What does the FIBA Asia Cup mean?

MELBOURNE (Paulo Kennedy's View from Downunder) - Basketball Australia (BA) is working on a 10-year plan to host some major global events Downunder, and that includes the FIBA Asia Cup.

The soccer equivalent was successful in Australia and there's no reason with the right government and media partnerships that it can't create a mid-winter's spotlight on hoops too.

"Basketball Australia's got some desire to try and host an Asia Cup into the future and that would certainly put it more in front of the fans here and we’ll get some more traction around it," Boomers coach Andrej Lemanis said.

So the real importance for Australia is in an on-court sense, but that's another area where there are plenty of unknowns and when Lemanis gazed ahead at the next four years leading into the Tokyo 2020 Olympics he saw a very different landscape to the previous four-year block.

"The first thing you see is obviously the different route to qualify and you start trying to work through what that means in terms of a broader squad and who's going to be available," he said.

It's an interesting and changing landscape. Most of Australia's best talent is available at the time of the Asia Cup.

As for the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 Asia Qualifiers, there will be a mix of local and overseas-based talent available for the June-July 2018 window, while for the November 2017 and February 2018 windows it's unlikely anyone based outside of Australia will be able to play. Most players should be available for the September 2018 window.

From that, Lemanis has to create a program that not only qualifies for China 2019 but has built a culture and a base that will allow it to succeed and qualifying for the following year's Olympics.

Given how many players may come in and out of the system over three years, this is uncharted territory for Lemanis and Co.

"What starts to become evident, just how dependent you are on the depth of the talent within the wider Basketball Australia system and what then starts to play out is just how important the NBL is, with the lack of availability of NBA players during the majority of the qualification phase," he said.

"The majority of the guys, if not all of them, are going to come from the NBL and those guys are going to do the heavy lifting to qualify Australia for the World Cup campaign."

While Basketball Australia would no doubt like to claim the silverware - with all stars in tow to create maximum interest back home - for Lemanis the task of qualifying for the World Cup seems to take precedence, and that means Lebanon will be all about preparation for the Qualifiers.

"Because the World Cup qualifying windows are so small, you've got a nine-day window so we need opportunity to prepare prior to that or else you're going into a game for all the marbles on the back of three days preparation, which just didn't seem smart to us," Lemanis said.

"We have certainly taken the view that this Asia Cup campaign is an opportunity to prepare a team to play in that first World Cup qualifying window."

What's fascinating about that preparation is Japan and Chinese Taipei - who the Boomers will face in their first qualification pool - have joined Australia in Group D at the Asia Cup, giving a preview of things to come. Is that a good thing for the green and gold?

"So the Asia Cup will give us an opportunity to go and see them live and understand who they are as a team and that will be good."

Scouting opponents live is one thing, but playing them just three months before the cut-and-thrust of World Cup qualifiers is another.

"Playing them, that's something that always becomes interesting. How much do you show and how much do you hold back for when you need to pull it out for real? That's an interesting challenge," Lemanis said.

One real benefit that will come from that is getting an intimate understanding of the new style of game they will face in the Asian zone, and any adjustments in team selection or game style that might be needed to counter that.

"That's what we're doing at the moment, spending a fair bit of time watching how these teams play to ensure we have what we'll need to counter what's going on in this new environment with a new style of play," Lemanis said.

Quite possibly, a few years down the track after competing in a number of FIBA Asia Cups, Australia will treasure winning this tournament as much as powerhouses like China, Korea and the Philippines, who have put so much time and effort into it for so many years.

For now though, the Boomers just don't have that tradition, and it's going to be fascinating to see how they approach this tournament to give them the biggest step forward on the path to the World Cup.

Paulo Kennedy

FIBA

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