Hoops

What has Clarke really achieved?

What's with the pining for groves and winder? Standards people standards! ;-)
Shockingly, if the sixers had listened to calls to bring back farley we probably would have been better off and that is tragic!

Mutley, with all due respect to DJ, he would be Axel Dench with less range on his jumpshot but more agility closer to the basket - but point taken re the defensive end.

Beantown and Isaac both deserve little basketballs (bring back the basketballs Isaac!). Excellent posts, that have made more sense than anything I have read here for a while.

As for Howard, I have seen nothing to suggest he has any moves other than his step left fast break layup (which is so predictable he should have run into a half dozen charges by now). Worse still, he makes that play every time even when there is a teammate in a better position in the passing lane. Stat padder.

Big call, but bring back Cortez Groves. At half the player he once was, Cortez was still a better player than Howard. If you doubt it, check the stats:

CORTEZ GROVES: 26 MPG, 10 PPG, 38% FG, 25% 3P, 69% FT, 3.5 APG, 2.9 RPG, 0.6 ST, 2.4 TO

RON HOWARD: 22.7 MPG, 9.7 PPG, 39% FG, 33% 3P, 65% FT, 1.5 APG, 2.3 RPG, 0.7 ST, 3.1 TO

I would take Cortez's additional assists, boards, defence, fewer turnovers, and better playmaking over Howards three point shooting so far (which aint exactly pretty). Yes, we are talking about Cortez, the guy who stunk it up all last year for his sub-par performances (which were poor, no complaint from me on that).

But Howard is a one trick pony, and has been totally found out. And if I hear one more person defending him by saying it is Clarke's fault as he doesn't run any plays for him - rediculous. Howard has shown no ability to contribute to any half court sets nor to read the game whatsoever. He has no ability to break down a defence and is not a slashing guard by any measure.

If Cortez was the worst import we have ever had, what does that make Howard?

Isaac, I noticed that our starters were the ones that dug us a big hole against the Blaze too. I can recall thinking in several games this year that it has been our bench that has looked better than our starters!

I'm not surprised DJ had a decent plus minus, because he was scoring pretty easily on the undersized Blaze. Offence is not his problem though. He needs to get better defensively and work out how to stop getting pushed around as well. I suspect it is lack of core strength, which is understandable in a young guy. But we'll see, X could be right, he could just be soft!

I like our young guys. For the first time in a long time I feel I am seeing a nucleus of young players on the Sixers with a future. Now if we could mesh them with a couple of the ones we've let get away like Schenscher and Madgen I think we will start looking pretty good again.

Skud, it is possible you are right that Clarke has not managed the older imports very well, but I don't see enough evidence to be convinced. Howard has shown me he can do ONE thing well: finish at the rim in the open court using the same frickin move every time. He doesn't seem to have a plan B if the defender shuts that move off.

His defence is average at best, he doesn't really rebound very well, he is very hit and miss with his jumper, can't create off the dribble and doesn't make other players around him better. All in all, I think he has had plenty of opps to make an impact and has failed dismally. The only thing I fault Clarke for is bothering to play him at all.

With Shannon, I don't really how Clarke's supposed inability to deal with older players has prevented him from performing. After a bright start, I think Shannon has just been found out a little defensively by some of the better NBL guards.

I do think Clarke has not managed to imprint his game plan into the minds of his players as effectively as he needs to.

Defensively, players still get lost in their rotations and switching on screens all the time has not worked. This chaos has contributed to our inability to put a body on players and get the rebound.

Offensively, the team is not able to run the plays Clarke wants under pressure, which is why when good teams go on a run, the wheels fall off and we have epic scoring droughts. I think a big part of this comes down to our bigs setting better screens in the right spots and at the right angles to allow our guards to get free. Too often, opposing players are able to bully their way through screens, or it is set to no advantage. When our bigs pop or roll, how is it that they rarely manage to get themselves open? When they do, half the time our guards can't thread the pass.

Without seeing Clarke's methods in action, its really hard to know why some of these things are not coming together, but this season will have been a big learning experience for him. All we can hope is that he has soaked it all in and will work really hard in the offseason to refine his game plan and methods.

I'm still pulling for him. As far as I am aware, Beveridge is probably the only current coach in the NBL who stepped in and had success straight away? You gotta have some really good players at your disposal though, which Bevo did. It takes time to hone your methods. Even the almighty Goorjian didn't have success straight away!

I imagine Radford scouted Perth pretty well.
Anyways , there's a few young ones here.
Johnson , very young and probably a good back up Center to an Ira Clark or so and maybe a bitta back up to Ballinger at PF.
Carter Bruce might be a bit rusty with their time off
and Daly just starting out.
Don't think we needed any Import guards here.
Probably about the same win loss as last season and Sunday was the worst I've seen.

He has achieved a bottome three finish.

We can talk around it all we want, but it comes down to Ws and Ls.

Clarke has acheived a couple of good things

Bringing in a couple of good young players to build around i.e Creek, Johnson, Bruce, Carter, Daly all who will/could/should be starters or in the main rotation for years to come IMO, and in doing so we now have probably the best 2 u/24 players in the league in Johnson and Creek.

Clarke also has had us fairly competitive overall against most teams, sure we got smacked by the Gold Coast, but we have been in most games, if we had 2 better imports all season, Ah i miss the Mee and Brooks days, we would have been atleast a handful of wins higher. Also remember no teams have done really well on imports this year, i think Cairns and NZ seem to have done best, and is probably a large part of the reason why they have done very well.

We also have a young and exciting/interesting team, what would people rather see our gruop of developing young guys play, and hopefully improve in the future, or a group of re-treads/vetrans put together, which is what Phil got criticised in the past, personally im happy to see the young guys.

Sure we havnt changed much wins and losses,but IMO if we can retain the best of our group, add in a couple of boomer(ish) (most current 2010 WC's boomers are overseas or guys like Gibson and Martin who i think would be very very hard to get) level talent such as Schenscher, and soemone like a Weigh, Wagstaff, Majok or Harvey, have better luck with imports or get star Aussies instead of imports we will be ok, id probably only look to add in 3-4 (Keep atleast Ballinger, Johnson, Creek, Bruce, Daly and/or Carter and consider Herbert and/or Hill) adding players ie Schenscher, Magden, and 2 new imports or guys like Weigh, Wagstaff, Majok, Harvey (instead of imports) depending on what position we are looking for.

I think a huge expectation has been put on Clarke from fans and staff. Yes i do agree he has been paid to do this job but dont forget this is his first time at coaching a professional team. This year has not just been a teething season for the young ones on the team but also for Clarke and i personally think he will take a lot from this season and change his playing strategy, however i could be wrong. the team and coach are rookies and if next season is just as disappointing as this one then ill really question his ability to coach an NBL team.

I don't hate the guy for what he is doing. I regularly scratch my at times wondering what the hell is going on with some of his choices.

But I'm certainly not doing what I was doing with Ninnis where I'm yelling out to run a Press or Zone when it's blatantly obvious to run it.

This may just be a trial year for him and he'll start being a harder/better coach next year. You'd have to speak to him behind closed doors to find out what the "3-year" plan really is.

While we all have very valid reasons to criticize him; I somehow doubt a man with his coaching background and sporting background is blind to most of what we're demanding and what he's seeing.