Hoops

Are United now the team to beat?

Sorry, just read the date of your post Kobe! Still maybe a little optimistic back then but understandable!

Sydney 17-11? What makes you think they'll go from winning two of their past eight to winning seven of their next eight?

Not good tonight and the refs saved DD.

Maybe

it looks as if paying Penney and knocking CW out of his starting spot has had an effect on CW's performances and effort.

As for Mitchell, I do not understand why you would not start him over the one-dimensional Vukona...

New Zealand are probably the weakest team in my opinion.

off the bench their only offensive option is CW...

Stockton went from hero to zero pretty fast and it looks as if paying Penney and knocking CW out of his starting spot has had an effect on CW's performances and effort.

Strong feeling he will be in another uniform next year.

As for Mitchell, I do not understand why you would not start him over the one-dimensional Vukona...

Lol at sad people who talk down at others on internet forums.

Clearly you don't spend much time here if you think I'm a Taipans fan.

Train, Adelaide becomes the team to beat if they take top spot off Sydney. Same goes for any of the other 6 teams. I'm just a little forgiving of the Kings complacency and occasional poor recent performance since it was mid October last time anyone else was on top. And Christmas is next week. But make no mistake, Adelaide, and United are bringing the heat right now.

If Adelaide beat Sydney on Friday and then give Sydney a good game a couple of days later, Adelaide is right with Sydney. If Adelaide wins a tight one then gets belted in Sydney, Kings have asserted their position. We will have to see what plays out. Only one thing is certain- if 36ers beat them twice then Adelaide are officially top dog, team to beat, numero uno and will have stolen all of the above from the Kings.

Grow up guys,

anyone can win it this year, stop picking apart teams.

Good win to the 36ers. Would not want to be the ones facing them and thankfully, my team isn't this week.

Imagine if that flop by Knight didn't called a charge in the 36ers V Perth game...36ers could very f well been 9-5 and clearly on top of the ladder.

LV a salty Taipan supporter who thinks the league "wants us to lose" just like his brainless Fearne.

Cairns - 0 Championships with 2 meaningless posts. Thanks another dweeb on Hoops.

Kings - 0.588 PCT
36ers - 0.571 PCT
Hawks - 0.533 PCT
Cats - 0.500 PCT

@LV - at what point do 36ers become a "team to beat" ?

If Adelaide can beat Sydney twice

let me also remind you said United lost to that said Perth team a few games after...

"the outlook is better for United" XD - quite possibly the most ridiculous comment ever written here.

LV just clarified himself as an Adelaide hater, pathetic attempt LV, you just made them look even more impressive - they've been playing without Creek. United are not even close to Adelaide's for and as for that HILARIOUS comment:

"the outlook is better for United" - that will haunt you for many a'thread now and forever.

United were predicted to win a championship this year and have so far shown themselves to be one big running joke of a club. 36ers were trashed before the season by so many would-be ladder predicting gurus.

LV you fool - Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

If one of your 5 wins is an overtime victory on your home court against an opponent minus two starters.... Then maybe you're better off hiding that inconvenient fact.

Adelaide look good, but United have worked in a new point guard, copped yet another injury to another starter and gone 4-1 with the sole loss being 3 points in Perth Arena.

The outlook is better for United.

Still, this is all speculation. We will see what happens. If Adelaide can beat Sydney twice and steal top spot then all and sundry of raving about them will be justified

No United are not even in the question, pathetic thread try Adelaide...

five game win streak...

96 - 83 VS Cairns
102 - 92 VS New Zealand
92 - 86 VS Perth
91 - 85 VS Sydney
101 - 83 VS Brisbane

36ers then daylight?

No Trice - No Taipans.

It's looking great. My bet is on Taipans to win 10 games for the season.

Regardless of tonight, I still pick them for top 4(but don't have any money on that)

How's that Taipans bet looking now LV?

We just beat Sydney in Sydney!

Adelaide looks like the team to beat tonight. But let's see how they go vs Sydney with top spot up for grabs

Incorrect. United weren't clear favourites. Nor were they even clearly on top of the ladder- they were tied 18-10 with Perth.

None of this means Sydney will win the title. This is the year of Leicester, Western Bulldogs, Brexit, Trump and others etc etc.

But if you're the top team, you're loaded with talent and you keep winning every time you're challenged for top spot- which they have done so far- they you deserve to be favourites.

FWIW United were clear favorites and on top of the ladder last year come finals time....we all know how that went for them. And this season is a truck load tighter than last year.

FWIW If I was going to be betting at those odds, I'd be going with Cairns ($21) at TAB and Melbourne ($6) at Sportsbet.

But the point is, there are good reasons why Sydney are favourites.

Just putting this out there. Sydney are hot, hot favourites by a fair margin with the bookies. I'm obviously not the only person in the Milky Way who thinks they're the team to beat....

SPORTSBET:
Sydney Kings 3.60
Melbourne United 6.00
Brisbane Bullets 6.50
Cairns Taipans 7.00
Adelaide 36ers 8.50
Perth Wildcats 9.50
New Zealand Breakers 9.50
Illawarra Hawks 10.00

TAB:
Sydney Kings 3.25
Melbourne United 4.50
Perth Wildcats 5.50
Illawarra Hawks 7.00
Brisbane Bullets 9.00
New Zealand Breakers 9.00
Adelaide 36ers 11.00
Cairns Taipans 21.00

Sydney could go 0-5 in the next 5 games and you would still be crapping on about them being the team to beat blah blah blah daylight blah blah.

Sydney can be 5-5 in the past 10, or they could be 4-6 in the past 10, but, for better or worse they seem to be a team who only gets desperate when they really need to. As much as United was good yesterday, Sydney didn't bring their best. When Sydney is fighting to retain top spot, I suspect then you'll see the best of them. Problem is, they haven't been in that position very often since they've typically been comfortably clear in top position.

When someone else takes Sydney's spot on top of the ladder, that team can label themselves the team to beat. For now, the team who's held that position for 9 weeks straight can retain the mantle.

Perth, NZ and Brissy are the teams to beat. Just ask the last 5 teams that have played each of them.

Nope, they're one game clear on top, half a game if Adelaide win tonight, and only 2.5 games above last. They're not in great form, playing .500 ball, they are no more the team to beat than Illawarra are clearly the worst team in the league.

If you’re 3 games clear on top of the ladder and you drop a game and then you’re 2 games clear on top, it’s pretty much a meaningless loss, isn’t it?

My point is, whether they go 28-0 or 17-11 they’ll still likely be on top. They’ll have home court advantage in the playoffs, with another import to come. Call it whatever you want. Team to beat? I would say so.

No team that is 5-5 in their past 10 games is the team to beat, they are more the team that is being beaten quite regularly.

In fact they really can't afford an injury to Casper or Goulding either, but that would be the case irrespective of Andersen's status.

Although having said all of this, We will wait and see Andersens scan results. United can do ok without him but couldn't afford an injury to Any of Majok, Williams, Wesley, Barlow or Blanchfield if Andersen is on the side lines. But as long as those guys stay healthy, United can still be in the mix without Andersen.

Train- we've been through that. United v1.0 was last on the ladder. United v2.0 is 4-1. It's a different team now. Just like Adelaide was a different team after Randle replaced McNeill last season.

United with CG43 is 7-3 overall and has won 7 of their last 8.

I don't know that the third import slot has been a massive success but getting the Aussie big names back home and the fringe NBA players to join clubs has been key.

Well Larry did it by installing a 'soft' salary cap and third import slot. To the folks that subscribes to a certain conspiracy theory, Larry probably also instructed the refs to make the ladder look pretty and exciting. For a particular salty gambling addict, the players and refs also collude in a shadowy betting racket.

I don't know how Larry did it but the league's quality and parity have both gone uP

So we can use ladder position to substantiate your claims for Sydney being the team to beat? So how come United being cellar dwellers still makes them one of the "teams to beat" ?

Of course it does. If you've been on top of the ladder for 9 weeks in a row then you're team to beat.

If you want to use stats misleadingly, then I will point out that Sydney have won 2 more games than Illawarra and at least 3 more than everyone else

Doesn't exactly equal daylight or "team to beat" status

Sydney are on top ...... by a bee's dick.... over 36ers ;) they have also lost the same amount of games as Perth , Hawks and Cairns and lost more games than 36ers.

Everyone keeps talking about how tight it is, and this is true. But it's also true that Sydney have been on top since Round 2. There is no reason to think that will change imo.

And they still have an import spot open. The rest of the comp will be hoping it's not a case of third time lucky...

I'll be happy for you to remind me of this in a couple of months, just as I will keep reminding you of the "Sydney then Daylight" comment hehe ;) But seriously, i get what your saying....United have an amazing team and Ware is ridiculous but I just don't get why people are calling favourites or labelling teams as "the ones to beat" when the league is so tight.

Im impressed with the 36ers. They may not make playoffs but they're very watchable. Lots of people had them struggling to win a handful of games tet they're 7-6. Not bad under a coach who many claim is useless. Fantastic season so far can't wait to see how it unfolds.

Train, I'll happily remind you of this conversation in a couple of months time. Creek's one injury doesn't compare to the continual revolving door of players on United's injury list, often several players at once. Much harder to get chemistry in the group and harder for the coaches when it's different players getting injured. As soon as United actually had a full team, Andersen goes down. Don't even talk about Mitch Creek. SMH.

Teams who win championships usually have strong offense AND strong defence. So if a team is particularly weak at one end, like the 36ers are, then I don't think of them as much of a threat. That's especially true if the weakness is at the defensive end imo. Name me one NBA, NBL champion (or any other professional league for that matter) where the champion was in the bottom third of defensive teams in the competition. Then recall that Adelaide has been the worst. By about 5ppg last time I checked.

United v2.0 has Casper Ware. He's a totally different type of player to Cedric Jackson, so what United was doing in the first 10 games is less relevant.

All the coaches and players said it pre-season, this is a year when anyone can genuinely beat anyone, and that is the way it has played out.

Joey Wright summed it up when he said those trying to make predictions on this season don't know much about the NBL but are trying to show that they do!

Re the comment on Adelaide being the worst defensive team, whoever made that was reading season averages and not watching the past few games. This season's comp changes pretty quickly.

Apart from Sydney and Melbourne who were rated pre season and everyone talks about a lot cos of the big names and big cities, the great smoky this season has to be Cairns.

Tough as nails team, strong defensively and well balanced. They're currently 6-7; and 9 of their remaining 15 games are in Cairns- a place where they have a 26-7 record over the past 2.5 seasons. And none of those 15 games will be against Sydney, either.