Hoops

Corey Maynard to make AFL debut for melbourne

Worth remembering the huge endurance demands of AFL when imagining a Lebron or Westbrook type athlete in the sport. Most NBA players are amazing athletes, but generally they're explosive, short-burst athletes, which is perfectly suited to basketball. I daresay that even if Lebron or Westbrook grew up playing Australian rules, guys like Maynard or Greenwood might still have a better chance of making it.

I loved Corey Maynard as a basketballer, it really looked like it meant something to him and he cared... you can't say that about all basketballers.

I remember him making a few turnovers for the Crocs and Shawn Dennis called a timeout and told Maynard to sit at the end of the bench and he went to and turned around and the look on his face was one of 'no I want to be here and be involved and help us to win'.

He may not be the most talented sportsman but he is someone I'll keep in my AFL dream team for as long as he plays the game, definitely someone that wants to be in the thick of the action.

Good luck Corey, your brother sucks so hopefully you can get more AFL games than he does

What a waste of athletic ability on AFL, though.

No, never wondered.

Anyone ever wonder how Westbrook or Lebron would go in a game of AFL. Of course if they had the ample time to get some basic skills. Would be great to watch.

Rubbish about Rugby! Rugby is by far the easiest sport for anyone to pick up and play, requires little skill other than good timing, being built and running into other men! You don't even need to be gifted with height! If you were stocky, 5'5" you could become a rugby player in a year, even having never picked up a ball.

Hugh worked his ass off for a year and a half to get back to standard, you obviously never saw him play AFL in his younger years, he was touted as a budding star. He had all the qualities, they don't just disappear when you play another sport. If nothing else, he probably added to his AFL skillset while playing basketball.

Look at him now, looking at getting a 350,000 a year extension from the Crows. He'd have to be David Anderson or Brad Newley to receive that amount of money in the NBL.

AKA, there are 792 AFL listed players on their main lists (18 teams x 44 players).

Without denigrating AFL, which I love, we are also talking about a different level of relative elitism.

Corey would be one of the current best 100 or so Australian basketball players in if he were still playing today.

He only has to be one of the top 800 or so to command a position in an AFL squad.

Further, the average height of an elite basketball player dwarfs that of an AFL player, where the AFL is belatedly coming to understand that tall mobile athletes are the future of the sport.

It is not that surprising then that an elite level basketball player would have a good chance of making it in the AFL.

There are roughly 360 AFL listed players. There are roughly 100 NBL roster spots. Plenty more opportunity in elite AFL than there is in elite basketball in this country.

A closer comparison would be an elite junior basketballer defecting to football at age 16, getting to 23-24 and realizing it's not for him and then slotting back into a SEABL team or the like within 12 - 18 months of practice at a club. It's not out of the realms of possibility. To say it's easy to go from basketball to AFL later in life is somewhat incorrect as both sports present their challenges.

^ by no means is this regarding Maynard. Just the fact that with so many more players on the field you don't have to be exceptional to be on the field. You can be nurtured on a lot easier.

It's a lot easier to hide a bad player amongst a team of 18 in play than it is 5

As I said with the Greenwood situation; and I don't mean this as any disrespect to Greenwood or Maynard (they would have busted their butts over the past year/s with AFL)..But I think it speaks volumes (poorly for the AFL) about the apparent ease of becoming an AFL player. Insofar as a player can stop playing at 16, not commit to it for the next 8 years, re-pick it up for another year and then earn a debut.

That would not be possible in soccer, cricket, tennis, basketball (unless you're 7 foot tall possibly), rugby (unless you maintained/built size)

It's probably a controversial point. I respect AFL and they have phenomenal athletes and they display some unbelievable skill at times. I'm just interested with stories like these.

great guy and (i think) an underrated NBL talent that deserved a bigger payday somewhere.

I hope he kills it for the D's.

People need to stop getting so salty over players leaving. More teams in the NBL and I dare say he would have stayed.
More teams and more money = more opportunities for players on that cusp, the 3 import rule has really hurt players like him with only 8 teams.

Was never a fan of his but he seemed to have some mongrel in him. Good luck to him, hope he does well.

How is that first reply flagged? Shocking abuse of the report button! It merely compared the two sports - one being local the other global.

Maynard did play abroad, in Finland. Wasn't quite as it seemed (was only able to play Euro Cup, not domestic games as they had already played their maximum number of players in that league). He didn't last long & came home.

#642984 good summary. I was trying to allude to the opportunities abroad, even lower level Euro leagues but I guess going away to somewhere potentially obscure isn't for everyone when they can play in another top league at home.

How is that first reply flagged? Shocking abuse of the report button! It merely compared the two sports - one being local the other global.

I disagree. Corey took his basketball just about as far as he could. 4 years at division 1 college, 2 years in NBL, represented Aus at 2 World Uni Games. Despite all that, at 25, he was playing SEABL hoping to stick to an NBL roster.

Footy presented him with an opportunity in his mid 20s the NBL couldn't. Even if he never played an AFL game he'd have earned as much this year as he ever had from bball.

Fantastic effort by him. Not many could change codes & take to it as quickly as he has. Good luck on the weekend!

Global sport > Regional sport (not even national)

We live in a global world now, but this must be some sort of childhood affect where the parents first introed them to eggball and they hold that nostalgia for life?

Big game today for both teams. Dallas will want to consolidate their win in Miami, whilst the Heat will be looking to wrestle back the home-court advantage.

I think this could be an absolute cracker today to enahnce an already fantastic series only 2 games in.

I predict the Heat to win by 2 in OT (my predictions are often wrong!).