Hoops

Breakers vs Wildcats, Dec 15

So who was the chump that signed the D League lifer? Maybe they should be sacked.

No clearly 30 seasons of finals appearances is piss poor.

Andrew Vlahov was on ten news tonight (see the replay on tenplaY) highlighting how past players are also affected by poor management decisions. They don't want to see the effort they put in years ago blown away by incompetent recruiting, coaching and overall poor management.

Wildcats management I think have been misled by their own hype "we play wildcats basketball". You saw that effort in this game. We won in the past as we had amongst the most talented team - we are far from it now.

What i am concerned is where is the owner Bendat in this whole scenario ? As an owner he couldn't be happy.

Dazz - cats fans haven't had lack of information from management. We'be been given the same we've always gotten.

Compare Johnson and McKay to other teams second and third imports if you want to be fair. There's not much difference.

Bol the rules allow you to spend more on Aussies than imports due to the local marquee allowances.

Here we go again. "If we had lisch..." "if we had ware..."

Anon #280 you can only use Damo's injury as an excuse if other teams are at full strength or don't have comparable injuries. NZ did have a comparable injury last night. Webster hasn't been shooting well but teams are aware f he can catch alight at any moment. His potential to go off and drop 25 is greater than 90% of the NBL, hence his presence creates fear and attracts defensive attention despite his form.

United had Goulding, Blanchfield and Barlow missing all at once! Apples and oranges compared to the Cats missing one player last night.

54 is it...it seems, yet when you look in the collective low scores that 54 doesn't appear in the 1999/2000 NBL media guide. If you look in the NBL teams records, that 54 number isn't there. Equally I looked in the 1990 media guide and it's not mentioned either.

I'm looking at an old (2000) media guide that lists Perths all time low team points
54 29/5/82 at South East Melbourne (who were not a team in 82 so I guess that was actually Nunuwading?)
62 13/3/82 vs Southern Melbourne (who also were not a team in 82 so I guess that was actually St Kilda?)

I have looked at old media guides I have and none mention the 1982 season at all. Is this info on the web somewhere? NBLstats is long gone :(

Greg Hire is the Alex Loughton of the Wildcats team, minus the Hulk-RAWWWRR!! celebration that AL does when he finally hits a 3 for the first time in a month or two.

Everyone could see how horrible that game was, so I don't understand how both these teams were able to compete with the "flying" 36ers in the last 2 weeks.

Hire is shit. Hire is starting. Explain???

Wagstaff is an average player having a shit season. Wagstaff is starting. Explain???

Kenny is an average player being forced to start due to an injury. That's the one shitty starter that makes any sense at all.

The Wildcats elected to remain with their steady core of Martin, Hire, Wagstaff, Redhage and Knight.
Which is perfectly fine, but there comes a time where it eventually runs out of steam as a collective.
Wildcats really needed to make some hard decisions and advise Redhage he's time was done and probably needed to seek a better fit than Hire.

But they stuck with loyalty, again, which is fine. But you can't be surprised when the formula is eventually superseded by other team and your success on the court begins to regress.

There is a lot less leeway when your coach is a flog. It makes your team more reliant on individual talent. Melbourne can overcome it better because they have multiple dangerous individuals. Perth doesn't have that so they need a good system but instead they got a whiny flog running the show.

Paul makes a good point without the ball handling of beal when Martin goes down we're forced to play Kenny huge minutes and play bums like wroe and Bragg who are not up to NBL standard.

Then you have prather carrying too much of a workload

Bol the rules allow you to spend more on Aussies than imports due to the local marquee allowances. Easy to say oh well Martin and knight are injury prone let's go spend a bucket load on three superstar imports but do you think Martin and knight are cheap? They'd be getting paid as elite Aussies which they've been most of their career but they're on the wrong side of 30 now and breaking down.

Yeah lv Webster has been playing really well.

And I was more picking on you giving yourself a pat on the back for being "proven right" about Perth being no good on the road. As you know yourself with Melbourne they are a different kettle of fish without goulding. So unless you called Martin getting injured I'd say you're conveniently using circumstances to substantiate your predictive ability

Oh, and our next-worst score was 58, which was just 12 months ago against the mighty Townsville Crocs in this game
http://www.hoops.com.au/forum/38710-crocs-vs-wildcats-december-19/

"Pretty sure 57 is a new all time low score for Perth. Last I can find was 67 in 2006. Anyone else confirm?"

Apparently that was only the second-worst, with the worst being 54 @ Nunawading in 1982

Koberulz, I never said he was crap. He is a hustle player and gives some energy. But no other team is scared to take him on he isn't the definition of one of the best players in the league. He is simply hustling on a horrible team and get stats, you don't need to score 20 to be a star but the other things he is doing, although putting him in top 10s, isn't winning games. Think you have jumped on the McKay bandwagon a little to strong. Good complementary import not great and no lock to be asked back for another season. Such things would suggest he is not one of the best in the league. Simply a hustle guy on a bad team.

The issue is they replaced Beal with a different type of player in Johnson and now are struggling to cover Martin's injury, whereas in previous seasons Beal covered some of the load when Damo went down.

Yes, isn't that what Prather is doing for Perth?

Imports can make a difference. Randall is case in point. Take him out of Adelaide they wouldn't be where they are.

The salary cap punishes teams that have multiple 'star' imports as they cannot count as marquee players. Then there is a penalty tax. I am guessing what you are suggesting is not financially viable. Perth might be a rich and successful club, but has not become so by throwing away good money after bad.

Perth's sustained success has been generated from holding together a core of Aussies (and naturalised imports) and keeping that core together from year to year.

This year, that strategy has hit a couple of major stumbling blocks - aging and injured personnel (Redhage, Martin, Knight) and the next generation not quite kicking on to stardom.

I am not sure that upgrading essentially competent imports is the way to go. Name a team that has EVER been championship material based solely on the quality of its imports. I think you are ignoring the elephant in the room - you cannot win without a great contingent of local players.

Pretty sure 57 is a new all time low score for Perth. Last I can find was 67 in 2006. Anyone else confirm?

Imports aren't the problem, it's the Aussies... There's been a pretty big surge in local talent this year on a couple of teams, but Perth have declined in that category with the loss of Jervis and Jawai.

"What do you think Stockton is?"

Not up to it, hence the two new import guards.

Anon #229 stop using Damo as an excuse! The Breakers were missing Webster last night. In fact Perth's only road win was against a United team missing Goulding.

You make it sound like Perth are the only team with a friggin injury! smh.

He's top five in at least four statistical categories, leading three of them. Top ten in a number of others.

Not really sure what more you could want from the guy, but he's not going for 20 a night so he's garbage apparently.

And please a definition thanks of what you think a player who is one of the best in the league means.

So you think he is a game changer? I look at those stats and think, ok someone has to grabs boards etc etc for them no matter how shit they are, every team has stats to accumulate. I define a star or one of the best players in the league as a guy who can be a game changer And you fear going up against. He is not that. Do you think teams and fan bases fear his presence on the court....

Jameel’s 125.3 ORTG is top 5, 103.8 DRTG is top 6 and he has a +21.4 net rating, which places 4th overall amongst ALL players. He leads the league in offensive rebounding percentage, blocks per game and blocks percentage. He is top 10 in a number of categories.

As a club overall, Perth has been outscored and is utterly average: a 107.2 ORTG and 107.8 DRTG, indicative of a 6-6 record to date.

Simply put, Perth is quite clearly a much better team, offensively and defensively, with Jameel on the court.

McKay one of the best players in the league?? Wrong Kobe, your slipping as much as the cats these days. Please rebut away. Perhps start with defining to us what you consider one of the best players in the league entails. The floor is yours...

I wonder what the situation with Ben Woodside's foot is? If he's not going to be back soon I'd write him off if I was the Breakers and bring in two new import guards while they have a two week break.

They'd better not be pinning their hopes on Martin changing their finals fortunes. Yes his impact is immeasurable but he's missed half the season and we dont know what standard he can get back to playing.

"Just slowly confirming something I predicted on these forums after they'd played about 2 or 3 road games- they won't win too many away from Perth Arena this season."

Did you predict Damian Martin going down Nostradamus?

Because their record at Perth arena hasn't been great either since he went down.

I'd say your accurate prediction is more to do with luck of damo going down than any genius on your part Mr daylight

Bol Johnson was 4/7 from 3pt today. Weird that you would bring up that he isn't good enough from the perimeter after today. He's shown on several occasions that he's above average from 3

Bol you called them two bargain bin imports now you're trying to change your story into saying it's about fit. The ironic thing is whilst everyone wants to blame Johnson he's actually had a very solid past three games.

Here we go again. "If we had lisch..." "if we had ware..." yeah no shit guys if you add the best players in the league to our roster we become better.

There are constraints though this is not dream team or fantasy basketball. The league is bloody tight and having such an important player like Martin missing may well be the difference.

In fact I prefer Johnson and McKay over just about every other teams second and third. Yes they could be more consistent but their talent is superior for mine

Yeah, it is disturbing that we seem to be banking on Damo's return from a Severe Knee Injury, to save our fortunes. Things will get better, and we'll certainly be better if and when Damo makes it back. I'm just worried we'll be too far gone by then. There are too many good teams fighting for a spot. This isn't like some seasons where we could limp in 4th spot and proclaim "yay, extended the streak."

I think what burns from a Cats' fan perspective, is the puzzlement and lack of information from management. Cat's fans are not accustomed to that.
This is the team that dumped JJ after 3 games, ostensibly to get somebody who was a better fit. ie a team that appeared willing to make the hard calls to keep the 'ship hopes alive.
That was just a fiasco, the explanations were dubious, and now we just seem to be rolling along.
The Cats said they would "look everywhere" for a Damo replacement. So what happened to that??

Also, its not so much a question of "blaming the imports," but they are the hired guns brought in to plug the gaps, and they just are not good fits.
How many of our players would be sort as a starter by other teams?
Martin (missing with an LTI and not an offensive player) and Knight (also injury prone, and known to tire as the season drags). And of the imports only Prather. The rest are good role players, including our other two imports. If we had say somebody like Lisch to start in the 2 spot, we'd be stoked to get an import like JJ coming off the bench. Similarly with McKay.
Put it another way, if they both quit tomorrow and went home to the USA, would we look for identical players to replace them? Hell no.
I still think they're improving, and having Damo back will make all the difference because of how we use JJ, but I just worry it won't be enough.

If you do the same thing with rebounding:

Perth 16rpg
Sydney 14rpg
Adelaide 11rpg
Brisbane* 11rpg
Cairns 10rpg
Illawarra 10rpg
New Zealand* 10rpg
Melbourne 8rpg

That's a very interesting point. Here are the combined scoring averages of each team's imports:

Perth 43ppg
Melbourne 40ppg
Adelaide 36ppg
Illawarra 36ppg
Cairns 30ppg
Brisbane* 28ppg
Sydney 27ppg
New Zealand* 22ppg

Stop blaming the imports. Honestly do a comparison with any other team and they're close. Talk of ware but the cats already have prather. Teams don't have multiple superstar imports there's a salary cap.

Which team has multiple superstar imports. They have one and then role players filling the other two. Cats are the same.

Ware/Moore/Williams
Randle/Ferguson/Jacobsen
Trice/Edwin/egwu
Powell/Whittington
Craig/beal
Mitchell/Stockton
Clarke/Harris/holyfield
Prather/Johnson/McKay

Compare Johnson and McKay to other teams second and third imports if you want to be fair. There's not much difference.

If anything the cats are hurting because their two best Australian players Martin and knight have been banged up

Both teams better start recruiting these young college guys coming out! There are some real bums on both teams!! Ili is not at the level

that's my point, can't stay on top forever, seems the club doesn't give a shite, that's the part a lot of us members talk about. Martin gone and didn't replace him with no one?

I got two jobs, just to keep my membership. like I've said, if you lose you lose but this season is a circus and there a team with no direction other than going down.

Perth now 1-5 on the road.

Just slowly confirming something I predicted on these forums after they'd played about 2 or 3 road games- they won't win too many away from Perth Arena this season.

Agreed, Imagine if they got Ware.