Global Ambassadors react to Germany's upset, Serbia's historical success

MANILA (Philippines) - Luis Scola, Pau Gasol and Carmelo Anthony enjoyed the view from the sidelines during the Semi-Finals on Friday. They spent Saturday morning doing the Talk Show with the media representatives from all over the world.

 

Obviously, the big talking subject was the fact that there will be an all-European Final on Sunday. Germany and Serbia deserved praise from all three Global Ambassadors, while Luis Scola enjoyed the atmosphere created by 11,011 in the stands of the Mall of Asia Arena.

"The energy in general was unbelievable. Not just in Manila, but also in Jakarta, the amount of energy, of passion, I really enjoyed it," the legendary big guy from Argentina said.

Not so long ago, Scola, Gasol and Anthony were the ones responsible for creating such atmospheres with their plays on the floor. All three are enjoying their retirement, with the goal of growing the sport worldwide these days.

"We had our battles. We did our part to elevate the game," Pau Gasol told the media in Manila, giving the best possible description of their playing days.

Back in 2006, Carmelo Anthony was a part of the last USA Semi-Finals defeat until this week. He knows how much that defeat to Greece helped the USA Basketball program grow. Meaning, he also knows how much the 2023 defeat to Germany will help now.

"It is an upset. Let's just be quite frank, we don't want to sugarcoat it, it's an upset. When you have that gold standard, that's how it goes, anything other than that is an upset. That's good for the sport, for FIBA, for basketball, for the fans to let everybody know that the rest of the world is here to play," he explained, before going into depths of how tough it is to have the biggest American names on the roster each summer.

"We don't think we can't lose. The fear of losing is what drives us, what keeps us going and wanting to win after a loss. I don't think those guys came into this World Cup thinking this was gonna be a clear shot."

" We're developing these young guys and these young talents, to be able to compete around the world this year, next year, next couple of Olympics. We take our losses and our wins, we move on."

When asked what were their inspiring stories of this FIBA Basketball World Cup, they had different answers. Gasol praised the German program and shared his thoughts on this success being a part of Dirk Nowitzki's legacy, what he built for 20 years there as a regular national team player.

Anthony said that just the Semi-Finals offered four inspiring stories alone; with Canada tasting success finally; with USA's questions of bouncing back; with Serbia's unreal program reaching the Final once again; with Germany playing unbelievable basketball to stun the United States.

Meanwhile, Scola found a story behind the lights of the biggest stage.

"South Sudan story is pretty cool, I was very happy to see them succeed and what goes behind it," he said about the African nation reaching the Olympics for the first time.

Being a former LA Laker, Pau Gasol was asked about the influence Kobe Bryant left on him, especially because he was the Global Ambassador in China four years ago. Gasol once again shared how big of a part of his life Kobe was, and he had a Kobe story to feed advice into Germany.

Defeating a powerhouse like the United States is good, but Germany should not settle for that.

"Just don't get too excited, it kind of one of those things that Kobe use to say to us, the job is not done. You won the Semi-Finals? Great. It was against the USA? Great. But you have a chance to win the gold medal. You got to manage that type of excitement and those emotions. It's tough to have that opportunity, and you don't know when will it happen again," Gasol offered his - and Kobe's - advice.

Scola talked about Serbia's path to the championship game, despite missing key players.

"You overlook and take Serbia for granted. What they are doing is pretty special. They are always around, they got all these players, and you're thinking they got a worse team, but they come back. Now they are missing the best player in the world, you would think if you take the best player in the world from a team, that team would be drastically worse, and yet we see Serbia coming back again one more time, and dominating an international competition. They got us used to it to the point where we don't even talk about it anymore."

FIBA