Hoops

Post Blitz thoughts

Yes, Boti implied in his latest article that the refs voted post-game.

Each team played three games over the five-day event in Townsville, with the referees nominating a 3-2-1 vote to the most valuable player after each game.

Presumably a Brownlow medal style voting system - not many players played 3 full games across the weekend for any club.

NZ look a lot different at both ends of the floor with Alex Pledger at Starting Centre and Tom Abercrombie at SF.

Cedric Jackson is still one of the very best players to play in the NBL.

Charles Jackson wasn't bought in to be a star import, he got the job because Vickerman saw him as a bigger Mika Vukona and much like Mika he picked up some quick fouls.

Shane McDonald definitely looked like he belongs in the NBL. He directed traffic, hit some threes and I loved that lefty floater, lets hope that wasn't a Ben Allen pre-season performance.

Tai Wesley was looking like he put in some work in the offseason and turned up looking ready to play. I think he has good shot of 6MOTY, especially with Ebekwe gone.

Just a personal prediction for the ladder, don't take it too seriously.

1. Melbourne 20-8
2. New Zealand 17-11
3. Sydney 16-12
4. Adelaide 15-13 (%)
5. Perth 15-13
6. Illawarra 14-14
7. Cairns 13-15
8. Townsville 10-18

MVP: Josh Childress
Leading Scorer: Chris Goulding
Defensive POTY: Ogilvy
Rookie of the Year: Majok Majok

I wasn't referring to Majok at all... talking about the state of bigs in the NBL in general.

I'm not overly concerned about the Kings re: the Blitz results, but I would have liked to have seen Markovic and Carter do better. I felt good about our 3-headed PG rotation with Markovic/Cadee/Carter, but only Cadee has performed, with Markovic and Carter both looking pretty woeful.

If the refereeing is consistent with what we'll see in the season, it might be worthless having a legit 5 man like Khazzouh in this league if they are going to pick up ticky-tack fouls every time the opposing team goes inside the paint. Better off having an undersized energy guy.

From what little I saw of Warrick, he could be the most dangerous player in the comp if he can stay healthy and out of foul trouble.

I am ambivalent about the change in emphasis so long as the umpires are consistent about it.

That said, there were examples on the weekend of what I would call legal post defence with the offensive player initiating contact where fouls were called where I don't know what the defender could have done differently.

I raised it as a post Blitz thought because I think it will be intriguing to see how it develops in the real season.

It is going to be hard to find any legal way of defending any big more mobile than a tree in the post without fouling.

There is going to be lots of living and dying by the three this year (possibly more living than dying).

The bemoaning of years' past that Australia does not produce any good shooters any more may now die down.

Townsville and for mine Sydney look out of the race before it has begun, Adelaide needs to show a bit more interest than it did after mid way through its second game not to join them.

Joey Wright meant it when he said that he wasn't concerned about winning or losing at the Blitz.

Cairns keep winning, and even after last year I still can't quite work out why. Like many of its players, good at everything without being exceptional at anything.

Every team will look different during the real season when their starting 5s start playing 25-30 minutes instead of 10-15 minutes.

NBL Dream Team has been made so much harder after this Blitz and goes to show that the talent in this league could easily extend by several more teams.

Look at Adelaide, they choose against Crawford that could still be serviceable for 10 minutes a game, Teys should be getting 20 minutes a game, Sobey looks a star and if he got 20 a game then that shouldn't raise many eyebrows, Hodgeson looks good for 15 and Waxy was a Boomer not that long ago and that's their BENCH!

I could add more but I wanted to raise a point on Jett, he always has looked out of shape ie in his YouTube footage and I thought he was brought in to keep Conklin happy and hopefully that's doing the job... But if Townsville had Thornton then I think they would be perceived as a far better side as he would give them the shooter they sorely need and he would get his numbers each night

Should have just named the thread Blitz thoughts.
This is a message board so the way people are going to contribute to it goes without saying I would have thought.

United are going to be scary if they click this year. There's something rather terrorfying about a team loaded with Goulding and Blanchfield. Those 2 players alone have the potential to destroy opponents. Mind you they were loaded last year and failed.

Lets not forget the great free coverage the NBL organised online for the tournament! It was just light years better than what we've had online up until now and I think its another great sign that we might finally have the right people running the NBL!

Also, of the four games or so that I saw, there is a lot to like about the talent in the league this year. I actually think my Sixers have improved from last season, with a better balanced roster and yet I'm not sure they will make the top 4, because Melbourne and the Hawks have improved so much! The Kings have a lot more talent too, although thus far they don't appear to be playing well as a team.

Meh, bite me :P

Haha my bad. Thought he was a rookie

Adelaide were fun to watch in their first 2 games. Certainly will be competitive.
It's really hard to pick how teams will go from the Blitz Tournament. I got the idea a lot of teams had their poker face on and not wanting to show a lot.

I was given a copy of NBA 2K10 by Isaac (sorry for the delay Isaac) and he asked that I write a review so here it is.



I have had NBA 2K10 for a month or so now on Xbox 360 and have had a fair amount of game time to write this review. I'll just start by saying that I really like my basketball games to be as realistic as possible, and that I have been playing NBA Live and the 2K series since 2003 for 2K and well before that for the Live series.

The first noticeable difference I found was the way the IsoMotion works. In previous versions you could sprint down the court and use the IsoMotion to blow by a defender without breaking stride, this year however I have found that you need to release sprint in order to perform the IsoMotion well. This severely inhibits your ability to run fast breaks and allows the CPU to stop you.

The new IsoMotion has it's upsides though, it allows you to determine down to the finest details what you want to do with the ball, you can do things like determine which way and where a crossover is going to finish and even which leg you want to jump of for a hop step. It is extremely intricate and takes a bit of working out with very little on screen help it just requires a lot of practice, however once you can master it - boy does it help!

There has been a big improvement in the way help defence occurs, however it can also be a hindrance. I have found that the help defenders come significantly more than in previous versions but if you are using a Artest type defender in the post and don't require help it still comes and can cause you too give up a significant amount of 3-point shots (which they seem to always hit).

Graphics wise it is pretty good but I do think that Live 10 just beats it on this front, there is still a lack of crispness in the models in my opinion but overall the graphics and gameplay are fluent and quite well done.

The new and the mode that really keeps the game interesting is the My Player mode. It starts with you creating a player (height, position etc) and you are then thrown into Summer Camp with a team, which is where you begin your career. Your career path depends on your performance in the Summer League - from where you are either end up on an NBA roster or in the D-League. Everything you do in My Player mode games you are scored on, whether it be shot selection, getting beaten off the dribble, successfully double-teaming an opponent, EVERYTHING! This can be a bit frustrating as it seemed like every missed shot was bad shot selection even on wide open looks. It is a fairly addictive mode with the I NEED to make the NBA mindset kicking in.

Overall NBA 2K10 is an improvement over 2K9 and if you are after a realistic style NBA game then 2K10 is for you. While there are still areas for improvement as with any game, I think it is definitely worth purchasing.