Just when the men's basketball team rushed to Turkey, two extremely impactful things happened.

The first thing is that fiba has developed a team strength rating this year.

The Chinese team scored 89 points, directly ranking first in the rating list!

In other words, fiba is optimistic that the men's basketball team will win the World Championships this time!

Why is there such optimism?

This has to start with participation in this World Championships.

I mentioned before that the Dream Team does not pay attention to the World Championships.

That's a common practice, but this time it's not just the U.S. team, but all teams.

Spain's Pau Gasol and Calderon, Argentina's Ginobili, Germany's Nowitzki, France's Parker, Russia's Kirilenko, Australia's Bogut, Brazil

Nene...

Basically all the top players from these teams didn't come.

The fundamental reason is that NBA teams have very strict control over players this year.

Olympic players have a strong desire to go to the competition, and the NBA teams reluctantly agreed, but they won't play with you in the World Championships.

As for the Chinese players, like Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian, the team also disagreed, but in the end they persisted before letting them go.

So in this context, as the bronze medal team in the 2008 Olympics, and with all members playing, if it doesn't rank first, who ranks first?

Of course, even this still caused huge controversy, especially in North America.

Although many big names didn’t go, they were still better than the Chinese team!

However, fiba is obviously not randomly arranged. A little trivia: the American team has not won the World Championships for 4 consecutive years and 16 years!

Nowadays, with a group of new recruits and a lineup with only one genuine center, how can we win the championship?

In fact, this Dream Nine team has never been favored in history. If it weren't for Durant's nuclear-weapon performance, they wouldn't be able to win the championship in the end.

The second thing is related to the first one, and is also related to the rise of Weibo.

What Weibo can be related to men’s basketball?

This matter is rather complicated and even a bit tortuous.

When Weibo became popular before, Lin Ying asked Su Feng to register one.

It was at that point that Sister Feng and Brother Sharp became the first batch of internet celebrities who quickly became famous.

Under this background, some people will naturally want to leave the country.

Moreover, there were still very few network restrictions at this time, so when the men’s basketball team went to Türkiye this time, Han Yifei, the actress from Beijing Film Academy, posted a status on Weibo.

"If the men's basketball team wins the championship, everyone will leave the country!"

This is the internet celebrity operation of this era and the originator of hype.

When most people see this, their first reaction must be: What does this person look like if she is a school beauty? Her popularity immediately rises.

It's this kind of pattern that has already made her famous even before it works.

Well, when we arrived in Kayseri, Zhu Fangyu was already talking on her cell phone.

"This looks good, we must win the championship!"

Men, that's all.

However, we can also feel from this atmosphere that this time the team members are relaxed and have ambitious goals.

This time, just for the world championship.

…

The World Championships in Türkiye are divided into 4 groups, each group has 6 teams, for a total of 24 teams.

Group A: China, Argentina, Australia, Germany, Puerto Rico, Angola

Group B: United States, Slovenia, Brazil, Croatia, Iran, Tunisia

Group C: Serbia, Türkiye, Greece, Russia, Jordan, Cote d'Ivoire

Group D: Spain, Lithuania, France, New Zealand, Lebanon, Canada

*Due to changes in the strength of the Chinese team, the grouping of seed teams is different from that in history.

Although there are few big names, a major feature of the World Championships is that there are many teams and many competitions.

This is another reason why many players are reluctant to come. The more games there are, the greater the chance of injury.

Talking about the competition system, the groups play against each other, and the top four advance to the top 16.

Then group AB is divided into the upper half, and group CD is the lower half.

16 to 8 is an internal competition, like A1VSB4, but 8 to 4 is an upper and lower half competition, such as A1VSD2.

The rules are a bit complicated, but this is also the operation of the organizer.

This doesn’t mean we have to mention the Japan Olympics again. After the women’s basketball group stage, they can still rely on drawing lots to reach the lower limit.

This wave in Türkiye is already relatively normal.

It is worth mentioning that the group matches of this World Championship are held in four cities. For example, the Chinese men’s basketball team’s Group A is in the central Turkish city of Kayseri, while Turkey’s Group C is in the capital Ankara.

In other words, the teams in each group cannot meet each other before the knockout rounds begin.

Originally, Lin Ying planned to go to Turkey to meet Durant to see how he and Curry got along, but it was time to get to the knockout rounds.

The opponent in the first game of the men's basketball group stage is Argentina.

The lineup sent by Yunas is: Chen Jianghua, Zhu Fangyu, Lin Ying, Yi Jianlian, and Yao Ming.

It was in this game that the men's basketball team almost overturned.

Due to the rankings and the absence of Ginobili, the men's basketball team underestimated the opponent and was slow to enter the state.

On the contrary, it was Delfino from the Argentine team who came to earth and hit 6 three-pointers in a single game, almost beating the men's basketball team.

Fortunately, Yao Ming's advantage in the paint, coupled with Yunus replacing Zhu Fangyu with Sun Yue in the second half to strengthen defense, and Lin Ying's fatal block on Delfino before the end, allowed the men's basketball team to pass the final 81-80 in a thrilling manner.

Everything has two sides. This game almost turned upside down, but it also put the players of the men's basketball team in a right mindset.

In the World Championships, they have no capital to underestimate their opponents.

After correcting their attitude, the men's basketball team also showed its due strength.

They beat Germany 81-62, beat Australia 85-58, and then defeated Puerto Rico and Cote d'Ivoire.

After the group stage, the men's basketball team successfully achieved a record of 5 wins and 0 losses and ranked first in Group A!

After playing in the group stage, the men's basketball team immediately transferred to Ankara.

All subsequent matches of the 16 teams that have entered the knockout rounds will be played at the Ankara Stadium in Ankara.

At this time, I have to talk about the magical format of this World Championships.

In the group stage, there was one game a day, and the competition was very intense. However, in the knockout stage, there were only two games a day.

There are a total of 8 groups of 16 going into 8, and we have to play here for 4 days.

Moreover, the first place in Group A is relatively miserable. They have just finished the group stage and have two days of rest before they have to play the knockout round.

The team that advances will then have four days off.

In terms of the schedule alone, the Chinese team is a bit miserable.

Of course, this is not a matter of arrangement. After all, there are always four teams competing on the first day.

Therefore, Yunus did not arrange training on the day he returned to Ankara, and directly took the team members on a one-day trip to Ankara!

Ankara is the capital of Türkiye. It is a standard historical city, with Roman temples, Byzantine castle cemetery, Turkic Aladdin Mosque, Ottoman market, etc.

Then while visiting the temple, they met a group of familiar strangers.

Dream Team 9!

The American team's game was two days later than the Chinese team's. The men's basketball team came out to relax, but they were simply bored.

However, when the two waves of people met, except for Durant and Curry who came up to say hello, everyone else walked over on their own.

Some players even looked back at the men's basketball team with a hint of hostility in their eyes.

After chatting for a while, I realized that it turned out to be a matter of previous rankings.

fiba ranked the Chinese team ahead of the American team, which made many people in the Dream Nine team unconvinced.

Young and energetic, the Dream Nine team is now waiting to beat the Chinese team.

But according to the current grouping situation, the two teams can only meet in the finals.

"Don't be eliminated."

Durant said.

Since Lin Ying said something about Kobe Bryant last time, Durant has stopped saying that you can't win.
To be continued...