Hoops

Australian Boomers World Cup team

Serbia beat Lithuania in friendly by 4 points over night.

#108 maybe you should put your hand up to coach then you can pick the side you want. Coaches including assistant all have there say and pick the best balanced side they believe will do the job, that’s the way it should be. Don’t forget Luke Longley is on the coaching panel, I’d say his knowledge in world basketball would be outstanding. Neither Adel or Mitch did enough to make the side, let’s move on.

Are we favourites, no way, top eight will be very good, there is some great sides there. Go boomers.

If he was the better player he would have been Finals MVP and an NBL Champion, but he wasn't. Remember? Nothing about having a 'hard on' for a player (yeah, classy), it's about the facts. Isaac Humphries > Mitchell Creek.

Creek over Goulding? Any role Goulding could play, Creek could do better? Yawn. Goulding is a proven winner, a champion. He led a team of talented players to the promised land. He doesn't have to talk himself up after proving nothing, not making it, and then running back to Australia with his tail between his legs acting like he is some war hero. He tried, he didn't have a defined role. Time to move on and support your country.

Adel you will have to stop posting under Makur.

^^^
NFI

WMW has hardly played in the last twelve months, had a few minutes in nba pre season, hardly any selection criteria. He could one day be a very good player but shown yet in Europe where he only played div two.

I think everyone's expectations are relatively low considering the past...

I've got nothing against Sobey but this crap about him being "age appropriate point guard"... is baffling to me!

I recall when Delly got selected for the Boomers and I'm pretty sure he was still playing for St. Mary's and the commentary from Shane Heal was that this guy will be an absolute star for the Boomers in the future. It has been proven to be a magnificent decision as Delly is nearly first picked these days so...

Who is the next Delly coming through? I thought William McDowell White would have atleast been in the training squad but would anybody else be a 'surprise' selection and play for the Boomers for the next 10 years?

Exum not being there is a massive loss as very few of the squad will get to the rack and getting in the bonus could be our greatest challenge.

Why are we all so confounded by the idea that Andrej Lemanis, coach of the Boomers, might look for the same qualities in a player as Andrej Lemanis, coach of the Bullets?

If someone is good at what he needs them to do, and fits his system, they're likely to end up in both teams.

There's no conspiracy here.

Was Broekhoff and Exum part of this conspiracy too, or just a lucky coincidence for Lemanis?

I think we should make the 16,
and could make the 8, but it will be tough as we would be up against Germany & France (plus whomever from our first group)

But I don't see us getting past the QF.
If we are 2nd in our 2nd round group, we will likely hit USA in the QF.

Something else to at least consider, and I am far from being an expert on any of this, but what style of play do we expect to see tolerated by the refs at this world cup?
My point being, is it going to differ from what we would normally see in Europe? and/or might some players be better suited than others?

Eg: If you were picking a team to play in Europe, maybe you hypothetically pick say, Motum, Creek, Blanchfield and Lisch???

Without Exum, I can see we're short a PG, but I'm not sold Sobey is the answer. In the circumstances, I would have either evaluated experienced guys like Lisch or Martin, OR tried to pick a future star like WMW.
What stinks is that Sobey was anointed to this role, the moment he signed with Brisbane.

As for Gliddon, you could flip coins between him, McCarron,and Blanchfield IMHO. If he performed best at the camp, then so be it. My only question is that I heard he only showed up for the 2nd half? (Which would again suggest Lemanis is playing favourites.)

Personally, I question Flopking's continued inclusion.

Those still whinging about Kay, are presumably just butthurt because he plays for the Cats. By all accounts he has been the standout of the camp. If you're not going to reward that, then why bother having it and inviting 18 players???

Mixed starts in the Lemanis era. We went down to Slovenia to start 2014. We struggled in warm-up games before Rio, but started the Olympics by thrashing France.

Not sure how we should take results from the warm-up games against Canada considering we start the tournament against them. Lemanis should hold back a bit. Getting the new guys to understand their role might be the priority.

I actually wouldn't be surprised at all if we didn't advance. Putting aside some of the poor player selections by Lemanis, over the years I've seen us get the wobbles at the big tournaments a number of times over the past say 30 years it's almost ingrained in Boomers culture at this point. Look at the '98 WC.

It's one thing to be positive and optimistic even hopeful but the Boomers have almost never failed to disappoint/underperform at the WC or Olympic.

Sounds like Olynyk got injured today so will have to see how serious that is.

A lot of how deep we might go talk around but lets wait and see if we even get through to the second round first of all. We need to finish Top 2 in our group to get to the next round and we have both Lithuania and Canada in our group.

So Cram, what you're saying is, Lemanis will be in Tokyo, if we make it that far... :'(

Yeah top 8 would be a good result. Anything below that disappointing and anything above that brilliant.

In my opinion, the range of positions we could finish in this is the widest ever.

I genuinely believe that, if the team can play to their maximum potential and we catch one or two lucky breaks along the way, we could legitimately push for gold.

On the other hand, if we get off to our typical slow start, dropping the first one to Canada we could be out before the knock out games. I think this is also a realistic scenario, and one which could potentially see us out of the Olympics.

So yeah...somewhere between 1st and 17th.

Top eight would be great.

The Gliddon and Sobey selections just come down to next best availability.

If Broekhoff doesn't take time off as a new father, he takes Gliddon's spot.
If Exum was not injured, he takes the backup combo guard spot.
Simmons takes the last role if he was available.

One more role to fill. Martin's disruptive guard role in Rio had no successor, unless you want to resort to McCarron or Cadee to fill it.

Came down to Cooks vs Creek vs Adel to fit a role on this team, each most capable at the 3. For whatever reason, Cooks impressed Lemanis most in camp, earning a spot in front of two other highly credentialed 3-men. Outrage over Creek or Adel's exclusion ultimately comes down to a comparison with Cooks. In the press conference, Lemanis seemed hugely impressed by Cooks, especially by his improvement. Lemanis said Cooks has consistently improved his game. He's never made any junior national teams. He's only 23, part of the Simmons-Exum-Bolden-Maker-Adel generation. It will be interesting to see what he can provide at international level in years to come.

In terms of expectations, given that we’re missing top players, I’d be satisfied with final 8 and would be pleased with a final 4 finish. A medal would be great!

In the Olympics, with a full squad, I’d expect better: I’d expect a final 4 and be pleased with a medal. Playing for gold would be great!

"If you had to pick between Creek , Gliddon and Sobey to play a game to save your life, who do you pick? "

Exactly, the World Cup now includes penalty shoot-out one-on-one to decide OT.

At the end of the day it's all going to come down to how well we do in the tournament. What's does everyone consider a successful tournament though? Playing for gold, playing for Bronze, making it through the group stages? What's the line between success and failure?

so many people here reckon gliddon, Kay, kay and goulding are better players than adel and creek

"If you had to pick between Creek , Gliddon and Sobey to play a game to save your life, who do you pick? "

Haven't all 3 just choked regularly in the NBL when it comes to the big crunch time games? Gliddon I feel has won games off his hot streak shooting though.

If you had to pick between Creek , Gliddon and Sobey to play a game to save your life, who do you pick?

"Would Blanchfield have been a better selection for Gliddon? A long 3 and D 12th?"

In the press conference Lemanis mentioned that Gliddon's role might be low minutes, missing games, but to come in and hit shots. Apparently Gliddon missed day 1 and 2 of camp, but did exactly that in days 3 and 4. A lucky hot streak at the right time?


"Delly , Mills, Ingles and Goulding all handle the ball and can switch between the 1 and 2 internationally. Ingles can go 1,2 or 3"

Absolutely true that Delly, Mills and Ingles are our best players to lead the offense. Hopefully we can go with one of them always on. My concern is that Delly, Mills, and Ingles have a high chance of starting together. Not sure that I like Goulding as the only ball handler to come off the bench. Goulding will get murdered internationally if relying on him like that. In Rio we had Lisch and even Martin had some minutes in that role ahead of Goulding. Even Lisch appeared to struggle at times handling the ball internationally.

And when Creek did dominate in the Asian Cup it was all athleticism. He wasn't stroking jumpers etc He was getting to the rim against smaller less athletic Asian players. He was just a plodder in his NBA stints. The World Cup is a totally different beast to Asian Cup. He got left out for team chemistry. It's not hard to work out. I interestingly read Gliddon was apparently in the 12 for every coach.

Just saw this:
Creek led the Boomers in the Asia qualifiers in minutes (24), points (14.0) and rebounds (7.7). How is this guy, the points, minutes and rebounding leader on the team NOT in the World Cup team? Outrageous!

Wait, perhaps we should check the matching +/-'s in Asia qualifiers:

Goulding +19.4
McCarron +14.7
Kay +13.8
Sobey +12.9
Gliddon +10.8

Creek +9.3

Creek's +9.3 is the 2nd lowest among all 14 players to play 4 or more games.

And, wait, more Brisbane bias!
Cadee +16.3
Hodgson +15.0

This isn't fair, though, is it? Look, Creek vs Sobey vs Gliddon, not much difference in this stat.

Let's reflect minutes too, so adapt these +/- to per 40 minutes:

Kay +30.0
McCarron +32.0
Sobey +34.6
Gliddon +21.2
Creek +15.7

This means that Kay and Sobey linups effectively won games by 30+, Gliddon lineups by 20+, and Creek lineups by a bit over 15.

And, just to check, surely that Brisbane bias is not still there:
Hodgson +42.3
Cadee +30.8
Oh, damn. Perhaps knowing the system helps after all! Who would've thought? It might also be why Goorjian added, controversially to some, a disproportionate number of Sydney players.

In case you were wondering, in much more limited minutes, +/- per 40:
Delly +21.1 (2 games)
Landale +36.8 (1 game)
Maker +30.1 (2 games)

Former A-team Boomers:
Barlow +45.8 (2 games)
Martin +40.2 (2 games)
Jawai +45.9 (2 games)
Newley +34.1 (2 games)
Lisch +34.6 (6 games)

Despite Creek's apparent individual dominance, it didn't translate to the team performing so much better with him, at least compared with nearly all other core Asia qualifier Boomers on the team or any former A-team Boomer. There will always be someone to argue the invalidity of +/-, but is it possible that this somewhat reflects Creek's fit in the system?

Adel can’t play team, he can only create his own shot, like a lot players his own shot is not the best team shot. Kay on money that would be comparable to euro money, plus Australian season only two thirds euro season so you play elsewhere at seasons end. It’s a good balanced squad and doesn’t seem to have any Prima Donnas.

If Kay is better than Motum why isn't he in Europe cashing in big pay checks.

Cooks is an unknown entity to me as I haven't seen enough of him beyond the traditional You Tube clips where no one ever misses a shot.

Gliddon and Sobey are streak players and do not offer the consistency that Creek does at international level.

Creek has been guarding NBA bodies for the last 6 months while Gliddon and Sobey haven't. That alone counts for mine. Same too with Adel and Motum. Gliddon and Sobey have no serious experience at international level play.

I’m okay with Creek missing out. It was clearly a close decision, but that’s the way international selections work. I don’t rate Gliddon particularly highly but if you need a guy to stand in a corner and be a threat, he’s a better option than Creek.

For mine Creek always struggles because he plays more like a 4, with the size of a 2/3. Even his slashing, while strong, is not explosive. I just think in the international game with a space and shoot approach where the 3-ball takes such a large proportion of the overall shots, Creek is not the guy you want.

Better to have a number of three point shooting options so you can find the hot guy and ride him, whether that is Gliddon, Goulding, Cooks, etc.

If Bryce Cotton becomes at Australian citizen, would he be at the next camp, if so would he be an option?

no back up PG's ....really

How many do we need?

Delly , Mills, Ingles and Goulding all handle the ball and can switch between the 1 and 2 internationally. Ingles can go 1,2 or 3

Wasn't Creek one of our best players back at the Asia in 2017? If Creek was a Bullet, 110% he would have made this team, anyone who thinks otherwise is absolutely kidding themselves.

Would Blanchfield have been a better selection for Gliddon? A long 3 and D 12th?

And Motum is a prolific scorer and absolutely outclasses Kay in that regard but AL doesn't seem to build his offence around bigs (both Boomers and Brisbane) so it makes sense he would pick a more all rounded defensive big in Kay. If Motum was really a shot we probably would have seen more DJ in the qualifiers. They are similar offensive minded bigs with appalling defence.

Sobley and Gliddon both plays for the bullets. What a load of crap.

Ingles, Bogut, Mills, Bayes all played under Lemanis at last Olympics. They no the system.

If you were wondering if players might be rewarded for participating in the qualification games, here's how many games they played:


MADE THE TEAM
10 Kay
10 Sobey
8 Gliddon
5 Goulding
2 Delly
1 Landale

0 Cooks
0 Bolden
0 Ingles*
0 Mills*
0 Bogut*
0 Baynes*

* previous tournament experience under Lemanis

DIDN'T MAKE THE TEAM
10 McCarron
10 Cadee
6 Creek
4 Blachfield
0 Adel
0 Motum


The NBA players making themselves unavailable for qualifiers make some sense because the NBA doesn't make accommodations for it in the schedule.

Were Cooks and Motum technically available to play any games? It makes me wonder if Motum's choice to not participate might be an additional reason he failed to solidify his position in the team. Notice that Landale made an effort to fly to Kazakhstan to play one of the qualification games.

Adel, Bolden and Cooks have no previous experience under Lemanis.

"There are only 5 NBL players in the team, 1 each from the top 3 teams, and 2 from a team that won't make the finals this season."

Actually, there is one from each of last season's top 5 teams.

No one can get to the basket on this team. It’s about ball movement, defense and outside spot shooting.

To much comes sense there rjd. :)

So if you could guess as to a big, wing and guard injury replacement if something happens to one of our players then surely...

Motum, Adel and McCarron come in...

That still wouldn't be a reprieve for Creek and let's face it, Cadee would probably come in first ahead if the three above

This is a kind of controversy that appeals as a Twitter controversy. On the surface it looks odd or even outrageous, but analyse in more detail and it can all be explained.

I think the backup [combo] guard spot was between McCarron and Sobey. Creek is out of the equation there. Goulding offers scoring potency in a way that nobody else, apart from Mills, can provide, so unless he was out of form, Goulding's role makes sense. Again, Creek doesn't make that spot. Gliddon offers shooting with some defense. Don't get fooled by the shooting percentages arguments, Gliddon puts up completely different 3s at a different rate than Creek. If Creek takes Gliddon's spot, we are certainly sacrificing spacing, which will flow on to less space for other shooters. Without seeing performances in camp, it's tough to conclude that Creek deserves a spot over Cooks, Kay and Landale.

Creek and Adel are unlucky, but by no means entitled to make the team. For those expecting Creek to make the team, who should be pushed out?

As was discussed in the earlier thread, Kay over Motum is a massive call.
But its not necessarily wrong just because Motum plays Europe.
Clearly Kay impressed at camp, and earnt his spot.

Londale, again the future, provides the extra depth at the 5 that we would otherwise have relied on Motum for.

Naming Goulding, Sobey, and Gliddon in the same team is questionable.

But we are missing Exum and Broekhoff. And, as was predicted by many before the team was announced, Lemanis prefers to go with an extra Guard or Wing.

Creek was and will be the best Local SF in the NBL. Personally I would have liked to see him selected ahead of one of the above three, but as mentioned that's not the coach's preferred balance.
So who would you drop to bring him in??
Certainly not Ingles. Cooks is the future, and possibly impressed more at the camp.

"A bit sick of hearing about this "Bullets bias"
It's not so much as case of bias towards the bullets, as it is Lemanis bringing his personal project players under his wing in Brisbane.

First it was Spuddee, who should never have been made the starting PG at Brissy, and then God Help Us is promoted to the Boomers Squad.
Then you have Sobey, who's not even good enough to be a PG at NBL level, now being named as the backup for the Boomers. And its not like people didn't call it the instant his (otherwise unfathomable) move to Brissy was announced.

As for saying "oh there's only two"
There are only 5 NBL players in the team, 1 each from the top 3 teams, and 2 from a team that won't make the finals this season.

http://www.fiba.basketball/basketballworldcup/2019/team/France#|tab=roster

http://www.fiba.basketball/basketballworldcup/2019/team/Germany#tab=roster

http://www.fiba.basketball/basketballworldcup/2019/team/Greece#|tab=roster

http://www.fiba.basketball/basketballworldcup/2019/team/Serbia#|tab=roster

http://www.fiba.basketball/basketballworldcup/2019/team/Spain#tab=roster

http://www.fiba.basketball/basketballworldcup/2019/team/Turkey#|tab=roster

http://www.fiba.basketball/basketballworldcup/2019/team/USA#|tab=roster

http://www.fiba.basketball/basketballworldcup/2019/team/Canada#|tab=roster

http://www.fiba.basketball/basketballworldcup/2019/team/Lithuania#|tab=roster

http://www.fiba.basketball/basketballworldcup/2019/team/Italy#|tab=roster


Beyond these 10 teams, there should be few challenges.