Usually when I’m bored I don’t go rummaging through the NBL’s history but today I had a strange feeling to see how many MVPs Andrew Gaze won and I got hooked from there. Having a look through the past award winners I found some key trends that are probably not the most ground breaking news but interesting none-the-less. In this post I’m going to categorize the awards and give my thoughts about what each trend means.
Most Valuable Player
Starting in 1979 there is one name that stands out of the pack, Andrew Gaze. Winning seven MVPs over his career and having a stretch of five years (1994-1998) where he won them all this really shows how dominant he was on this league. However, another name also rears its head, Leroy Loggins. I knew he was a legend of the game but my main memory of Leroy was of his crazy longevity not of his three MVP awards. I really hope that his name doesn’t lose its shine with the new generation of NBL supporters.
An argument that I have heard around is that having an import that is nothing short of MVP calibre is a waste of an import slot, which I partly agree with. A team only has two import slots so they would be hoping that they can get the best player available which should be recognised with an award. History doesn’t show this to be accurate, because since 1999 only 46% of MVP award recipients have been imports. I only went back to 1999 because before that Andrew Gaze won five straight and it would have skewed the data. Also, no MVP award receivers are still playing in the league today as the most recent winners, Gary Ervin, Corey Williams and Kirk Penney are all playing elsewhere.
Rookie of the Year
There are some fantastic names on this list, ranging from Andrew Gaze, Andrew Vlahov down to the newest entry in Ben Madgen. It’s funny to see that although Andrew Vlahov retired way before Shane Heal did, he didn’t come into the league until three years after the Hammer. The main point is a little sombre, as eight of the last 12 ROY winners are not in the league any more. The last three are still going strong (Madgen, Jesse Wagstaff and Aaron Bruce) but most of the others are now playing overseas. This is a bitter win for the league as on one hand they would love to have these players still strutting their stuff in the NBL but on the other everyone wants them to blossom and if they can they need to take their talents overseas to make more money and to get more recognition. It took me a while of Google searching but apparently 2003 winner Gary Boodnikoff is now a massage therapist and I couldn’t find anything on Travis Lane (2002). I guess that’s what happens when you can get enough run in a professional sport, you need to look elsewhere.
Defensive Player of the Year
This category is very cut and dry – exterior players are favourites to win. In the last 15 years eleven guards or swingmen have won the award (73%). It may have been more as Dillon Boucher (2010) has been known to play SF but I class him as more of a mobile power forward. Looking at the players who have won the award before 1997 and the guard to big man ratio would have been higher because Phil Smyth and Leroy Loggins shared the award between 1982 and 1989, neither of them big men.
Darnell Mee is also a name that stands out, winning five awards. His longevity is also outstanding as he won his first one in 1999 and picking up his last award all the way in 2006, a stretch of eight years. He also did it with three teams, more than any other player.
Most Improved Player
This award is the polar opposite of the Rookie of the Year gong – most players who have won this still play in the league today. The most interesting point is after 2011 winner Oscar Forman and 2010 winner Anthony Petrie, none of the previous winners who are still playing in the league are part of the team that they won the award with. Going all the way back to CJ Bruton who won the award in 1999 with Wollongong, there are seven other current players, all now playing with another team. It sounds like the players loved ‘em and left ‘em, moving on to greener pastures.
The board is also littered with famous names like Mark Bradtke (1989), Shane Heal (1990), Scott Ninnis (1993) and Chris Anstey (1996). It just goes to show that not all legends of the game were stellar straight out of the gate.
Best Sixth Man
This award is fairly new, especially compared with the others that are available only coming into being in 1996. It shows a wide range of player types from guards to locals to young and old. I’m not surprised that there have been quite a few imports on this list and three of the last four winners were foreigners. This debunks the myth that imports have to be the be all and end all of a team and can be dominant coming off the bench. The only multiple award winner was Stephen Hoare who won this trophy in 2006 and 2007, both with the Tigers.
Well that took care of my boredom, and filled me in on a few things that I didn’t know about the NBL. The newer generation of basketball supporters need to know a lot of this information because it paints a wonderful picture of the kinds of players that came before. Take a look and see who paved the way for the players of today and you won’t be disappointed.
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