Everybody who is involved with basketball in Australia has heard of this great coach – Brian Goorjian.  His record is impeciable and speaks for itself.  It seems that everywhere he goes, he truns programs around and people want to play for him.  This bio was taken from the South Dragons website:

Brian Goorjian is the most successful coach in Australian basketball, commencing his NBL coaching career in 1988. He has coached nearly 700 games with a remarkable 70% winning percentage. Brian has won five NBL championships and five “Coach of the Year” awards, something no other coach has accomplished. He was voted by his peers the greatest coach in the NBL’s first 25 seasons.

More recently, Goorjian’s Sydney Kings created history by winning three consecutive NBL Grand Finals between 2002 and 2005. Teams coached by Brian Goorjian have reached the semi finals or better for 20 consecutive seasons, which is quite remarkable and virtually unchallenged in any code. Last season, Goorjian coached the Sydney Kings team to a record-breaking 27 wins and just 3 losses in the regular season.

Goorjian is also coach of the Australian men’s national team, the Boomers. He is the first foreign-born coach to hold the position, and led the team to Commonwealth Games gold in 2006. He attended his first Olympics in Athens 2004 and led Australia at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. American-born Goorjian played at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California before coming to Australia in 1977 as a player.

This is his first season as head coach of the Crazy John’s South Dragons. Goorjian’s previous clubs include the Eastside Spectres (1988-1991), South East Melbourne Magic (1992-1996), Victoria Titans (1997-2001) and Sydney Kings (2002-2008).

He has a distinctive coaching style which focusses on defense.  It is actual very humerous due to the fact that as a player he was considered a bit of a gunner and a three point shooter.  Andrew Gaze in his book ‘A Kid, A Ball, A Dream’ talks about the Friday afternoon pick up games that Brian and other Americans used to compete in at Albert Park and how he was a competitive character.  That competiveness doesn’t seem to have deminished throughout his coaching career and he is universally respected for his teams dedication to detail and ability to get after it at the defensive end.

In 1988, Goorjian took over the Eastside Melbourne Spectres after a successful coaching stint in the SEABL with the Ballart Miners.  I still remember as a young lad of twelve years following this team with interest because my favourite player at that time (Dean Uthoff) played for them.  I still kind of followed the North Melbourne Giants but always loved watching the Spectres play.  I still remember Dean Uthoff throwing huge ‘touchdown’ passess to Darren Lucas and an awkward left handed import by the name of Arnie Duncan putting up some huge numbers.  The team missed the finals in Goorjian’s first two seasons (amazingly these two seasons would be the only time a Goorjian coached team did not qualify for the play-offs). in 1990 the Spectres bowed out in the semi final and the next year they went one better making the Grand Final.

1992 is a year that changed my life as a basketball fan.  Everybody knows about the Dream Team and their performances at the Olympic Games.  Whilst this was a huge event, a bigger one occured for me – The merger between the Eastside Melbourne Spectres and Southern Melbourne Saints.  I was a loyal Giants fan up to that time but this merger really interested me.  I remember watching on TV the Southern Saints with Andrew Parkinson and Simon Kerle beat the star studded Perth Wildcats.  When I heard that they were merging with the Spectres, I was hooked.  They had lost my man Dean Uthoff but they had picked up John Dorge.  Brian Gorijian had also recruited an import by the name of Milt Newton.  He turned out to be a bit of a dud and got injured.  His recruitment of Robert Rose was brilliant and it helped this new franchise straight away.  One of the biggest coaching moves of all time happened in the NBL finals series.  Co Captian Darren Perry ruptured his achillies tendon in game one of the finals series.  Brian moved Robert Rose to the PG spot and this ultimately helped them win games two and three.  This move was a gutsy one and proved successful.  I totally was hooked on the whole ’Men in Black’ thing and loved every moment of it.  As a pure basketball person, watching the teamwork (which is a trademark of all Goorjian coached teams) and defensive effort (another feature) was awesome to see. 

After the Magic merged with the Giants, I was a little bit torn as a fan.  I still loved the way that they played and how BG coahced them but I really missed the old days of the Magic.   What really sparked my interest was when I heard that Brett Brown was leaving the Kings to go to the San Antino Spurs and Brian was moving up to the ‘holy grail franchise’ – The Sydney Kings.  The team was already set for the 2002 season and he would be teaming up with Shane Heal.  This scenrio could have been extremely explosive but they got the job done and won the title for the first time in franchise history.  What followed was a period of success unrivalled in Sydney’s history. 3 titles followed in 4 seasons as the Kings swept all before them. Goorjian, who had brought his captain Jason Smith with him from the Titans, coached Sydney to 5 grand finals in 6 years despite being forced to constantly re-build the team after each season.

At the end of last season Brian joined the South Dragons franchise and instantly they have gained success.  Mark Worthington was recently interview on nbl.com and he stated that he was very close to signing with Perth but having Brian made him sign with the Dragons. 

Brian also took over the national team and has had some mixed success.  The Boomers play at the 2008 Olympics was ok.  They really should not have lost the first game against Croatia which really set them up for failure in the later rounds.  He has blooded a lot of younger guys in this Olympics which will hold the Boomers in good stead for the later years.

It seems like that most people love playing for Brian.  I remember reading somewhere that David Stiff loved it but had to leave because he couldn’t take the ‘day to day’ grind on his body anymore.  Brian’s teams are well prepared and extremely fit.  I imagine that his preperation would be detailed and very goal orientated.

So where to next for Brian Goorjian?  There was talk that this Olympic Games was his last and he was going to stand down as head coach.  I personally feel that this is not a good move but if it is, I think it opens up an interesting scenario for him.  I know that he has lived in Australia and is an Australian citizen but the temptation to coach in the NCAA must be there for him.  When I heard that Lute Olsen had resigned at Arizona and Mike Dunlap had taken over as coach, my first thought was ‘I bet you that Brian ends up at Arizona as an assitant.’  Then I  read that Mike Dunlap had declined the job and somebody called Russ Pennell was named interm head coach of the Wildcats.  That put a huge spanner in the works for my thought processes!

I honestly believe that if he doesn’t end up taking the Boomers to the 2010 World Championships and 2012 Olympic Games, he will head over to the United States and coach in the college system.  When writing this entry, I found this interesting article from 2005. Here is an interesting quote from Matt Nielson and Chris Anstey:

Matt Nielsen, Most Valuable Player in last year’s grand final, said from Greece that the Kings win despite turning over players (only Brad Sheridan has been there all three seasons). “The people that bite on what he asks really improve,” he said. “Goorj understand players very well, he’s very honest with players, too – he let’s you know.”

Chris Anstey, who played for Goorjian in Victoria before and after the coach helped him get to the National Basketball Association, said from Russia this week: “Goorj is always looking to improve himself as a coach . . . He realises that becoming a great team involves so much more than putting five great players on the court.”

Players seem to love playing for him.  If he goes overseas, I think that he will get the job done! 

NOTHING BUT NET is a rambling memoir by the renowned basketball player, Bill Walton. He concentrates on the joy he found in playing basketball at all levels. He played for the joy of competition, not for the money or glory.

Walton praises the coaches and mentors he had as a player, especially his coach at UCLA, John Wooden. Walton sees Wooden as a man who completely dedicated himself to basketball. Walton speaks of the championships he won in basketball at UCLA, the Portland Trailblazers, and the Boston Celtics as team rather than personal victories. He gives special attention to his days as a member of the Boston Celtics. After a terrible experience in Portland and a frustrating one with the Los Angeles Clippers, Walton found a place with a team that stressed team values and individual excellence. He singles our Larry Bird as a player and a man who possesses the attitudes and values Walton cherishes most.

Walton discusses his injuries at great length in the book. He missed nearly half of the games in his long career because of foot and ankle problems. Some accused him of being a malingerer, but he did have serious injuries that have only recently healed.

The second half of the book is devoted to Walton’s opinions on various issues. He opposes undergraduates leaving college after a year or two for the money of the professional league. He also suggest reforms for the National Basketball Association (NBA) and discusses his all-time dream team.

Nothing but Net is a loosely organized book that repeats many of Walton’s points and anecdotes; it could have benefitted from tighter editing to increase its coherence. Nevertheless, it is an entertaining memoir by a man who has opinions to express and values to defend.

Welcome to version 2 of Tuesday’s Random Rambles.  According to my Google Analytics account, Version One was reasonably successful (40 people have visited it).  Hopefully this one will be just as successful or more:

- Connor Henry has been happy with the play of Darnell Hinson so far this season, and why wouldn’t he be? According to his stats his numbers are pretty similar but his scoring is down (20.5ppg last season, 13.31ppg so far this season) The difference I guess is that he is on a winning team. Here is what Connor had to say about his point guard:

“He has elevated his game to a level that we didn’t see before when he first got here. He is in phenomenal shape right now and is really confident with running the club and getting to wherever he wants to on the floor,” Henry said.

“We targeted to be more athletic at that spot in the off-season and wanted a guy that could get us the right things, and Darnell has embraced that role. Mark Radford, our assistant, has done a great job with him getting to understanding the whole dynamic of coming off an on-ball and making a play.”

It certainly seems that there is a lot of love out west for Darnell.  I took him early in the FNBL Draft and have been pleased with his production so far this season.

- Townville has come out and stated that they want to be part of the new league already and I think that this is a fantastic thing. CEO Ian Smythe made the following statement:

“They haven’t announced the final criteria as such, but certainly the draft they have released we meet all the criteria and don’t look like we’re in any situation of being in trouble of making it by the due date,” he said.

“I think they’ve got it right with the criteria of making it into the new league and if we had had these when some teams were looking at joining the NBL we wouldn’t be in the circumstance we’re in now.”

Those are fighting words Ian! Hopefully the new league recognises your teams fantastic fans and strong junior base in the basketballing community.

- Brian Goorjian loves the rough stuff that happened during the game against the Gold Coast Blaze on Saturday night. Shane Heal got ejected from the game for getting a second unsportsmanlike foul. I have not seen any footage of it (I was hoping that they would show it on the highlights package on ESPN and Fox Sports News but it wasn’t) but I am sure that the Dragons faithful enjoyed seeing their ex ‘Favourite Son’ get his marching orders. I love the Hammer and you will never hear me say a bad word about how he plays the game.

- I will take a week off of the Lindsay Tate bashing as he didn’t play this weekend, but I am consistnely reminded of him when his photo is featured promintely on the Hawks website. 

- After questioning last week if I should believe the Tommy Greer hype, he produced an average game of 0 pts and 4 rebs in 18 minutes and 37 seconds of action against the Breakers on the weekend.  It also seems as if Sam Mackinnon has produced two solid weeks of action as well in the same game.  If Mackinnon can get back to near his best, then the Tigers are still one of the teams to beat in the NBL. Jason Smith believes that they were better last year and more beatable this year

- How poor is some of the Free Throw Shooting in the NBL at the moment?  Using these stats from NBL.com it is obvious that the FT%’s around the league are very down. Whilst some (CJ Bruton and Kirk Penney) are getting the job done at around 90%, others such as Cameron Tovey are shooting a at woful 43.9% By looking at the list of 120 players, only 40 of them are converting at 75% or better. Of those 40, people such as Oscar Forman, Tim Beherendoff, Paul Henare, Brett Maher, Pero Cameron, Adam Caporn, Nathan Herbert, Brad Williamson and Clint Reed have had 10 or less attempts.  I feel that 75% should be the base mark for all players in the NBL. 

- Brendan Joyce was impressed with the first hitout from their new import Justin Bowen and has already made the statement that he will be one of the best imports in the league. In this interview he talks about not getting any respect. Who does he want respect from? The refs?  The players?  Come on!

- Darren Ng keeps us up to date with all things Slingers if anybody is interested. I personally feel that it is a tragedy that some of those ‘Aussies’ aren’t playing in the NBL.

- Schibz’s Speil has an interesting blog entry on the independant board that is going to exsist. Another fantastic and thought provocking entry from him.

- Everybody’s favourite South Australian – Boti Nagy has once again wrote an interesting article on the game against the Taipans. He sort of is a fence sitter in this one – blaming the refs but also the 36ers for their poor foul shooting.

 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

So after watching the Crocs vs Spirit game on Thursday morning (on replay with my 2 year old son) I have made a startling discovery – I love the way that the Sydney Spirit play and they will now be a huge supporter of their team.  I live in Queensland and it will be extremely tough for me to get to games in Sydney but if I can I will.  The chances of this happening are slim to none!

How can the Sydney public disrespect this team by not showing up at their games?  It is painfully obvious that things aren’t right and somebody (e.g Chuck Harmison and his band of merry men) need to answer for this.  This team plays hard, are young and play together.  What more could basketball fans really want?  I really enjoyed the game the other night and appreciated how hard they palyed.  Here are my thoughts on each of the players from their roster:

Julian Khazzouh: I really think that he has a future in a Boomers uniform.  He is huge, crashes the offensive glass and blocks shots.  Even better – he is Australian!

Matthew Knight: Came into the league with pretty big wraps last year.  He has a pretty solid all round game and I love the fact that coach Beveridge plays him and Khazzouh together.

Liam Rush: Andrew Gaze stated the other night that he was the most underrated player in the NBL and I would have to agree.  I have had him for the past two seasons in my FNBL Team on Ozhoops and I am pretty excited to have him again.  Gets it done, runs the floor and can finish.

Derrick Low: I was (and still am a little bit) doubter about this selection at the start of the season.  His boxscore from the Crocs game the other night wasn’t exactly outstanding but he seems to be doing a good job.

Damian Martin: Very very solid in my opinion. He has reasonable size for a PG (188cm and 91kg) and is a true leader in every sense of the word. Great player. Everyone goes on about this guy and that guy for the next Olympic games. I would be suprised if he is not there.

The Bench
Tony Rampton is a very servicable backup centre. Graham Dann is the biggest enigma to play in the NBL since Aaron Trahair. Will he ever live up to his potential? David Gruber seems to be the ultimate ‘meat and potatos man’. Drew Williamson played well the other night and I love Clint Reed. The only thing is when J Smith returns, what happens to Reed?

So there you go Sydney people! Get behind your team.

Other NBL stuff:
- Nic Horvarth being out for the Dragons is a huge blow He has been outstanding this season and hopefully he will be back on the court soon for all of us FNBLers!

- Is it just me or has Brett Maher been under an injury cloud for the past two seasons. It seems that every two weeks, he is in doubt. I am really looking forward to reading his new book and seeing how much he goes into his relationship with former Boomers coach Barry Barnes It should be a great read!

- Is Brendan Joyce playing with a full deck of cards ? In this article he makes the following statement:

Joyce, who has an agreement with the club for four seasons, insists there is no undue pressure on him to ignite an instant resurrection.

“Everybody knows that with a new franchise there are highs and lows,” he explained.

“Most franchises take four years or more to make the playoffs. We did it in our first year.

“We’re in a low spot at the moment, but we have a long-term goal.”

- I really hope that Stephen Black can make it back and this is not the end of his career I love watching him play. Whilst this is a bonus to my FNBL team because Scott Cook will see more minutes, the guy is a legitimate player in the league and is heaps of fun to watch.

- Is Andrej Lemanis the next Lindsay Gaze? He is pretty laid back and relaxed.

- A very in depth interview with Aaron Bruce provided some interesting reading. How is this for sucking up to the coach:

What do you think of him as a coach?

Bruce: He’s outstanding. He’s got a really good attitude towards improving and taking things from each game and each practice and trying to get better. I think he’s very enthusiastic about improving as much as we can in the shortest amount of time possible and that’s great because I think he really pushes us every day at practice.

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So there we go people. Go the Spirit and the NBL!! Check out this Old School NBL dlip to view the top 10 dunks of 2000 How young does Matt Neilson look? Got to love Kevin Brooks behind the back! I loved Saville’s ‘postering’ of Simon Dwight. The number one dunk from Kedrick Johnson was a huge travel but I loved it anyway!

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