Hoops

Greatest NBL team ever (imports and locals)

"Ha, seriously I would have a 30 point lead after the 1st quarter with that line up!"

Bear, that's because my boys would spot you a 30 point lead after the 1st just to make it a challenge!

I reckon Jawai would foul out pretty fast and then it'd be 5 on 4 :-)

To be fair, I haven't seen Ware play yet, but he'd need to be pretty good to have a bigger impact on the game than Mee or Rose!

Dwayne mclain JR was a shooting guard. Ennis by the way was a small forward

And Brian Goorjian would coach that team to destroy any other lineup, the athleticism, quickness, inside out offensive firepower and defense would be world class.

Oops Ennius didn't play 50 games, substitute for Heal Or Robert Rose.

Yes agree that longevity is a factor, let's say 50+ games, I haven't checked the exact game number but that's the idea.. roster of 12

Modern game uses combo guards rather than traditional 1 or 2 spot players.
So in the guard positions: James Ennis, Andrew Gaze, Darnell Mee, Ricky Grace, CJ Bruton, Lanard Copeland
Forwards/Centre: Kevin Brooks, James Crawford, Dwayne McClain, Chris Anstey, Josh Childress, Leroy Loggins

Honourable mentions to: Heal, Fisher, Tim Dillon and a few others

Starters: pure opinion but you could go 99 different combinations and still win.
Didn't pick Longley as he played as a kid and I considered form in the NBL to be a selection criteria.

Great call Rass, he was a beast at the Supercats.

IMO the import that is the best player that gets left out of these discussions is Ray Owes who played for the Geelong Supercats. Still to this day he is one of my favourite imports to ever play here. Owes went on to play for the New York Knicks after his few seasons here , and by memory he had a 16 point and 12 rebound game for the Knicks.

Shane Bruce
Darren Smith
Tom Garlepp
David Cooper
Michael Kingma

Patty Mills
Stephen Jackson
Josh Childress
Chris Williams
Mark Bradtke

"Paul you have Jackson? I'm surprised after what I saw this year"

Here are some of the reasons why I chose Jackson over Grace, D-Mac and CJ Bruton:

Won assists title in first 4 years in NBL - only player in league history to do so.

Played in titles in first three years - only player in league history to do so.

Won 3 x club MVPs (I think) in championship years.

Won 2 x Grand Final MVP - equal best in league history with Grace, Maher and Anstey

Leroy logins was overrated.

Pg - Grace/trice
Sg - Lisch/gaze
Sf - Ennis/vlahov
Pf - Fisher/redhage
C - Crawford/jawai

Paul you have Jackson? I'm surprised after what I saw this year

I think you HAVE to factor in "longevity" or some notion of "overall" contribution.
Otherwise you have to contend with the guys who played a couple of games here after a successful NBA (or Euro) career, and someone like Longley who played a couple of games as a teenager.
So, that said:

Ricky Grace / Brett Maher
Andrew Gaze / Kevin Lisch
Leroy Loggins / Sam McKinnon
Scott Fisher / Mark Davis
Chris Anstey / Mark Bradke

Extended bench: Robert Rose & Wayne McDaniel

Bradtke
Vukona
Vlahov
Lucas
Martin

Disgusted to see no Vlahov

Ha, seriously I would have a 30 point lead after the 1st quarter with that line up!

:)

And I'll take my five over both of yours! There have been so many great players over the years you could probably name 20 teams and still be right on the money.

Lol Bear, I'll take my 5 against yours... Bradtke, MacKinnon, Rose, Gaze, Mee!

Would be a fun game, but I feel like you'd only have the edge with a fully healthy Childress over MacKinnon.

Mills
Ware
Ennis
Childers
Jawai

Oh, and just for fun coming off the bench I will have

Homicide Williams
Joe Ingles
Shane Heale
Dave Anderson
Matt Knight
Andrew Gaze
Leonard Copeland

I still win

Todd Fuller
Derrick Alston
Awvee Storey
Jo Jo English
Will Blalock

Mills
Ware
Ennis
Childers
Jawai

I win!

Grace / DMac
Gaze / Green
Rose / Loggins
Crawford / Williams
Bradtke / Smith

Add Overton and Childress because I'm allowed 12.

BG would have to be the coach.

PG - Ricky Grace
SG - Andrew Gaze
SF - Leroy Loggins
PF - Mark Davis
C - Mark Bradtke

Bench - Brett Maher, James Crawford, Cal Bruton, Robert Rose, Chris Anstey.

Coach - Brian Goorjian

I would have loved to put Phil Smyth as coach, but Goorjian's record speaks for itself. 6 championships and no worse than the Semi-finals every season from 1990-2009. Can't get better than that in this league.

I'm not sure I'd put late 90s in there, that period was dour and low scoring. Once they cleaned that up I thought 01 and 02 were both really entertaining seasons with high-quality basketball.

Agree about the late 80s and early 90s, that era can never be replicated, the NBL found itself, the public discovered basketball, not many teams had discovered defence, and the big disparity in talent between the best and rest players in the league allowed the stars to really stand out.

The most enjoyable time watching the nbl
were the mid 80s to the mid 90s/late 90s
with the cross town rivalies between the
South east Melbourne magics, tigers and the north Melbourne giants.

2000's imports like Mike Chappell(future NBA) and Chris Burgess Cairns Taipans were very dominant, so much talent in league. Plus guys like Todd Lichti/Willie Farley/and so many more. Guys like Cal Bruton and Rocky Smith were great players to.

Now that would be something to watch Paul! Break 20 of the NBL's best ever players into four five man teams. Each team plays the other three. 4 x 5 min quarters. Bonus points for each quarter won. Top two fight it out in the title game!

Let's get a time machine and play all of these fives off against each other, now that would be amazing!

Without a good sortable stats database, its too hard to fairly work this out, so I'm just going to go with the five I'd like to see take on the best of the NBL...

Bradtke
MacKinnon
Rose
Gaze
Mee

In the modern tradition, I'd go small around Bradtke and rely on the length and athleticism of MacKinnon, Rose and Mee to clean the defensive glass. Plenty of defence, shooting, slashing and playmaking in that five!

I'm taking longevity out of it and just picking my best team.

Anstey
C Williams
Childress
Gaze
Jackson

Bradtke
crawford
mckinnon
gaze
Heal

Starting 5: Gaze/Doug Overton/Chris Williams/Scott Fisher/Mark Bradtke
Bench: Dwayne Mclain/Darnell Mee/Leroy Loggins/Terry Dozier(power-forward)/Reggie Smith(centre)/Al Green(off-guard)/Chris Anstey(centre)

ps- I put up an 11 man squad on first post thinking it was 12. So now is my 12-man squad and "Al Green" makes my team

After a slow start, Steve Markovic has been playing really well in the Adriatic League which is one of the highest rated leagues in Europe.

Against last years final 4 Euroleague team, Partizan Belgrade (Jawai), Steve had 12PTS and 10AST.

Then against another strong team Hemofarm who are in the same group as Besiktas (Ogilvy,Iverson) in the Eurocup, Markovic recorded 17PTS and 10AST.

Following that was a MVP Round 11 peformance where Steve scored 34PTS and 4AST with a index rating of 39!

In europe the assists are recorded differently compared to the NBA/NBL therefore it is really difficult to get a double d in points and assists.

Next game is against Cedevita. Former Sydney King Dontaye Draper plays for them and is one of the other leading point guards in the tough league. It will be interesting to see how that matchup goes...