(Sorry for the late posting, wedding preparation comes before the blog)
Back in the 1990s when basketball was at its highest there
was a heated battle by three NBL teams for Melbourne’s heart – my North
Melbourne Giants, the cool South East Melbourne Magic and the stalwart
Melbourne Tigers. These teams went head
to head many times and the fans loved it.
The rivalry was almost as intense as AFL supporters and if you supported
one team the others were less than scum.
Unfortunately as the interest in basketball waned in Australia the Magic
and the Giants merged to form the Victoria Titans and then Titans that rivalry
just wasn’t there. It was the Tigers as
THE Melbourne team with the Titans/Giants being on the backburner a
little. As we all know the Giants folded
as well, leaving the Tigers as the sole owner of Melbourne. This was a decent position for the fans to
have as many Giants/Magic fans moved to the Tigers and were happy. Regrettably this monopoly bred apathy from
the club towards its fans and that all came to a head in the previous season.
Daryl Corletto
A lot has been said about the former owner Seamus McPeake
and his antics but the two main incidents from the previous year were the
Corletto and Ubaka scandals. Daryl Corletto
had been with the club since he was 16 years old and was a part of the culture
for 10 years. He was always the guy who
came up with a big shot and was a genuinely nice guy when I met him quite a
long time ago. That all changed when
NBA player Patrick Mills decided to sign with the Tigers and the team needed to
cut someone. So they went to Corletto
and gave him a choice of being released and playing down in lower levels until
Mills went back to the NBA or leave the club.
How is that for loyalty?
He put a decade into the team and they turn around and kick him out for
half a season of something better. Not
only that but Corletto told the Herald Sun that "It's got to do with the
players when they leave ... they (Tigers officials) try to cover their own
backs and make it look like it was the players that were in the wrong and
wanted to leave” after the club claimed that he walked out after he wanted more
money. This kind of back stabbery will
rear its ugly head later in this piece but to try and smear and a guy like
Corletto is very poor work. I thought
that Corletto would have been an excellent companion piece to Mills with Mills’
driving ability opening up more shots for Corletto but I don’t think he minds
much anymore as Daryl has since won the NBL Championship with the New Zealand
Breakers.
Ayinde Ubaka
There is professionalism and unprofessionalism and then
there is what Seamus McPeake did after the Tigers lost to the Gold Coast in
January. The story goes that after the
Tigers lost by 13 points McPeake stormed into the players change rooms and
furiously cussed at the players about how they were an “embarrassment” while
pointing fingers at the team. He then told
Ubaka “to leave and go and find another job” effectively sacking the import on
the spot without coach Trevor Gleeson’s and captain Tommy Greer’s
knowledge. After a while Ubaka went to
see if he still had a job and unfortunately he had been officially
terminated. I don’t know about you but
that is a terrible way to run a business.
The Herald Sun article goes to on to say that Ubaka has the support of
the coach and players group but the players were afraid to speak up because
they didn’t want to have McPeake’s wrath rain down of them. Imagine at your workplace where the boss is
so unprofessional that if something goes wrong he goes into a rage and sacks
people on the spot without any consultation from other players and especially
the coach and that the rest of the team were too scared to say anything because
they might get sacked as well. That boggles
my mind that he was able to stay on as long as he did because I would hate to
work in that environment and it must have put enormous strain on not only the
on court team but all the employees of the Tigers from that point onwards.
Trevor Gleeson/Chris Anstey
I get that coaches are fired when the team aren’t going very
well and are usually the first person to be blame for a team’s poor
performance. I get that. What I don’t get is how the Tigers went about
removing Trevor Gleeson from his position.
The off season started well with Chris Anstey being named the new
Director of Basketball to work with Gleeson in making a competitive team. So far so good, even if I dislike Anstey with
a burning passion but that was mainly for his playing style and attitude so
hopefully he can turn a new page in this new role. He was even quoted in saying “I look forward
to working with Trevor”. Sure, that
works.
Then came the news that Anstey and Gleeson had not spoken at
all and something was in the works. What
followed was eerily similar to what happened with Daryl Corletto. The club started an investigation into Trevor
Gleeson to see if he had committed any wrongdoings. It was becoming clearer and clearer that the
Tigers were trying to remove Gleeson from his multiyear contract without having
to pay him the remainder of his money.
This went on for some time and it seemed inevitable that Anstey would
become the new coach when this business was taken care of. Luckily for Gleeson no infractions were to be
found and were bought out of his contract, ushering in the reign of Anstey in
the worst possible way. What a backwards
way to removing a coach and at the same time tarnishing their image even
further. So much for loyalty, stability
and all those words that get bandied about but here they are just words and not
something that gets put into action very often at The Cage.
What is funny is that all of this could have been solved at
the start by sitting Gleeson down and telling him “unfortunately Trevor the club
has decided to move in a different direction and we are going to have to let
you go. We thank you for what you have
done with this team and we wish you luck in your future endeavours.” Is that so hard?
The New Logo
This is a very small problem I have with the team but I
couldn’t find anywhere else to put it so I’m putting it here. What is up with the new logo? It looks like something that could have been
done in Microsoft Paint and put together with some clip art lettering. What was wrong with the old one? That was good and looked MUCH more
professional than this one. Two thumbs
down from this blog.
Old Logo
New Logo
This team needs to pull itself together and quick before the
second Melbourne team comes in a steals a fair chunk of their supporters. If the Tigers do not right their wrongs
before the Eastern suburbs team comes into the league don’t look for me at The
Cage anytime soon.
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