And speaking of Olympic basketball-related fails, the folks over at Bball Headlines this morning post a disturbing number of Tweets from the US from an apparently sizable fraction of the population that has some problem comprehending Pau Gasol’s citizenship. Click the link for “Hint to American girls: [The] Gasols are Spanish.” No, really.
It’s pretty true that average Americans are pretty ignorant about all things international, so this is no surprise 😛 Every Olympics there is some major TV or online segment about “clueless Americans saying stupid/unintentionally disrespectful things about people from other countries” so I am just surprised it took this long.
At least we have gold medals!
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C’mon, don’t be so sensitive. Most teenage girls know nothing about basketball. You come across as ignorant yourself by being suprised by this mindless chatter.
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I thought they are actually Catalan? So they probably wouldn’t be happy with being called Spanish… (though well, for the mentioned folks this is probably like doctoral level math…)
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G, they are catalan and spanish. It’s compatible, like being californian and american.
They are very proud of being spanish, the olympic ceremony with Pau bearing the flag is a nice proof.
Not sure how it is regarding Pau personally, but having visited Barcelona recently the impression was quite the opposite – they emphasize everywhere being Catalan and NOT Spanish. It’s probably a bit like Scotland vs. UK, where Scottish fans during a match with Italy carry banners “f*** England” 😉
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Gabe and mike were wrong YET AGAIN. FIBA denied the request of Mark Cuban and David Stern to make the Olympics under-23, and also denied their request to place the FIBA World Cup under NBA control and ownership.
Also, the FIBA World Cup will officially become FIBA’s world basketball flagship and showcase, with the Olympics officially taking second in importance.
Finally, the court size and 3 point distance will be the same as in the NBA – evidently they felt sorry for Stern and Cuban, so they threw those dogs a little bone.
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