Hoops

mavericks are pathetic and petty

As a country parent at a metro club I am amazed that mavs have such a limited training schedule. Surely any country association trainings can be scheduled to not clash with metro trainings - not that hard !!! Our association does it !!
We miss a couple of Sunday trainings for carnivals but make this up by attending Tuesday nights in metro - a 300 klm round trip
SAC is a bigger problem with training sessions from morphetvale on a sat night to Murray bridge on a Sunday morning , a session which could easily be shifted to allow attendance at metro trainngs !
most of the country players would be attending dnsp trainings midweek as well , so like most country players they would be training as much as their metro counterparts just not as a team

Pnp, your views are very seem to be very skewed. You are correct in most players come from the local associations, but not specifically their association representative team.

Have you thought about how many Mavericks trainings must be compromised by the association & other commitments these players have.
Lets have a look at the number of these compromised trainings in the lead up to the Basketball SA State Championships -
- SAC High Peformance Camp for U16 & U18 (1 training)
- Association tournaments (lets say 2 trainings although I know of some wanting to play in 5 tournaments)
- SA Country Championships (1 training)
- Local association Grand Final (1 training, although not all associations hold their Grand Finals on the same Sunday)
- SAC training (lets say 2, although this varies depending on the age group)

That's 7 training's that are compromised, all before the May State Championships.

You may be aware that Mavs don't train midweek to allow the players to play in their local association competitions - that is to support their local association - not stab them in the back. So out of around 22 possible trainings prior to the May State Champs, Mavs will have the opportunity to train as a whole squad around 15 times.

Maybe Mavericks should train midweek as well I hear you say. That's a great call - we either make them choose between the two or we further increase these players commitments and watch them burn out with fatigue.

If we all look at the bigger picture of what is best for the players, maybe basketball would be in a better place.

Well, that's pretty dumb isn't it.

I am in support of the Mavs on this one in principle. For a district team to be successful, a team needs to train as a team. It is a completely untenable position if players do not attend trainings. Players don't know plays and coaches can't improve techniques. No matter how good a player is, if they do not attend training, it affects the team. Having one standard for one, and one for another just doesn't work. You can't have players who don't attend any trainings, then stroll in on a Friday night.

Having said that, the Mavs are well known for their strong links with nearby country associations and one would expect that they would have consulted with those associations as having strong country associations feeding Mavs only helps Mavs.