Hoops

Maher: 36ers should go abroad in import hunt

I seem to recall John Gilchrist training here at that time, for 2 weeks trial out , to see if he could get a spot on our roster.
Seemed a good idea, rather than us going over there.
Only thing was he passed first , for 2 weeks , mostly to Burston. Then Burston went out injured and then, Gilchrist tried to do too much himself.

(Adrien Sturt came over from the Melbourne Tigers for 3 days trial out, also.
This pre-season we asked Jordan Dodman to come out for a tial out, on the first day of training, ...
.... but , .. he didn't turn up.)

Aw, ..later, .. we signed Cortez Groves as an SG and David Cooper as a back up Centre, .. instead of Schenscher...
However, the Coach used Ballinger at Centre, with Burston's injury and didn't play Cooper.

We wanted to sign Luke again , after his first season here, but he wanted to go overseas for D-league, for a little while , with the Lakers.
He came back here to training , and we'd signed Burston. I wouldn't have minded both here.
But , later we signed Cortez Groves instead, so Luke went to Perth , then -Burston went down with injury , playing for the Boomers. Later , Burston had other injuries for half the season and wasn't match fit for some of the games. Schenscher sure would've been handy to have here.

gorg definately spotted ervin and rang gordi.
gorg saw him drop 50 i think at a bigtime ball park over in the US.

I thought Goorg spotted Ervin & rang Gordie?

It's always made sense to me to send a coach to the US to find players (having played and worked with many duds can't really believe how many duds we actually get in Australia!).

Having said that, I'd hope that Adelaide might get better value from that trip than the Blaze did - they sent Joey on a much-publicised scouting mission (which I'm sure was more on the $15K variety than the $5K variety) only to go through two imports, one of whom was a recycled NBL guy.

On the scouting note, and I know the draw worked for Marty to be able to do it, but it was conspicuous that he was the only NBL coach at the 20's on the men's side, and Chambers and Dalton (who are part of the Gems staff) were the only coaches on the women's side where I think there's even more of a chance of seeing somebody who will be a player in the next 18 months.

Probably reinforces the win-now mentality of all the pro clubs but doesn't say much for BA who are charged with developing the sport and run these comps (whether the 20's should actually even be in-season fro these teams is a whole other argument!).

I agree coaches should be in the States to pick players first hand - also gives a chance to gauge personality.

Throw a tape measure in the suitcase though - I want to get to the bottom of the mysterious 3 inch height shrink when players get off the plane here.

There you go. Applause to Gordie.

Still, sitting on your behind and relying on media isn't a proven method. McLeod in all his wisdom and worth of judging talent, could have picked Ervin on Pot Luck.

Not taking anything away from the Hawks or the talent that they have; but it's worth that money travelling to see someone play 1st hand.

In a situation where you have footage from a game 3-4 months earlier versus their skills at the time of selection could be quite different.

While I can't comment on how hard the training is; there's also the need for the players to rest themselves and cool down accordingly.

If there's a large time period between games, then any player that feels tired needs to utilize any services they can to recover: massage, physio etc. or even make sure that they get some extra sleep.

If you're talking 2-3 hours of solid training then a game within 1-2 hours, I could understand the fatigue, but if you're talking a 4-5 hour break or overnight rest, then what excuse if there for fatigue?

Agree about the rotations and import plan though; certainly need to look at scouting better rather than reading charts and relying on stat lines.

The rotations were certainly sporadic. Glad even Maher picked up on that.