SAN JUAN (William Rosario's Somewhere in the Americas) - One of the most clichéd sayings in basketball is that it is a “game of logic”, a sport where the best team always (or almost always) wins. I’ve heard this all my life and have recently discovered it to be one of the most asinine statements in sports.

But I know where it comes from and the root of it is understandable. This is purely an NBA statement, because in a best-of-seven series, it is true that the best team tends to win, there are very few upsets. The Golden State Warriors were the best team last year and they won, San Antonio was the best team the previous year and they won.

International basketball is not like this. Budgetary and scheduling-conflict reasons make it hard to have any definition be a best-of-seven, or even a best-of-five series. For the most part, champions are decided in one game.

There are two schools of thought on this. There are those who want the best team to be the champion and like how a best-of-seven logical result makes this almost a certainty. I understand them. History remembers those who win, and the best teams should be remembered. Then, there are those who go for the dramatic, high-tense atmosphere of a one-game definition where anything can happen. I prefer the latter.

It hasn’t always been this way. I grew up in an island that every year gets more and more Americanized to where in basketball I listen to people talk about Lebron James like he is from Santurce. Globalization has made it this way, and for Puerto Rico, in basketball (and other things), resistance has not worked. The NBA is our national league now. So I grew up in a seven-game-is-right culture and used to think about NCAA-one-game-finals as an unjust system of competition.

Working in FIBA, and living through so many of these nail-biting finishes has changed this.

If you’ve read my columns before, you know that I am a fan of sports moments. It is true that I also am a historical junkie, and that I love getting to know about important stats or players, but there’s nothing that gets me more excited than hearing a good basketball story. There’s nothing like it. And I’ve found out that these one game definitions are automatic producers of them. This also applies to the NBA.

Sports-talk radio, television shows, websites and social media go crazy for Game 7 of any playoff series. It is must-see content.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the money issue attached to having these long series and the NBA (especially playoffs) is such a great product that it only makes sense to have it be out there for as long as possible. NBA playoffs at their maximum length can take up to seven weeks.

But this is about moments, about how international basketball is a different animal when it comes to having the logical teams always win. The Americas championships in 2015 have been beautiful in this area. The element of surprise has been there at every turn.

It started with Liga de las Americas in March, when the Final Four had Pioneros de Quintana Roo against Flamengo in the Maracanazinho arena. Thirteen thousand fans packed the venue in Rio de Janeiro in what everybody expected to be a somewhat easy victory on their way to a final game showdown against fellow Brazilian Bauru. It was only normal to assume this. Flamengo had won everything in 2014, their national league, the Liga de las Americas and the Intercontinental Cup over Euroleague Champion Maccabi Tel-Aviv. But Pioneros did not back down and surprised them at home. It was incredible. I’ve never seen a South American arena get quieter so quick.

Then we had the biggest upset in the history of the senior championships in the Americas, when Venezuela won the gold medal about a month ago in Mexico City. Before the tournament, nobody gave them a chance. Nobody. I remember speaking to coach Nestor Garcia right before their first game of the tournament when he told me: “If we finish fifth, and we make it to the Olympic Qualifying Tournament, I’ll celebrate like we won the gold”. And then, without their NBA player in Grevis Vasquez, their biggest talent playing in Europe with Donta Smith, and their big man in Gregory Echenique...they did win the gold, beating Canada’s 9-man NBA roster in a shocker without precedent in the continental championship.

William Rosario

FIBA

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