NBL Free Agency Update

With the NBL free agency slowing down and most of the top tier players staying put of finding a new home I thought it would be a good idea to sum up how each team has fared in the free for all.

Adelaide

Additions – Jason Cadee (Gold Coast), Luke Schenscher (Townsville)

Subtractions – Adam Ballinger (Melbourne), Everard Bartlett (Perth), Wade Helliwell (Retired), Diamon Simpson (NBA)

The addition of Cadee is a shrewd one as I believe that with more minutes he can be a quality point guard in this league but I am less optimistic of the Schenscher signing.  He has all the tools to be a top flight big man and even though his name is in the conversation for that group it is more to do with the lack of top flight centres than his on court performances.  It will be interesting to see how he fits next to budding star Daniel Johnson.

Helliwell was practically retired last season so that doesn’t change much to the team and Ballinger was the odd one out in the frontcourt.  Bartlett will be missed as he was a decent wing player but losing Simpson would hit them the hardest.

Grade – B.  Lost a few rotation guys, picked up a few rotation guys so a solid offseason.

Cairns

Additions – Cameron Tragardh (Melbourne), Cameron Gliddon (NCAA), Clint Steindl (NCAA)

Subtractions – Ian Crosswhite (Sydney)

This offseason cannot be judged fully just yet as the two college guys are untested in this league.  The swap of Tragardh for Crosswhite looks like a win for the Taipans and if the Gliddon and Steindl can pick up the slack from the so far unsigned Andrew Warren then it is a big step forward for the almost championship contender.

Grade – B.  If the two C’s can step up bump this up a grade or two.

Gold Coast

Additions –

Subtractions – James Harvey (Sydney), Jason Cadee (Adelaide), Stephen Hoare (Retired), Tom Garlepp (Sydney), Mark Worthington (Unknown)

With their future balancing on a tight rope getting thinner and thinner everyday it was no surprise that players would leave for some stability which is a massive shame.  The world will find out if there is even a Gold Coast Blaze tomorrow but looking at their offseason so far in a vacuum it is very poor.  Let’s just hope that the team can survive but it doesn’t look promising.

Grade – Incomplete.  If they had a guarantee that they were playing next season the grade would be a D-.

Melbourne

Additions – Adam Ballinger (Adelaide), Nate Tomlinson (NCAA)

Subtractions – Cameron Tragardh (Cairns)

I really hope that Ballinger can get back to his best in Melbourne because he was a superstar of the league a couple of years ago before injury and Daniel Johnson took over.  He will get a lot of touches as the best big man on the squad so far with captain Tragardh jumping ship.  As with the Cairns college players Tomlinson could be good, average or a project at the moment and we won’t really know how he adapts to the league until the season rolls around.

Grade – C+.  This all depends (like many other teams) on the quality of imports they bring in but so far trading Tragardh for Ballinger is a negative output.

New Zealand

Additions –

Subtractions – Gary Wilkinson (Europe), BJ Anthony (Released)

The reigning champions have their squad pretty much set up losing Wilkinson is going to be a big loss.  He came up big all season and was wonderful in the playoffs so they will need to find a new import to fill his shoes.  Other than that they really didn’t need to do much other than re-sign their imports or get new ones.

Grade – C.  Wilkinson is a fairly big loss but I have no doubt that the team will be looking long and hard for an import of his quality.

Perth

Additions – Everard Bartlett (Adelaide)

Subtractions – Luke Nevill (Released), Drew Williamson (Released)

Another team that didn’t need to do much to still be a contender and losing Nevill will not be as big a loss as losing Wilkinson.  Matthew Knight has outplayed Nevill on numerous occasions and will get his chance to shine in the starting line-up.  Bartlett will be a great spark plug on the second unit when league MVP Kevin Lisch gets a rest.

Grade – B.  Neither super awesome nor utter disappointment, they only had to make minor adjustments and they did just that.

Sydney

Additions – James Harvey (Gold Coast), Tom Garlepp (Gold Coast), Ian Crosswhite (Cairns), Corin Henry (Denmark), Darnell Lazare (D-League), Kevin Smith (NZNBL)

Subtractions – Julian Khazzouh (Europe), Anatoly Bose (Europe), Jerai Grant (Released)

Losing their three best players is really a kick in the pants and I don’t know if they have recovered enough for them.  Right now Harvey seems to be a poor man’s Bose and Crosswhite a poor man’s Khazzouh while Lazare has similar qualities to Grant.  Henry’s highlight video is fairly impressive but Denmark isn’t known for producing high level leagues, evidenced by their tiny stadiums and crowds.  Kevin Smith is also someone that will not light the world on fire but Garlepp should fit right in with this team.

Grade – D.  Losing their three best players is always going to be hard but the team hasn’t brought in the quality to make a push for the playoffs.

Townsville

Additions –

Subtractions – Luke Schenscher (Adelaide)

Schenscher was a massive disappointment last season so losing him will not be a big deal but if they can’t find another big man to be his replacement they are going to be very thin on top.  Another team that needs to be judged when the whole squad has been finalised as they still need to fill their import quota to really see how this team fits together.

Grade – C.  At the moment with one loss and no gains it isn’t an offseason to write home about.

Wollongong

Additions –

Subtractions – Mat Campbell (Retired)

The Hawks are in the same boat as Townsville as they haven’t made any splashes in the free agency pool other than re-signing their own players.  Joevan Catron will not be back so there is at least one import slot to be filled.  Check back on the team in a few more months when the squad has been completed.

Grade – C.  Copy Townsville’s grade, paste here.

Post Season Review - Cairns

The Season

Cairns were unlucky to be on the outside of the playoffs looking in, as they were tied with Townsville with a 15-13 record.  They started out slowly, going 2-4 through six rounds but picked it up with two three winning streaks.  The team was very consistent, not going on massive streaks of either kind but kept plugging away.  Unfortunately they lost three straight from round 22 to 24 and in retrospect, if they won at least one of those games they would have been in the playoffs.

What went right?

The Taipans unearthed a great import guard in Jamar Wilson who came runners up for the Most Valuable Player award as well as being selected for the All NBL Second Team as well as being selected as a second teamer in this blog.  Ian Crosswhite was good after he came back from injury while Brad Hill showed glimpses of magic that had this blogger salivating.  Too bad nothing came of it.  Their defence was great as they played gritty basketball, not always scoring much but more often than not coming out with the win.

What went wrong?

Injuries hit pretty hard with only four players suiting up for all 28 games while key members like Dusty Rychart, Crosswhite and Alex Loughton missed more than a handful of games.  Andrew Warren was OK, but not the game changer that imports are usually compared and as said before Brad Hill was a disappointment after his hot start.

Most Valuable Player

Without a doubt Jamar Wilson was the best player on this side and his accolades highlight his performance.  Many a time he was called upon to put the team on his shoulders and will the squad to a victory and he never stood aside.  The team has signed him for the next two seasons so it would be great if he becomes a fixture of the Cairns Taipans for years to come.

Targets

The Taipans have already made some quality moves, like re-signing Jamar Wilson and Aaron Grabau, stealing Cameron Tragardh away from the Tigers and bringing over two quality college graduates in Clint Steindl and Cameron Gliddon.  Unfortunately they lost Ian Crosswhite to Sydney but all in all so far they have done well.  With Tragardh slotting into the centre position like he was in Melbourne has freed them up to play Alex Loughton beside him, with Wilson and Brad Hill/Clint Steindl/Cameron Gliddon locking in the point guard and small forward positions respectively.  That means that the Taipans should focus on snaring a quality shooting guard import that would be a great defender and can be on the end of Wilson’s penetrations for a corner three.  Maybe they can steal Luke Nevill off the Wildcats seeing as Perth has let him go and have Tragardh coming off the bench as a super-sub.  I’m not very high on Nevill but he is a huge guy and that always works to an advantage.  Plan A of getting a quality import shooting guard is the way to go first and foremost.

Next Season

With this squad I can definitely seem them top four and anything less would be a disappointment for the team and the fans.  There are a few questions – if they get a SG import they have a bit of a big man shortage and if they get an import big man then Jamar Wilson is going to have to take care of a lot of the ball handling duties.  Hopefully the two college guys can pick up a bit of slack.  All in all, this is one dangerous team.  Coupling the previous year’s defence intensity with the recent signings of quality offensive players I won’t be surprised to see this team battling it out for a championship.

Grade

B

What Happened to Martin Iti?

It’s a fairly common story: a promising Australian goes to America to further their basketball prospects by either attending high school or college.  After they graduate from their respective institutions the wiser and more complete player will come back to Australia and play out their career in the NBL.  It happened to Anatoly Bose, Aaron Bruce and Andrew Gaze.  So you would think that would be the plan for Martin Iti right?

Let’s go back a bit, shall we?  Iti’s high school career was illustrious, graduating from the fabled Mount Zion Christian Academy which has notable alumni like Amare Stoudemire, Tracy McGrady and Brandon Rush.  Sounds good so far.  The amazing note is that he was in the stratosphere in the rankings.  So high in fact that ESPN had him as the number eight high school recruit in the nation and the best centre in the whole country as a senior.  In the 2003 high school class that included LeBron James and Chris Paul he was rating higher than many NBA first round picks such as Joakim Noah and Adam Morrison as well as former NBL MVP Gary Ervin.  The respected recruiting website Rivals had him as a four star recruit and the seventh best centre in all of America.  Scout.com said that he “Has the potential to make a lot of money playing this game”.  For someone so highly touted you would think that several major colleges would be knocking on his door.

Not so as he picked by the minnow Charlotte 49ers but made the best of it, being named to the Conference USA all-freshman team as he averaged 6.0 points and 4.7 rebounds in his first year.  Confusingly he put his name in for the NBA draft but after an underwhelming pre-draft camp he decided to withdraw his name from the draft and go back to Charlotte.  Unfortunately his sophomore season was worse than his first and he became frustrated and transferred to the hilariously named Aggies of New Mexico State.  His next season (after sitting out one for the transfer) was better even though he didn’t play as many minutes but regressed in his senior year.  Predictably he wasn’t drafted to an NBA team.

After the draft he played for the Rotterdam Challengers in Holland then came back to New Zealand to play for the Southland Sharks and now onto the Sydney Kings where he is averaging 3.5 minutes a game.  So what went wrong?  My guess is that there were a few factors.

The first factor was that in his high school career he went to six high schools, taking away his chance to gel with a team and really get into a groove for his game to flourish.  Another black mark stemming from all this moving around is that many scouts would be wary of someone who moves around too much, it shows that he runs when things aren’t going his way (there was talk that he changed schools because he wasn’t the focal point of the team).

The biggest factor would be that he probably isn’t very good.  Although he was listed at seven feet tall at college he was measured at only 6’8 ½” at the NBA pre-draft camp, massively hindering his chances as a centre.  His weaknesses would have been overshadowed by the fact that in most high school basketball games any player with height and an ounce of skill would dominate against smaller, weaker opponents.  He had good defensive instincts but that only takes someone so far and he was outed as a poor recruit.  He played reasonably well for Southland but has been glued to the pine playing for the woeful Kings which rings alarm bells straight away.

So what’s next for the fallen one?  In his first real game as a King substituting for the injured Julian Khazzouh he was ineffective, fouling out in only eleven minutes with two rebounds and a block.  He will get his chance again this week with Khazzouh out again in their matchup with Wollongong, so hopefully he takes his opportunity with both hands.  He has the talent and the size, he just needs to prove to the team and more importantly himself that he can become one of the dominant defensive big men in the league and maybe he could live up to his lofty hype from so many years ago.

Australians in the NCAA

There are currently 53 Australians (and two New Zealanders) currently playing in the American college basketball system.  I’m sure all of them are having the time of their lives, trading baskets with some of the best young basketballers in the world.  Hopefully for some, after their collegiate career is over they can come back to Australia and find a roster spot on an NBL team.  It sure would be having a normal, nine to five job in the real world.  Here are my top ten players who I would love to see pull on an NBL jersey in the near future.

1.       Matthew Dellavedova, Saint Mary’s, Junior, 193cm, 86kg, Guard

37.0 minutes, 15.4 points, 3.3 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 0.1 blocks, 0.9 steals

The recently anointed West Coast Conference Player of the Year, Dellavedova has been a star since the first time he stepped on the Gael’s court.  Already a member of the Boomers side and an emphasis on quality point guard play in the NBL, I’m sure there will be many teams knocking on his door when he graduates from Saint Mary’s.

2.       Brock Motum, Washington State, Junior, 208cm, 104kg, Forward

32.3 minutes, 17.8 points, 6.6 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 0.4 blocks, 0.5 steals

In the tough Pac-12 conference which includes the likes of Arizona, UCLA, Stanford and Washington, Motum has devoured them all.  At a healthy 6 foot 10 he has the skills to be a great power forward/centre in this league, a luxury for the big man starved teams around.  I could see him doing wonders in Wollongong or in a new Brisbane team where he grew up.

3.       Ryan Broekhoff, Valparaiso, Junior, 201cm, 98kg, Guard-Forward

32.2 minutes, 14.8 points, 8.4 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 0.6 blocks, 1.3 steals

A versatile small forward, Broekhoff has broken out this year.  He has eleven double doubles this year which is crazy for a swingman and leads all Australians in rebounding by a wide margin.  The Frankston native has increased his production every year at Val so next season should be very exciting.

4.       Anthony Drmic, Boise State, Freshman, 198cm, 91kg, Guard-Forward

30.1 minutes, 12.0 points, 4.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 0.2 blocks, 1.2 steals

The younger brother of NBL player Frank Drmic, Anthony is already carving out his own path at mid-major Boise State.  For a freshman to average over 30 minutes per game in the competitive Mountain West Conference is astounding and his numbers are very good as well.  Keep a look out for Drmic in the next three years as he will be very sought after when he leaves college.

5.       Hugh Greenwood, New Mexico, Freshman, 191cm, 95kg, Guard

22.0 minutes, 5.5 points, 3.3 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 0.4 blocks, 0.9 steals

A combo guard that can do most things, Greenwood made a name for himself while representing Australia in the junior championships; he is also turning heads for the Lobos of New Mexico which is a good team.  Those numbers are very rounded and as a freshman has plenty of time to refine his game and take charge in the future.

6.       Jackson Aldridge, Butler, Freshman, 183cm, 82kg, Guard

14.4 minutes, 4.0 points, 1.2 rebounds, 1.0 assists, 0.0 blocks, 0.4 steals

Aldridge may not have the numbers like the rest of the players on this list but he does play for Butler, a perennial tournament piece.  At only six foot he is a little on the short side but he also was a part of the Australian junior squad and should get his chances in the next year or two.

7.       Jeromie Hill, UTSA, Sophomore, 203cm, 104kg, Forward

30.7 minutes, 12.7 points, 6.3 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 0.8 blocks, 0.9 steals

The first response I had was, “where is UTSA?”  When I found out (San Antonio) I saw that Hill is leading his team in rebounds and third in scoring and I decided that he is someone to keep an eye on.  Only a second year player he is very consistent, putting up similar numbers in his freshman year.  Hopefully he continues to grow into an NBL calibre player.

8.       Jordan Vandenberg, North Carolina State, Junior,  216cm, 117kg, Centre

11.9 minutes, 2.0 points, 2.7 rebounds, 0.9 assists, 0.7 blocks, 0.0 steals

He’s over seven feet tall.  That would be enough for most teams in the NBL to at least have a look at Vandenberg because his numbers aren’t eye popping.  However, when you take into account that he is in the arguably best conference in America which includes juggernauts like Duke and North Carolina I sit up and listen.  Any player who can get on a team in the ACC and get nearly twelve minutes a game is talented enough to give a roster spot to.  Hell, Ater Majok did nothing when he was at UConn or even Perth or Gold Coast and he got drafted into the NBA!

9.       Corey Maynard, Bryant, Sophomore, 191cm, 84kg, Guard

34.5 minutes, 11.4 points, 4.8 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 0.1 blocks, 1.1 steals

I haven’t seen much of Maynard in his two years at Bryant University but when a sophomore averages nearly a full game of basketball my ears perk up.  He isn’t the best shooter (only 41% from the field and 60% from the line) and his team was a mind boggling 2-26 for the season but I’m going to keep base with Maynard to see if his numbers aren’t just stat padding.

10.   (tie)  Clint Steindl (Senior), Jordan Page (Sophomore), Mitchell Young (Junior), Saint Mary’s

The other Australians on the Aussie overloaded Mary’s team can make an NBL side if the put in the work.  Their numbers are down all across the board to last season as other players are filling in their spots but I’m sure at least one of these players will be on an Australian basketball team in the near future.

There are more prospects out there (Cody Ellis, Joel Naburgs) and with more and more Australians going over to America to get experience the future looks bright for the NBL.  I hope your brackets this year aren’t too bad like mine was season.