Hoops

Boomers VS Full strenght China, Iran and Phils

As an avid watcher of all things FIBA, I can't agree with Fritz that the FIBA Asia Cup was played by all round B/C teams, but rather a few withdrawals per team. Consider:
Philippines- opted for Fil/German Stanhardinger over Blatche as a naturalised player. The argument could and is being made that Standardinger offers more than Blatche overall, when you consider the latter's lack of condition, defence and hustle. Five star but unmotivated Blatche or three star but committed Standardinger?

I assume Fritz is Fili/Australian because Lassiter is nearly always a withdrawal when NT duty comes around and Slaughter plays for an owner who is hostile to releasing players for NT duty. He may also be considered a naturalised player given his Fil/Am status.

China- Team Red/Team Blue- Australia won't face a full strength Chinese NT until the 2019 worlds.

Iran- Have moved on from Bahrami and Kardoust, with only Haddadi from the 2008 Olympic team remaining. As it is, will probably represent the biggest one game Australian threat given Haddadi. However, he played the Asian Cup out of shape and only because their federation insisted, although a fly in the ointment is playing at altitude in Teheran.

Some other NT have upgraded since the Asian Cup, including Jordan and Iraq, with high usage naturalised players, while South Korea plan to bring in some muscle and naturalise Ricardo Ratliff. Keep in mind that prominent Boomers to come back for February are Lisch, Bairstow and Jawai (all played at Olmypics or WC and fill needs outside of the NBA crew), while NBA and top Euro players will be available for the June and September windows. In the case of Motum and Bolden, playing in say, Iran, Jordan or Lebanon will be only a short jump from their current bases.

We don't play China in the qualification rounds, so that doesn't matter.

Of course there is a chance for us to lose to the Philippines and Iran, but the former in particular is pretty unlikely - they barely got past Japan and Chinese Taipei.

Our results against Japan, Chinese Taipei and the Philippines are aggregated with our results against - likely to be - Kazakhstan, Iran and Iraq.

We only need to finish top 3 based on the aggregated results, so your question probably won't matter unless we dramatically and consistently under-perform.

Not likely.

Only team that can beat us is nz.