Hoops

36ers vs Utah Jazz, Oct 6

"Because true boomers fans want Australia to be the best basketball nation in the world and win FIBA world cups and Olympics gold consistently."

As an Australian basketball fan, I want to watch Australian basketball players.

Australia can win medals without the NBL being the NBA G League. In fact, more opportunity for Australian players makes that even more realistic.

Our best players will always play in the NBA or Europe.

For fans who want to watch basketball, the NBL has two advantages over the NBA and Euroleague
1. It is accessible
2. It is OUR guys

Spending huge $ to bring in increasingly more American players at the expense of Aussie talent certainly hurts the second point.

You are suggesting an equivalence in the impact of injuries between a player that relied on and lost freakish athleticism with a 7-footer that relies on his high basketball IQ and high level defensive instincts? There is a reason why high IQ players tend to have longer careers. It seems that anything related to IQ might be a challenge for you to comprehend, if you are who we suspect you are.

A fit Cam Tovey would still be a very good defender in the NBL, and he also wasn't in the league that season. That was a bad example.

The small forwards the season Young was here were Ennis, Abercrombie, Creek, Tiggs, Weigh, Blanchfield and Worthington. That's a pretty decent group of players.

He was a star at times but did things that hurt his team at others. When he got going he was unstoppable, but for a good defender in the NBA he struggled with some of our top guys. He was an interesting character for sure.

He had moments where he was alright, but for the most part he was awful.

Thank you Koberulz! (Even though I disagree he was utter trash, he played well but certainly wasn't above the level of the league)

Sam Young played here less than six months after being Indiana's primary option guarding LeBron in the Eastern Conference Finals, and was utter trash even before he ended his season by letting Goulding go for 50 on him.

If you think Jonny dominated in the NBL you probably weren't watching. Some former NBA players have come here and dominated, others have struggled badly, it's a broad spectrum.

Yes just like in the recent World Cup. Some people got no idea.

Yeah, like when Sam Young and Johnny Flynn came here and dominated.

The problem with allowing more imports is that it encourages the import merry-go-round. Fans should have a degree of stability in name recognition.

I'd hate to see half the players of teams disappear each season, replaced by players we've never heard before. As a fan of the league, it makes it difficult to know players well. As a fan of a single team, it's good to have players you strongly identify with your team. But I might be unusual on this because I grew up following a very stable Melbourne Tigers core through the 90s.

On name recognition, this is something that I see the NBL doing well when promoting upcoming games when they show a graphic of the most well known player or player they want to promote on that team to represent that team.

The money that Brendan Teys is on is hardly going to get you a decent import. Europe has a lot of Americans playing in various leagues and a lot of the are worse than nbl players.

"enjoy it for what it is"

Kinda my point. Why do you need to keep comparing it to other leagues. It doesn't need to be the second best league in the world. It doesn't need to be in the top 10. It needs to be entertaining for Australians while providing a career path for Aussie players.

Everything else is the style over substance that simply doesn't matter.

Some people with vested interest probably just want to talk the league down, enjoy it for what it is, certainly in the top five leagues in the world, which is amazing when you consider the lack of main stream media and Australia’s population size.

Certainly is a lot better than that nrl rubbish that was on tv yesterday.

Which is further proof that they have a league/structure that is on a level we are lightyears from.

There is churn in overseas leagues, but as teams struggle financially they have the option of dropping to lower divisions where you spent less.

"There certainly isn't, while the top few power clubs are very good, most of that league is at NBL level."

This is part of it though. We can barely get more than a handful of functioning teams. The other leagues in the conversation for the top leagues in the world have more teams without consistently losing clubs and replacing them etc. If you're going to argue the NBL as being "up there with the best" you have to take the churn of teams into account.

Also, that we only have 9 teams means some of our teams can compete with top euro teams doesn't show we have as much talent, only that it is more concentrated.

I wish people would stop trying to pretend the NBL is a bigger deal worldwide than it is. It doesn't need to be. It just has to be the best league in Australia (and NZ), providing opportunities for local players and a good experience for Australian (and Kiwi) fans.

Embarassing stuff from the 36ers. Teys made a fool of hinself and Froling wouldn’t have impressed NBA scouts with his poor conditioning.

It might prove that sometimes players that aren’t that flashy and not stat collectors actually stabilise the team defensively.

proof of what a great stat +- is

Teys plus three in just on eleven minutes, every one else minus plenty. Go the captain.

It would be ugly with Prather, Goulding and Barlow playing.

Just wait until United Play without Prather, Goulding or Barlow... it's going to get UGLY

I agree with you ME. I hope the NBL look at these games and how much hype its generating in its 3rd year vs the way NBL teams just get out matched in every way, and see that maybe this concept has run its course.

The NBL is not gaining anything from this anymore, probably the opposite in fact.

Hard enough after the quality of a World Cup and now Sixers stinking it up. Luckily I didn't watch this.

The 36ers are not going to be fun to watch this season. But the league is constantly on the up, so can’t complain as more of a league wide fan, these days.

"There is a big gap between the ACB and the NBL"

There certainly isn't, while the top few power clubs are very good, most of that league is at NBL level.

Lets be realistic here, every single player on that Jazz team will be better than every single player on the 36ers. If there were better Adelaide players they’d be in the NBA not Adelaide. Given that discrepancy, you’re going to be smashed.

The things that can make it closer are 1) fitness (battle ready nbl team vs inherent physicality superiority of nba players), 2) shooting percentages (sometimes you’re hot sometimes you’re not), 3) effort plays: rebounds, effort defence, 4) chemistry (ready to go nbl team vs disjointed nba team which wouldn’t reflect nba regular season)

Euroleague teams are a step above NBL for now, have big bodies and pretty elite ball movement with lockdown grit D, they’ll be stronger against NBA teams but not necessarily reflect the style of the NBA as closely as NBL would. That’s important for practice.

There is a big gap between the ACB and the NBL and no one is using meaningless pre-season games to gauge global basketball rankings lol

Fran Fraschilla for ESPN ranked the world's best leagues outside the NBA in December 2017 and had the NBL 12th (13th overall).

https://www.espn.com.au/nba/story/_/id/21691644/fran-fraschilla-ranks-world-top-basketball-leagues-nba

The NBL is a bit low on that list for mine but it's obviously no where near second best.

"Anyone that knows basketball knows the NBL isn't close to the second best league in the world"

The Euroleague is, everyone knows that. In terms of after that, it's the ACB but the NBL isn't too far behind. Out of interest, if you're using pre-season games against NBA teams as a measure (which we are at the moment even though it doesn't mean a lot), NBL teams have performed similarly to European teams on American soil.

The efforts by Sydney and Perth to run the games close for long periods is up there with all but the best Euroleague teams' efforts, and Melbourne's performance against OKC was one of the best of all time. OKC's previous home game against a Euroleague team was a 30-point win.

Adelaide need a complete clean out. Joey should be gone and all of his assistants.

Anyone that knows basketball knows the NBL isn't close to the second best league in the world that's a marketing line the NBL uses to lure the newbs in who don't know anything outside of the NBA.

Oh well at least Dillon showed some good signs with his speed and ability to get to the hole which will give us a different look when Randle is out and Froling was strong on the glass.

A 52-point loss looks bad and Adelaide looked like rubbish, but NBA pre-season often sees plenty of large margin games. Even just today the game margins were 24, 22, and 36, and these were all NBA vs NBA.

Perth did play a jazz team with three starters, gobert putting up bradleys stats is understandable, not bradley.

A total of 9 travelling violations for the 36ers.

I was replaying to Yinka Dare's silly comment that Perth wouldn't embarrass the NBL like this, they did.

No shit Perth will be better than Adelaide this season.

"Should just limited these nba games to teams like United, wildcats and kings, who would not embarrass the league"

Perth had one poor performance and one good performance last year. Adelaide have played Utah twice and had one good performances and one bad. Melbourne have had one good, one ok and one poor performance in their three games.

The reality is it just depends on the day. But when the NBA team is playing a lot harder than the NBL team like today it's never going to be close.

Perth embarrassed the league last year when they got destroyed by Denver

You're almost right Zodiac but I must correct you Perth were thumped by Utah but only lost to Denver by 7 or 8.
It's irrelevant anyway, if people are using margins of loss to justify their teams efforts they're embarrassing themselves.
NBA teams will never give more than 50@% effort in these games.

FWIW Perth will shit over Adelaide this season.

Would like to see adelaide players throw some of their trademark tantrums right now and start swinging and a bit of biff. Might spice this game up a bit.

Yeah Wildcats would never lose to the Jazz by 40+

Perth embarrassed the league last year when they got destroyed by Denver.

And now these refs let Jazz players get away with blatant carries lol

This gane started well but yikes getting very out of hand. Not a great look for the NBL. Getting very ugly for Adelaide.

Wildcats got spanked last year but that was without 2 starters in Martin and Brandt and against a pretty much full strength Jazz.

This is a full strength adelaide against a very undermanned Jazz.

It's sad seeing us get pumped by their scrubs, not sure there is much point to these games anymore.

Spot on Brunson, the Jazz have played really hard today. THey've got hungry players as you say, but they would also have talked about how the Sixers ran them real close for 3/4 last year.

Normally ME is a wanker.
But your recent post is correct.
It's going to be a long season for Adelaide and I don't base that on todays NBA v NBL game.

What makes this scoreline especially concerning is that Utah didn't play their Top 3 players.

NBL teams usually grab a couple of extra Americans for these games as NBA teams have much larger rosters. I remember one game a couple of years ago the Bullets had about 4-5 imports playing for them against Phoenix.