Has there ever been a player in the NBL who has had more questions asked about him than Daniel Joyce? Everybody has had a say about this guy and many Wollongong Hawks fans are not overly endowered with him.  So why is he so disliked and bagged out?  Let the information begin!

Daniel started his career with the Hawks in the 2006-07 season with his dad Brendan Joyce as coach.  Part way through the season Brendan got the chop from the Hawks and assistant coach Eric Cooks took over for the remainder of the season.  At the end of the season, Daniel followed his dad to his new job with the Gold Coast Blaze and has played the 2007-08 and 2008-09 season with the Blaze.  Throughout his career Daniel has averaged 4.8ppg, 1.3rpg and 2.0apg.  His career free thrown percentage is 65% and his 3pt% is 29%.  These aren’t exactly earth shattering numbers and to be fair, his career has been plauged with inconsistency so far. 

So now that I have successfully got Education Queensland to unblock JR On Fire, I am able to search through everybody’s favourite Australian bloggers site.  I remembered ages ago that JR had wrote a post titled ‘Coaching  Your Son’ This post was wrote on the 7th of September.  In the post JR states: 

Let me make it clear that I am not a Joyce-hater, and I know there are plenty of you out there. I will also admit to having defended Joyce Jr many a time to a group of his peers. I believe the kid has some skills that could see him become a serviceable NBL player.

I believe he is critiqued from a slanted view on most occasions. He plays for his father and that is a tough gig. Not even the legendary Andrew/Lindsay Gaze relationship went without criticism.

Daniel is doing what anyone in his position would,…making the most of the opportunity that has been presented to him. Would you knock back a chance to improve yourself if you were en route to making your dream a reality?

I agree with this post 100% and think that it is not Daniel’s fault for all of the scutiny that he receives.  In this same post JR goes on to state:

Joyce Jr, as I mentioned, is an up-and-comer with potential. His greatest asset at the moment is his feel for the game. For instance, he knows where to find the open man when he draws the defense in with penetration.

On the down side, this has also led to him becoming turnover prone when the pressure is turned up. His shot consistency also needs to improve if he wants to be considered a true offensive threat and 50% of a strong backcourt.

Joyce Sr has made a big call on behalf of his son and he need know that opposition players will read it and step up to prove him wrong. Daniel already plays with a target on his back that reads ‘Coaches Son’ in the middle. Has Brendan just made the target bigger and brighter?

In my humble opinion the biggest issue is that he has been thrusted into playing major mintues before he is problary ready.  He is the third guard in the rotation behind Shane Heal and James Harvey and he really needs to be the 4th guard.  People are even making YouTube clips giving him a hard time which I feel is a bit harsh.  He has good size for a guard (194cm) and his career highlight would have been hitting that game winning shot against the Hawks last weekend.  Without being at the game, the question that I have to pose is: Why was he on the court at the end of a close game?  If Heal or Harvey were fouled out, then fair enough but if they weren’t…..  I guess that you have to give Brendan credit for showing faith in him but if the shot had of missed, he would have been taunted and criticised for years to come by the Hawks fans.  He is constantly malligned by the fans at the Ozhoopsboards and this post from ‘Go The Blaze’ is typical of what he receives:

To qualify the last two weeks:

Game vs Sydney- SOJ scores 24

- 15 of 24 pts came in garbage time during 4th quarter after Spirit were already leading by 25+

Game vs. Wollongong- SOJ scores match winner

- Scores clutch match winner- credit due

- Played 28 mins (3rd most on team) for 11 pts, 0 assists and 1 reb; still a poor contribution for the time played

- Is ranked 82nd out of 100 in the league for efficiency, a figure that could be much worse considering that he doesn’t even bring the ball up the court anymore

I think that Daniel needs to play a full off season in the ABA / SEABL / Whatever it is called this off season and put up some quality numbers.  I think that it would help his game and it would be good for him to get away from the scrutiny of getting minutes due to his dad being the coach.  I am sure that V Dog who is coach of the Bundaberg Bulls would love to have him on the roster. 

Welcome to another edition of Tuesday’s Random Rambles!  Here we go!

- Got to love the Gold Coast Blaze.  They get smashed on Wednesday night against the Spirit, win a close one against the Hawks on Friday night and get demolished by the 36ers on Sunday.  Later this week I am going to write a huge post about Daniel Joyce and my thoughts on him.  Good on the Blaze for winning their 2nd game of the year but some consistency wouldn’t go astray (apart from being consistenly bad!).

- The Melbourne Tigers celebrated 25 years in the NBL on Saturday night.  It is awesome to see that this club is still around after almost going broke a couple of years ago.  It has a direct link to their junior program which is awesome to see.  Some great photos were also taken from the night. 

- Mookie has informed me that Baron Davis has signed a 5 year footwear deal with growing footwear superpower Li-Ning.  This got me thinking – is the Asian footwear market a route that Australian players could take to earn some money?  I remember the old Pony days!  How unique it was!

- The Crocs apparently finished strongly against the Breakers on Saturday night but just didn’t get over the line.  When I looked at the boxscore, I was excited at first to notice Daniel Egan’s excellent productivity due to the fact that he is in my FNBL team.  Then I got more excited when I noticed Brad Williamson’s numbers because he is also on my FNBL team.  I then realised that Williamson was on my Injured Reserve and therefore his stats wouldn’t count for my team!  I am an idiot! 

- Don’t ask me how I found this but I John Rillie has posted the funniest clip of all time on Youtube featuring Andrew Gaze doing ‘That’s Gold!’  Funny Stuff

- Obviously Shane Heal didn’t racially abuse a fan in their game against the Spirit on Wednesday night.  I guess we will leave it at that but the Hammer was not a happy man on his snippet that was on Fox Sports on Friday night / Saturday.  He mentioned the Ozhoops Message Boards and was very short with the journalist.  I guess if you were accused of something you didn’t do, you wouldn’t be happy as well.

- Brendan Joyce and Daniel Joyce apparently didn’t win themsleves many fans in the game against the Hawks on Friday night.  A thread on the Ozhoopsboards has over 100 posts about it.   The guys at asaspace.com have an excellent post on this scenario and every year there is going to be a situation with Brendan Joyce coached teams.

- I saw an add on Fox Sports for the whole Movember thing.  They showed a snapshot of the ugliest moustache of all time – Sam McKinnon.  Is he doing again this year?

- Former Brisbane Bullets coach Joey Wright is coaching Seastar Apoel in Cyprus.  He took former Brisbane Bullets manager ‘Big Joe’ with him.  Big Joe has been blogging his adventures and they can be found here It is fair to say that it is a bit of a culture shock and things aren’t travelling to smoothly over there.  Fancy having to be scared for your lives after a basketball game.   Just read in the Courier Mail that Joey got the sack.  I guess that is the end of that! 

- Darren Ng once again is keeping his fans up to date with his life.  In this blog entry, he talks about his favourite foods and the Rihanna concert. 

- 36ers coach Scott Ninnis is hoping that people don’t see Julius Hodge as the saviour.  I have news for him: All 36ers fans are hoping that he is the saviour and the messiah rolled into one!

- Cairns coach Alan Black is not happy with how his team is fading out late in the game  Is the late fade outs anything to do with the fact that he has an old team that aren’t overly athletic?

- The whole Nathan Jawai health thing is still going and apparently it is not career threatening.  Hopefully it will all work out soon.  He is an awesome palyer and has a huge future in the game.

- I never knew that Patrick Mills was an AFL star as well.   What is the AFL’s loss is Basketball’s gain!

- Speaking of Patrick Mills, Brian Goorjian has came out and stated that he was the best player at the Olympic Games for the Boomers. 

- The Sydney Spirit have an awesome feature on their website called ‘Spirit Talk’  The latest edition has an interview with Drew Williamson.   To be honest, I am a bit of a fence sitter when it comes to this guy.  Sometimes I think that he is fantastic and other times I think that he has a tendancy to float in and out of games. 

- Who will be John Rillie’s player of the week on DJ Rod and JR on the OT?  If they had an award for most inconsistent import, it might go to Justin Bowen.  In the game against the 36ers, he had some respectable numbers but (19pts, 10rebs and 3asts) but turned the ball over six times.  In the same game Aaron Bruce had 14 assists.  His relative Cameron must be happy with that effort! 

You have got to love this man (Jalen Rose).  I used to love the whole ‘Fab Five’ thing and I even named my son after him (my wife loved the name and she wanted to spell it Jaylen but I stood my ground)  I stumbled upon this article from the Sportingnews which ranks him in the all time greatest players to play for Michigan – which of course I would agree with!

So I couldn’t think of anything to post today (it is Friday and I am posting this on Saturday), so I decided to make this a bit of a mixed bag of random basketball stuff.  So here we go:

- Firstly, nobody can be overly suprised at the axing of 36ers import Mark Tyndale.  In the game against the Dragons last Wednesday night, he looked out of place and slow.  I am sure that every 36ers fan will now be demanding that their management step up and sign the golden child Julius Hodge.  That would be a smart move and be exactly what their team needed!  Maybe head coach Scott Ninnis could put on a singlet and be more effective than some of the guys on his squad.  Once again, everbody’s favourite South Australian Boti Nagy has wrote an article on his departure. 

- Speaking of the 36ers, it seems that my post on Aaron Bruce – do we believe the hype? was not overly popular with a guy by the name of Cameron Bruce (a relative I presume).  He so elquontaley states:

your a wanker, got no game so u bag other players. stick 2 reffing “hulkamania”

I actually don’t think that I was bagging Bruce out.  But I guess that opnions are like arseholes – everybody’s got one! 

- Shane Heal could be in a bit of trouble for racially abusing a fan during Wednesday’s game against the Sydney Spirit.  This was all over the Ozhoops NBL board on Thursday and Friday.  My stupid works internal blocking system is not working so I can’t give you the direct link to it.  Let’s just say that apparently (and I state apparently) the guy has video footage of what occured and if what he is reporting is true, the Hammer could be in a fair bit of trouble.  Scratch that: I just went back to Ozhoops NBL board and I noticed that the thread on this story no longer exsists!  I wonder why  

- The latest episode of the OT with JR and DJ Rod is up and it features a huge piece with everbody’s favourite Australian / Croatian Andrew Bogut.  It is pretty awesome that a guy like Bogut would take the time to do this interview and it goes to prove that if you are a somebody (e.g John Rillie) other somebody’s (e.g Andrew Bogut) will do things for you   In the podcast they discuss various issues and Andrew gives some insight into some of the things that he does.  He comes across in the interview as a casual, down to earth guy and it was super to hear him interact with JR.  This blog even got a shout out at the 45 minute mark.  If only JR on Fire wasn’t banned at my work.  For some stupid reason I can use my iGoogle account to RSS feed the episodes of the OT.  Go figure!  I can’t access any blogspot sites, so I can’t comment on many Australian basketball blogs.

- The NBL announced today the player of the month is Kirk Penney and coach of the month is Brian Goorjian. I am not doubting either of these two people are very deserving winners but I was very amused when I looked at the overall votes.  The article made this statement: 

The NBL’s Player and Coach of the Month for December take into account Rounds 1 to 7 inclusive. All NBL Head Coaches and accredited media are eligible to vote.

So then I went and looked at the list of players who actually received votes and here is the list:

Kirk Penney (New Zealand) 89
Chris Anstey (Melbourne) 27
Corey Williams (Townsville) 19
Shawn Redhage (Perth) 17
Joe Ingles (South) 14
Mark Worthington (South) 12
CJ Bruton (New Zealand) 12
Luke Schenscher (Adelaide) 7
Sam Mackinnon (Melbourne) 5
Dusty Rychart (Wollongong) 4
Darnell Mee (Cairns) 3
Julian Khazzouh (Sydney) 2
Darnell Hinson (Perth) 2
Ebi Ere (Melbourne) 1
Glen Saville (Wollongong) 1
Adam Ballinger (Adelaide)

Are you serious?  As much as I loved Julian Khazzouh, player of the month? Even Glen Saville could bet put into this category. 

Then I looked at the coach of the month voting and had a huge laugh when I saw this:

Brian Goorjian (South) 85
Andrej Lemanis (New Zealand) 73
Eric Cooks (Wollongong) 39
Alan Westover (Melbourne) 9
Rob Beveridge (Sydney) 2
Scott Ninnis (Adelaide) 1
Conner Henry (Perth) 1

Scott Ninnis is currently coaching a team that is not playing well and he receives a vote?  How can Conner Henry only receive the same amount of votes.  At least the right people won the two awards!

- Luke Kendall hasn’t quite found his groove with the Perth Wildcats yet. In his latest outing with the Wildcats against the Crocs, he didn’t exactly set the world on fire.  Whilst the game was a blow out, it seems that Perth has some interesting issues with their rotation of playing time.  Let’s not forget people that Kendall was the last man cut from the Olympic team and is a quality player.  I am personally calling upon Connor Henry to insert him into the starting line up at the expense of Peter Crawford and see what happens.  I doubt this will happen though!

- Mookie has wrote an insightful piece on where NBL mascots go to die.  Maybe the Lion was sold when the team went into recivership! 

- How awesome are the South Dragons?  I really enjoyed watching them play on Wednesday night and I stated to my friend Grandmaster Funk, if I had $56 million and wanted to buy one of the new NBL franchises for next season, the first player that I would get from current NBL rosters would be Mark Worthington.  He just goes so hard, plays defense and is hard to guard.  He is a bit of a tweener at the international level but great at the NBL level.  I would even take him over Chris Anstey at the moment.  Matt Burston was also huge in this game and the NBL site had a good article on him.  He is a guy that has had a lot of tough breaks.  It was awesome to see him go at it and get the job done.   Next week I have a huge post on Brian Goorjian and another post on some guy that I had never heard about until the other day, Daniel Dillon. 

- How much longer will the Melbourne Tigers keep playing David Barlow out of position and PG and persevere with him?  His numbers against the Spirit last weekend were ok but it really seems to be affecting his play.  Andrew Gaze and Nigel Purchase had some interesting things to say on the running of the shuffle offense and how they are running it at the moment.  They feel that the problem is how the players are running it.  On the Tigers website, an article titled “Tigers say We Believe” has been uploaded and Alan Westover states that there aren’t going to be any changes to the system.  Two more things:

1. What is up with Rod Grizzard turning the ball over 7 times against the Spirit?
2. Why is the NBL Podcast still called ‘The NBL Hummer Podcasts’  Is Hummer still a sponsor?

- In The latest episode of the OT with JR and DJ Rod JR mentions the ‘man love’ that I have for Russell HInder at the moment and how that love is recipracated by him and I am his favourite blogger!  I appreciate the love and still think that the greatest thing about Russell Hinder at the moment is the fact that he is getting it done in multiple categories.  In the shalacking that was the Perth game, he hit two 3 pointers and 2 assists which is very reasonable for a centre.  (We won’t mention the four turnovers though!)  I would highly doubt that there is another centre in the league who is being as efficent statistcally at the moment as him.  Keep up the good work Rusty!  My FNBL team thanks you!

- The Rockhampton Rockets want PG Rhys Martin to return for another season in the QABL (or whatever it is going to be called.)  It would be interesting to see what Eric Cooks’s take on this is.  If the Hawks are in the league next year and Martin is a required player, maybe he wouldn’t be overly keen on him playing.  Everybody knows that Rockhampton plays their players quite well – not SEABL money but better than most Queensland clubs.  Cameron Tragardh has been a QABL monster over the past couple of seasons as well.  Only time will tell I guess! 

- Finally it seems as though new Gold Coast Blaze import Justin Bowen has had a tough night at the office during his second game against the Sydney Spirit. Whilst he was affective on the glass (11 total rebounds) his point production (4pts) and FG% was shocking.  Worse than that was his 9 turnovers that he had in 30:38 minutes of courtime.  Coach Brendan Joyce stated in this interview that he felt that Bowen was bumped a lot and not geting many calls.  He also states that Bowen basically has to ’suck it up’ and get the job done.  I am sure that Brendan Joyce will be addressing this during the week.  If you are reading this Brendan, read my article on Pero Cameon.  He has to go! 

So for somebody who had nothing to post, I certainly crammed a fair bit into this post!

              vs                     

Is Pero Cameron the luckiest man to be in a ten man roster in the NBL at the moment?  After reading this story about Greg Vanderjagt being removed from the 10 man roster of the Gold Coast Blaze, I would say so.  This interesting statement was made in the article:

With the addition of Justin Bowen, the Gold Coast’s TTP is 74, meaning that one player (with a ranking of seven or more) must be cut, Joyce has the choice to demote any one player, with the exception of guards Daniel Joyce and Tyson Demos whose rankings are not significant.

 In short, Greg Vanderjagt has been removed from the Gold Coast Roster to make way for new import Justin Bowen.  But why I don’t understand is why the Blaze just didn’t give Pero the big ‘heave ho’ and keep Vanderjagt on the roster? 

In the above quote, it is stated that they needed to get rid of a player with a ranking of seven or more.  After perusing the NBL Points Ranking Document I see that Pero Cameron is rated an 8 and Vanderjagt is ranked a 7. So why didn’t Brendan Joyce just bite the bullet and cut the big New Zealander?  In their last game together against the Crocs, Vanderjagt played significant minutes and Cameron played around three. 

I am the first to admit that I don’t know about player contracts and how much people earn but I would think that Pero would be on much much more than Vanderjagt who was only picked up when the Bullets fell down.  Maybe that is the reason why. 

I remember when the NZ Breakers first came into the league and Cameron was playing for them.  He is a a legend in NZ basketball and has some significant highlights throughout his NZBL career. But lets face facts – Pero is 34 years old and very undersized and slow for a forward.  His stats over the past two years have not been fantastic and in all honesty, I feel that Brendan Joyce has made a mistake in keeping him on the roster this year.

Greg Vanderjagt – you are the unluckiest man in the NBL!

Before we start I would like to thank the 489 people that my Google Analytics account tells me that has visited my site over the past three weeks.  For those who don’t know anything about this tool, it is well worth checking it out.  It provides you with day to day analysis of visits to your site and where people are from. It is well worth the investment in time.

Anyway, after my Russell Hinder post the other day and discovering that he played some college ball at the University of San Fransisco, it got me thinking about this – how many NBL players (currently on NBL rosters) have American college basketball experience?  For those who are not aware of the college structure in the USA, Wikipedia provides a good analysis of the conferences and how they mesh together. 

Now back to my original question.  I am not just talking about NCAA Division 1.  I am talking Division 2, 3, NAIA and JUCO.  I am also not talking about naturalised Australians in this list.  Here is the list that I have come up with.

Adelaide:  Luke Schenscher, Aaron Bruce and Ryan Kersten

Cairns: Gary Boodnikoff, Ian Crosswhite, Scott Cook, Dean Brebner, Kerry Williams and Matt Smith

Gold Coast: Ben Melmeth

Melbourne: Adrient Sturt, Daniel Johnston, Bo Westover, David Barlow and Tommy Greer

New Zealand: Tim Behrendoff, Tony Ronaldson, Kirk Penney, Thomas Abercrombie, Corey Webster, CJ Bruton and Adam Tanner

Perth:  Adam Caporn, Luke Kendall, Paul Rogers, Alex Loughton and Stephen Weigh

South Dragons: Mark Worthington and Daniel Dillion

Sydney: Clint Reed, Matthew Knight, Damian Martin, Drew Williamson, Luke Martin and Jason Smith

Townsville: John Rillie, Russell Hinder,

Wollongong: Cameron Tragardh, Rhys Martin and Larry Davidson

That is a pretty extensive list!  I am sure that I missed some.  If my mathematics is correct (and I am sure that it is) 31.66% of players who are currently on NBL rosters have attended colleges in the USA in some form.  Some have attended schools for the entire four years (Matthew Knight, Luke Schenscer and Damian Martin), some have had outstanding careers at NCAA Division 2 schools (Mark Worthington), some have had good NAIA careers (Scott Cook), some have attended large schools for short periods of time (Tony Ronaldson and Ben Melmeth) and some have had outstanding JUCO careers (CJ Bruton) 

So what is that attracts Australians to go to college in the USA and coaches in the USA attraction to Australian players?  From a players point of view I think it is the fact that you can live the best part of your long lives overseas and playing the game that you love.  You also get a free education and see another country.  From a coahces point of view, you generally get players with good fundemental skills who enjoy the game.  Coaches from mid major or small schools have absolutley no chance in getting ‘big time’ USA players whilst they have a very good chance of getting a good young Australian recruit.  Patrick Mills at St Marys is the prime example of this. 

I still remember watching Andrew Gaze at Seton Hall for that fantastic Final Four run.  I also remember hearing about two young Australians (I was 11 at the time and they were 18!) called Luc Longley (attending New Mexico State) and Andrew Vlahov (attending Stanford)  These guys were really the trend setters for the young players of today.  I am sure that there are hundreds of guys playing college hoops in the USA at the moment.  The risk is that you really have to go to a school where you can showcase your talents.  I have heard stories of many young aussies who have gone over and played a specific role for their team and have actually returned worse players.

So in summary, if I was in year 12 and wanted to go to university, I would not hesitate to go to the right college in the USA and play some basketball.  These university degrees are worth thousands of dollars and set people up for the future and have the times of their lives.  They just need to make sure that their degrees are recognised in Australia.  If not…..

So all basketball fans around Australia now have 35 million reasons to be happy.  I am sure that everyone has heard the news and knows what is going on.  All I can say is ‘WOW’ and that this is awesome for Australian basketball.  But as I sit here at 7:45am on Sunday morning, I am wondering about the amount of teams in the new league. The magic number being thrown around is 8. I personally feel that 10 is going to be better. My ten team league would be:

Perth
Melbourne
Adelaide
South Dragons
Sydney
Gold Coast
Brisbane
Townsville
Cairns
New Zealand

I know that this is going to russle some feathers with Hawks fans (that was pretty funny, I didn’t even mean it to be!!!) but you can not possibly leave out Cairns or Townsville.

Anyway, I am off to the Bakery to get some bread! More on this tommorow (or maybe this afternoon if my wife lets me on the computer)

Ok, so I am back!  I am currently listening to OH-FM #12: Eight Is Enough from Ozhoops Of course the major topic of the Podcast is the NBL reform. He was talking about the similarities between the A League and the new NBL. The magic number that he keeps mentioning is 8. He was mentioning the possiblity of only having one team in North Queensland.  Derek is not obviously keen on this as he is a huge Crocs fan but he is being a realist.  He makes a point about the fact if Cairns goes, their fans will not automatically follow the new team (and I guess the same goes for if the Crocs go)  He also made an interesting point about whilst Cairns and Townsville aren’t the most popular markets in regards to population, they are the teams which are drawing the most money and have a good business model.  He also talks about the possiblity of not having an Adelaide team due to financial woes in the past 12 months.  I think that it would be disastorous if the league does not have a presence in South Australia.  They have a great venue and keen fans. 

In this article from Fox Sports made the following statement:

Thodey and Basketball Australia interim chief executive Scott Derwin stressed the revamped national league competition for 2009-10 would again start in October.

The independent review advocated a minimum of eight clubs, though Thodey and Derwin suggested that was not set in stone.

However, they suggested financial viability rather than geography was likely to be the major factor in determining which areas were represented.

Thodey said he hoped the criteria for inclusion in the new national league would be finalised before the end of this year

If this is the case, then there is no way that a new league could not have the Crocs and the Taipans.  It sounds like that I am a huge Crocs and Taipans fan but in all honesty I am not.  I just think that they have great fans who consistenly go to games, so therefore they should be rewarded with a team in any new league. 

On another track, what is FIBA’s take on all of this?  When the huge A League review happened, there was a lot of input from FIFA and they were active in the way that they helped the new league promote themesleves.  But FIBA seems to be very silent about all of this.  Isn’t Australia a member of FIBA?  Do they even care about the game in our country?  If they do, they should be flowing some money back through into our country to help promote and sustain the game. 

My only worry about this whole $35 million thing from Fox Sports is the lack of mainstream media coverage on Free to Air TV.  Super 14 and A League is only on Fox Sports and there is very little media coverage.  Unfortunately the NBL isn’t really in the greatest bargining position and $35 million is a lot of money!

 
I am going to make every Tuesday a random rambling day where my blog entry doesn’t just have one category – it has many.  Here goes:

- The NBL has fined Perth Wildcats coach Connor Henry for comments made to the media following his team’s 103-99 loss to the New Zealand Breakers on Thursday night. I don’t exactly know what he said to get the fine but the NBL has become very very sensitive towards players and coaches critising officals. I am not say that we should become a ref bashing league but a coach should be able to say something like “Hey some of those calls down the stretch really affected the outcome of the game”.  They shouldn’t be able to say “That loser screwed us and his seeing eye dog needs to be on the court with him next time”.

- It looks as though James Harvey has caught the Brendan Joyce disease of not living in the real world. Let me state this very clearly for everyone to hear: there is absolutley no way that the Gold Coast Blaze will make the NBL playoffs this season.  Maybe Chocko needs to start playing some of the young kids.  Talking of the Blaze, it seems that Justin Bowen is the man to replace the injured Hawkins. Joyce had this to say about him:

He is a genuine three-spot man. We were looking for someone obviously who could put the ball on the floor and get to the rim, and someone who can create scoring opportunities for himself and others and is solid at both ends.

I will say this – unless this guy is a dead set superstar, the Blaze are in for a long long year.

- Darren Ng has posted the third part of his three part story on the pre season trip to China. It is a good read!

- Boti Nagy is still calling for the head of Mark Tyndale This scatching article was written a while ago which is very critical of Sixers management.

- Rhys Martin’s car got torched whilst he was away in Cairns on a road trip. This is very very average. Speaking of Martin and the Hawks, I am still on Lindsay Tate’s case.  His game against the Taipans on Saturday night was once again not that impressive. Come on Eric Cooks – what are you thinking?

Righto. That will do! See you all tommorow.

I couldn’t think of an exact title or subject for this blog entry, so I decided to just look at some random NBL stuff and write about it.  Here we go:

- Tony Ronaldson this weekend will surpass Andrew Gaze as the player who has played the most amount of NBL games.  A lot of people love the Bear and some hate him.  I remember when he went to Arizona State and came back half way through his freshman season and signed with the Eastside Melbourne Spectres.  He has been to multiple World Championships and Olympic Games and can be credited with hitting one of the biggest shots in Australian basketball history (QF game against Croatia at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta)  I love the Bear and how he plays the game.  Breakers fans are blessed to have him.

- It seems that Dragons import Tremmell Darden may have turned the corner and finally found some form I picked him up early (5th round) in the FNBL draft. I got rid of him when he was producing nothing. Only time will tell if his form can hold. I haven’t seen any of his games but appartently he can get it done at the defensive end.

- How awesome is it that Lindsay Gaze is going to coach Tianjin in the Chinese Basketball Association How long do you think that it will be until they are running the shuffle? I will bet during the first game! This guy is a true ambassdor for our sport. Can anybody say Asian Champions League?

- I was really disappointed to read that the NBL want be holding an All Star game this season In his article Boti Nagy refers to this season as a ‘tread water season’ It certainly seems that way doesn’t it? Mookie from A Stern Warning also has a great blog that explores heaps of different basketball concepts. He also agrees with me about the removal of the All Star Game. The All Star game is a chance to get all of the best players in one location and showcase their skill set. Is Chuck Harmission listening?

- If there was a ‘I hate the way that Lindsay Tate plays basketball’ club, I would defintely join. In my brief viewing of the game on Wednesday night, I counted four travels that were not called. Come on Eric Cooks, play Rhys Martin more.

- Former 36ers player Darren Ng has a great blog that has been outlining his season so far in Singapore. There is a great write up of the China vs Invitational Australian Team. It is an interesting read.

- Mookie has also wrote an interesting article on the Wollongong Hawks Some of the Hawks players individual stats are down but they are playing much better. They got the job done against the Taipans the other night. How long can it last for? Kavossey was huge down the stretch for them. I also love the way Anthony ‘I take no crap from Martin Cattalini’ Petrie plays.

- Patrick Hunt has been appointed to the new role of AIS Applied Technical Advancement Coach commencing in January 2009. That certainly is a big job title. I wonder what will actually come of it. Basketball Australia is looking to secure international success by appointing Australian Olympic legends Andrew Gaze, Andrew Vlahov and Rachael Sporn have been appointed by Basketball Australia to help evaluate the success of the Boomers and Opals Olympic programs following their recent campaigns at the Beijing Games, including making recommendations on what is required to secure medals at the London Games in 2012. Whilst all three of these people have very impressive credentials, the most important thing is getting our coaching staff sorted out and identifying game styles etc.

- The Gold Coast Blaze have parted company with Juaquin Hawkins due to injury concerns. I applaud this choice and can’t believe that they actually bought him back this year. Before his minor stroke last year, his stats were not overly impressive. He came in with a lot of hype but never really delivered a whole lot. John Rillie commented on The OT with JR and Rod about this scenario and had some inside mail that the Blaze were looking at former 36ers import Mike Chappell. This is not a good sign for the Blaze people. Not good at all!

- My new team the Sydney Spirit take on the South Dragons tonight in Melbourne. It should be an interesting match up. If the Spirit can pound the offensive glass consistently, they may be in with a chance. The Worthington (if he is playing) vs Knight matchup will be the key and the Martin vs Gibson matchup will also be crucial. My prediction: Spirit by 5!!

 I was watching Harry Potter the other day and some how got thinking about Brendan Joyce.  For those who are not familiar with the Harry Potter series, Moaning Mrytle is a ghost who is always complaining about how nobody cared about when she died.  She doesn’t have a lot of friends and is always complaining about something.  Check out this You Tube package to see what I mean

This is similar to Brendan Joyce.  In interview with him he talks about how his team and the crippling draw that has affected his team. He also was blaming the ’schedule’ in this interview after the 102-85 loss against the Taipans. He constantly mentions ‘double headers’. Come on Brendan! In this interview after the Hawks game he failed to mention double headers and actually didn’t blame the schedule for his loss. It seems like that I am a Brendan Joyce basher. This is my second post that his team will feature in. In first one, I outlined their roster strengths and weaknesses When it comes down to it, they just are not very good. Every man and his dog know that Daniel Joyce is playing to much and now that they are thinking about dumping Hawkins due to injury  Hopefully they will turn the corner. In this interview Joyce states the following:

“We need a player who can play off the dribble and rebound. That is what Hawk used to be able to do. The vision I had for (fellow import Luke) Whitehead was not the position he is playing right now. He is playing in the three again when we wanted him in the four spot.”

Can anybody say Julius Hodge? Do they have the money for him? Do they have the desire to get him? The last thing the NBL needs this season is a Gold Coast team to go 0-30 or 2-28.

Other thoughts:

- I love John Rillie’s blog.  It is banned at my work and I had the day off yesterday.  I read it and was very impressed.  He is a role model for all us other bloggers.  I am looking forward to listening to the 7th episode of his podcast. Carl Ward was always a favourite of mine in the ABA.

- Great to see that my new found support of the Sydney Spirit lead them to a victory against the Hawks. I am sure that it was all of my moral support. Got to love this interview with Liam Rush and this one with Matthew Knight

- I am a huge fan of iGoogle This program basically allows you to RSS feeds of different websites to your own personal page. One basketball blog that I have on my page is Schibz Speil His latest post is titled New NBL: Reforming against the economic grain It is an interesting read and well worth looking at.

- Boti Nagy really wants the 36ers to get rid of Mark Tyndale. He goes to school on him and there management in this article. I loved this quote from Scott Ninnis:

“Obviously Mark’s not playing well,” 36ers coach Scott Ninnis said.

“But he’s no orphan in that.

So that is that! I am going to start reviewing all of my basketball books very soon. I am trying to make this blog interesting and thoughtful. Please leave a comment. I am attempting to see if people are actually reading this and what they would like me to discuss

Well everbody is hugely concerned with how basketball in Australia is going and I am another one to add to that list. It seems that the basketball community at Ozhoops are also very concerned.  This fantastic site has so many dedicated fans who are genuinely concerned about how the league will look in the future.  Many a post on the boards have been dedicated to this topic.  My concerned is that the best players need to be playing in our league.  The whole Luke Kendall scenario has been a ridicolous scenario and thank god that the last guy who missed out on our Olympic team is back in our league.  Even though he is playing for the evil Perth Wildcats, he is still better off playing NBL than playing for Kilsyth in the ABA!  John Rillie on the OT had some interesting things to say about this topic.

On another topic (this is my first go at blogging…….please forgive my lack of blogging knowledge!) how much are the Gold Coast Blaze stinking it up at the moment.  Surely some changes have to be made.  Lets look at their lineup:

C: Ben Melmeth – career underachiever.  Left Utah because he couldn’t hack it with Ric Mujareus and missed out on playing with Keith Van Horn and making it to a national title game.

PF: Luke Whitehead – they bought this guy in to replace Hawkins last year and he was stinky then and still stinks now.  He has been slowed by injury but I wouldn’t expect much from him.  He is a pretty good athlete.

SF: Jaquin Hawkins – solid veteran guy who is not worthy of an import spot in my humble opinion. 

SG: James Harvey – love him.  He is a bit of a gunner but can light it up.

PG: Shane Heal – cops a lot of crap but is a competitor.  Has slowed down a little (he is 38 years old) but still a solid player at NBL level. 

The problem is the bench.  Daniel Joyce is the most critiqued player in the league.  Tyson Demaos rarely gets on.  Scott McGregor and Pero Cameron are both slow 3/4 men who just can’t get it done.  Casey Frank is the only positve off the bench. 

Big Shoot Joey from Ozhoops has the following to say:

Some very good constructive ideas have been put forward, but the reality is all these awesome ideas are going to fall on deaf ears…..listen carefully ladies & gents

The Board and the coaching staff are not going to make a move, they’re not even thinking about making a move…….they’re not even thinking about thinking about making a move

There are many reasons for this, obvious ones being, points cap, current salary, contract length, and other current contract issues. But the current people in power want to tough it out with the current roster, rest assured next year there will be wholesale changes.

Maybe just maybe when we reach 0-20 and the crowds fall under 1000 people then our wishes for some kind of change will be considered.

If this is the case, Gold Coast Blaze fans are in for a very very long season. My mail tells me that they could have signed Chris Goulding to their roster. He is a local SE Qld boy who would have loved to have stayed home. He had a huge SEABL season. Now he is in Perth and only time will tell if the Blaze have made the right move.

How long will Brendan Joyce keep his job for?