Spain Has Created an International Basketball Juggernaut... And that's Why They're FIBA World Cup Champions... Again

The Spaniards are the best basketball team in the world once again. It was a well-deserved honor and almost a pre-determined result. No team in the tournament even came close to displaying the same camaraderie, team work, and defensive effort. With 7 current or former NBA players in their rotation, 2019 Spain was certainly a formidable team.

The "beautiful game" of Spain's vaunted soccer tradition has translated well to its now well-decorated basketball tradition. You can thank us Dutch for that (h/t Johann Cruyff), which reminds me, how come the Netherlands, despite being the tallest dudes in the world on average, have never been very good at basketball?

The first time Spain partied like this was in 2006. A group of savvy old Spaniards went to Japan expecting to challenge the USA for the gold cup. They didn't even end up having to play the US team because Greece took care of them in the semifinals. For Spain's semifinal, they won an epic thriller against Argentina, 75-74. It was a legit upset by any definition of the word. Manu Ginobili's squad of NBA vets had, after all, won the gold medal in the 2004 Athens Olympics. After that battle, the final was easy. Spain destroyed Greece 70-47. Spain's best player, Pau Gasol, didn't even play. Still, it wasn't even close.

Juan-Carlos Navarro. Jose-Manuel Calderon. Jorge Garbajosa. Carlos Cabezas. Felipe Reyes. Berni Rodriguez. Pau Gasol. This group of savvy players group of played basketball together during their Spanish summers. By their mid-20s, they were ready to take over the world. And they did.

The 2010 edition lost to Serbia in the quarterfinals. Most of the 2006 vets did not appear on the 2010 squad. But the core of the team that won this year was set.

Marc Gasol. Rudy Fernandez. Ricky Rubio. Victor Claver. Sergio Llull.

In 2014, they would lose again in the quarterfinals 65-52 to Tony Parker's French team.

But make no mistake about it. The 2019 version of the Spanish FIBA basketball roster was mentored by the 2006 team. And the youngsters on the 2006 squad that are now the veterans of the 2019 squad are returning the favor to a new generation of Spanish basketball stars. The Hernangomez brothers were the only significant new contributors to this squad, but they are certainly a handsome foundation for the next edition of FIBA World Cup Spanish basketball.

But that is the Spanish basketball system, which just completed one of the most epic summers in the history of organized international basketball. Spanish women's teams went 29-5 over the summer. The ladies won the FIBA Women's Eurobasket, while the boys finished 28-1 and took home gold in the FIBA U16 European Championship in Italy, the FIBA U18 European Championship in Greece, and finished second in the FIBA U20 European Championship.

Add to that the 2019 FIBA World Cup and that's quite a lot of hardware.

When the United States looks back at this World Cup and asks itself what went wrong, they need only to look at these pictures. Teams are born through shared struggle over extended periods of time. Stability breeds familiarity breeds exceptional teamwork. That just can't happen in the course of 2 months of hanging out with some other ballers battling it out for a roster spot on the 12-man team.

The pride and joy you see on these guys' faces proves that they were the most deserving team to win the gold cup. I just don't think it would have been the same had the US won this tournament. Their play was very individualistic. No highlight passes. Just drives, attempted fast breaks, and a whole lot of missed 3's. There was definitely no "beautiful game" played by any American this summer in China. And that's why they're going home in 7th place, the worst ever finish for an American team at this tournament. Whatever reforms were put into place the last time the US squad had such a dismal result - 6th in 2002 while playing on their home floor in Indianapolis - are certainly not enough to compete with this Spanish system. A generation of elite talent just papered over the contrast in organizational capability.

LeBron James. Carmelo Anthony. Dwayne Wade. Chris Paul. Kobe Bryant. Kevin Durant. Stephen Curry. Klay Thompson. James Harden. These kinds of "OMG, I can't believe he just did that"-type players are not made by a national basketball organizational system. They make themselves via their own circumstances.

What a national system can do, however, is make teams, like Spain. Players that grow up together, struggle together, fail together, and learn together eventually succeed together. And that's what you saw in the 2019 FIBA World Cup. If the US does not significantly alter the way it fields its teams for these types of competitions, it will be a long time before we see a picture like this with any American faces in it.