Hoops

The real problems at the World Cup

Thanks for that info rjd, the Grace one was definitely the stand out for me and may have effected my opinion of the other imports at the time.

In 2008 NBL season Redhage was better than Barlow and think Newley was playing overseas at the time so there is an argument that Redhage should've been playing more than both.

Fisher yeah was probably getting on by 1998.

"Boomers have always had their "pecking" order hence why we never got many minutes from previous imports who were at their peak and dominated, Grace, Fisher, Redhage."

Is this really the case? Look at each case:

In 1992, Loggins was given starter minutes.

In 1994, there were no naturalised players.

In 1996, Fisher was 6th man. Ronaldson was ahead of him. Remember, Fisher was undersized internationally.

By 1998, Fisher fell out of the rotation (sitting at the end of the bench alongside young Melmeth, Dwight), with our frontcourt including Anstey, Rogers, Ronaldson, Mackinnon, Vlahov. It's hard to argue Fisher ahead of any of these guys, especially with Fisher aging and new young Aussies coming in.

In 2000, it was Grace injected into the team with our "best team ever". This is where I believe Barnes overplayed Heal at 35mpg, with Grace getting the backup point scraps. Definitely an argument to play Grace more here. I recall a lot of people suggesting this at the time too.

Somewhere in between, but not in a major tournament, D-mac played under Smyth as one of the two guards on the team.

In 2008, Redhage was at the end of the bench (alongside Ingles and Saville), behind bigs that included Nielsen, Andersen, Bogut, Anstey. Unless you want to play him at the 3 ahead of Barlow and Newley. Good luck arguing that.

Then we have to skip to Lisch in 2016, who often looked out of his depth in the international game, didn't warrant more minutes.

I see that only argument applies to a part of the Barnes era.

"Senator, were they all naturalised in their prime or were they trending down by the time they were eligible? Lisch at the Hawks was superb but he didn't seem an absolute run for the Boomers?"

They might have been on the downward trajectory, but when they were on court for the Boomers they made things happened and had immediate impact only to be benched seconds later.

Completely agree that the seas parted and this was a golden opportunity missed. Also agree that the Olympics will be so competitive that even an upgraded Boomers roster will be up against it, but might be a chance for a medal as it will mostly be the USA making significant upgrades, and possibly Canada. The following World Cup will be really interesting. Current generation going out, and it will come down to which of the next generation can commit. Simmons could be the same guy or could be at the next level by then. Or might not play WCs at all.


Senator, were they all naturalised in their prime or were they trending down by the time they were eligible? Lisch at the Hawks was superb but he didn't seem an absolute run for the Boomers?

I'll tell you right now, if Cotton gets naturalised and manages to play in Tokyo, ther'll be threads here asking why Cotton isn't playing more minutes. Boomers have always had their "pecking" order hence why we never got many minutes from previous imports who were at their peak and dominated, Grace, Fisher, Redhage. All were MVP level players who were dumped on the bench to play garbage minutes, and in those garbage minutes performed incredibly well. I've always felt that politics has controlled the national team.

Year Team GP GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG
2018–19 Cleveland 19 3 10.3 .306 .261 1.000 1.0 .3 .1 .2 1.7
Career 19 3 10.3 .306 .261 1.000 1.0 .3 .1 .2 1.7

Last season stats for Adel, bit scrambed but you can work it out, 30% shooting 26 from the three. Should have been first player picked with that nba record.

The lack of practice games affects the ability to select young players. If playing the young guys was seriously considered, you need the practice games to test them out. In Bogut's first Boomers campaign in 2004, the Boomers had a lengthy tour of Europe prior to the Olympics. He ended up asserting himself as a starter, but it took several games to prove that he was capable in that role against quality opposition. One such practice mini-tournament on that tour included Italy, Croatia and France. By the way, France and Croatia didn't even qualify for Athens, but sent young teams along, and France ended up winning one such practice tournament.

This connects to a problem for Australia. Lack of quality opposition. Lack of opportunities to nurture young talent into the team. If the Boomers had, say, 8+ games before this WC, I can imagine it would be more feasible to go with a 14+ man squad to let players like Adel learn and prove their worth. It's tough when these young guys are not available in qualifier windows and BA organises so few games before the major tournament.

The other threads you mention, they all have people talking about fatigue of Mills, Delly and Ingles already. And of ready-made options in place of Sobey like Martin or Lisch.

I think they just wanted to lock in every win as they could. That was the priority at each point. We had a tough group. Then we wanted to dodge the USA. Then we wanted the Gold game. So we threw everything or close to it at each game as it came. And it was about as close to working as you could get if you subscribe to the idea that they could've accounted for Argentina (which I do).

Play Sobey in a game that we lose and people say "Why are we playing the full bench? We have to play our best to win!"

That said, I don't think Sobey/etc are significant steps down from Goulding on his average day, but it wasn't Goulding we needed to rest in the end.

Patty and Delly were running around screens at both ends of the court all tournament. Wouldn't surprise me if they topped the comp for distance covered.

"Starters playing too many minutes because we selected players we couldn't play because ahead of better players and players who wouldn't commit to the programme"

Simmons reference I get, but were there any better [ball-handling] players that could sub for Delly/Mills/Ingles?

I suspect Lemanis now regrets moving away from a deeper rotation as he used in Rio. But then again, we didn't have the same depth as in Rio and this was a more challenging tournament than Rio. Perhaps it was this shallow rotation that led to our 6-0 start.

It's a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you go deeper with lesser quality players, you create opportunities for being exploited, your chemistry isn't as strong. But then if you don't, you risk tiring out players, which is what eventuated.

This World Cup was so intense without easy games. One bad game at any stage can send you home. Then you have to consider that points difference can always come into it.

I think the key is to go deeper by giving the main guys some rest during the games against the minnows. I mean rest on the bench, not rest via sub-100% effort play like in the games against Senegal and Dom Rep. Even that is a risk. Hopefully we will have enough talent in Tokyo that it is natural to play with a deeper rotation, not a forced strategy just to rest Delly/Ingles/etc more.

It's over, move on.

We have Olympics, we'll have a team with some serious depth.

If we don't have injuries/withdrawals, if the current blokes don't get too much of a step slower, if we have some good chemistry - then Aussies will be right up there as one of the favourites for Silver.