Hoops

36ers press conference, 11am tomorrow

Lots of bad jokes flying between him and Mal during that press conference, including Mal's bad jokes about Voldemort being bald - Yvonne and the couple of other photographers there were very snap happy when they were laughing. At one point, Mal's joked failed, and Voldemort told him to leave the jokes to him.

Majority of it though was fairly carefully worded by the two, Voldemort and Mal talking about their friendship of 30 yrs, and Voldemort talking about the "business component" and the "friendship component" of the relationship between the two. Plenty of dodging the questions going on during the press conference, if the reporters asked tough questions or asked about topics that they didnt want to discuss. Voldemort even admitting at one point that he didn't really answer the question that Mark Aiston asked him.

When they were discussing the player's reaction to the announcement which they made to the players before the press conference, Voldemort mentioned that the first reaction of Julius was to ask "Does this mean that I'll be jumping on a plane and playing elsewhere then?", and a lot of the players are probably a little uncertain right now about what this announcement means for their careers.

Hopefully this announcement doesn't mean we'll end up with another 06/07 style "slap it together at the last minute because these are the only guys who want to play in this uncertain environment" team.

For what its worth, I think he looks older than 49. A sign of a hard life.

Ol' Dog -- Regardless of who coaches, there will only be 2-3 proper development sport available with the Sixers.

The only thing that might change is how these guys are deveolped and selected.

As I remember Don Shipway saying, SA has more than enough talent to have two NBL teams, but we don't have enough money or fans to support it.

The press are still waiting for Voldemort to say something to them. He came into the room but instead of sitting down at the table, stood off to one side with Breheny and they've been engaged in a calm, thoughtful discussion for half an hour.

[Got caught using his name. Fer crissake, I respect the good he's done for the club, but this farce with his name has caused me to lose any respect for him as a man.]

(Mod: Gold!)

I actually don't have a problem with Voldermort playing on the court during training, unless it happens evey session.

If you are on the court, you can get a better feeling and perception of your players and how they play and interact.

Voldermort, you are a legend of the game, and I salute you as a player and a coach, but it is definitely time for a change at the sixers.

Also - I don't think that Ninnis or Stacker are necesasarily the fix - we nedd to cast the net a little wider.

Ah. I can't view it here at work for some reason. Probably just the report that was on channel 9 last night.

Speaking of which, they presented it as a done deal, calling it "an end to an era for South Australian basketball".

coaches08, how many development players do they need? He had 4 of them for the last 2 home games. I thought it was the job of the Academy to develop the players and then put forward the best ones when needed. Would you prefer Phil to take care of these boys from 6 years of age and hold their hand all the way through to NBL level. I really don't understand the fuss about developing young players. Its happening already. As I've said in previous threads, I only started following basketball since 2002 and have not experienced a championship. Were all these arguments about developing young players going around at the time or were people prepared to ignore the young developers because the experienced players were getting the job done winning the championships? It seems to me that in recent years, Ingles and Newley slipped through the system and ended up with rival teams, and this is where the lack of development players comes from.