colleagues in Turkey earned MVP the following season: Rose, who outperformed his prediction by a wide margin after playing for the United States. After competing in the World Cup four years later, Stephen Curry made the same transition that his backcourt partner Klay Thompson did from All-NBA to his first MVP and title.
Any member of the USA squad this year has little chance of following in their footsteps. The most probable World Cup participants to convert it into an MVP campaign are Slovenia’s Doncic and Canada’s Gilgeous-Alexander, but Edwards has gained valuable experience as the go-to player in crucial circumstances that should help the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The ranking shows that from 2010 to 2014, when even the younger World Cup rosters tended to be stronger in star potential and there was more stability in the national team programme, playing for the United States looked to transmit the most advantage. Nevertheless, every generation of USA athletes has outperformed their expectations on average the season after, giving fans faith that this year’s squad would impart knowledge to the NBA.
These are the NBA players’ reactions to FIBA and Olympic tournaments. Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
