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May 1, 2012, 11:30 pm
Straight Forward, you're right in that the ratings are subjective. In my rankings I only considered 2010 onwards with a bigger weighted factor for last summer. Lithuania is a tough one to measure because they were excellent on a neutral court in 2010 but were fairly lackluster at home in 2011. Yes, they were without Kleiza in 2011 and there will be roster changes this summer but I think the onus is back on Lithuania to prove themselves in Caracas.
In my opinion once you get past the US and Spain the next tier is all pretty comparable. I give Argentina an 8 for winning the Tournament of the Americas and whilst aging I think that they realize this is their last run at dominance. I also rated France an 8 because they got the job done last summer and are ridiculously deep.
I rate Lithuania, Russia and Greece all 7 because if those are the three teams that qualify I don't think that the existing teams in Group A and B would feel like they caught a break irrespective of how Russia, Lithuania and Greece are distributed. Conversely, if a team like Venezuela somehow makes it through teams would gladly welcome them into their group.
In my opinion once you get past the US and Spain the next tier is all pretty comparable. I give Argentina an 8 for winning the Tournament of the Americas and whilst aging I think that they realize this is their last run at dominance. I also rated France an 8 because they got the job done last summer and are ridiculously deep.
I rate Lithuania, Russia and Greece all 7 because if those are the three teams that qualify I don't think that the existing teams in Group A and B would feel like they caught a break irrespective of how Russia, Lithuania and Greece are distributed. Conversely, if a team like Venezuela somehow makes it through teams would gladly welcome them into their group.