page_title: Netherlands men's national basketball team
section_title: 1991–2012: Long mediocre period
hierarchical_section_title: Netherlands men's national basketball team / History / 1991–2012: Long mediocre period
caption_attribution_description: Francisco Elson
context_page_description: The Netherlands national basketball team represents the Netherlands in international basketball matches. The national team is governed by Basketball Nederland.
  The Dutch have reached the European Basketball Championship on 15 occasions. Their best results at the event came in 1983, where they finished in fourth place. They have also qualified for the FIBA World Cup once, in 1986. In recent years though, the national team has struggled to maintain consistency to reach major international tournaments.
  The team represents itself as the Orange Lions.
context_section_description: From 1991 until 2012, the Netherlands did not qualify for a EuroBasket tournament. Star player Francisco Elson, former NBA-champion, represented the team on several occasions but the team never came close to qualifying. During this period, notable Dutch players like Dan Gadzuric were not willing to play for the national team. Home games were usually played at the Topsportcentrum in Almere and usually had little to no media attention or fan support in the Netherlands.
caption: Francisco Elson was the face of the team for a long time
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS-1D Mark II N", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2007:02:07 19:22:57", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1974", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9201", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/800", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1600", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:02:07 19:22:57", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:02:07 19:22:57", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "77/8", "EXIF ApertureValue": "3", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "60", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2021", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1731", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "2021", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1731", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1810", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "1168000/377", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1168000/377", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Custom", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}