exactly. well done mr. ninnis! should do wonders for attendance numers @ the dome next season aswell!

Agreed! Lets just see them win and be consistently successful now.

Agree! Bring back Jingles, Oscar, Boodnikoff, Rogers and Ronaldson!

Does having SA players increase the size of the crowd though? Would anymore people turn up to see Holmes who weren't going to turn up to see say a Wade Helliwell if both were playing at the same level

winning is the most important factor in crowds, excitement 2nd, then a feeling of ownership 3rd in my view.

Of course success is important, I just think that it's that much more satisfying when it comes from homegrown players. The fact that we now have a team in which many of the players grew up playing junior ball here and should be competitive in the national league is something to be proud of and to be even more excited about

Just for the record the 36ers the last 11 seasons have had more hometown players on there roster than any other teams.No accolades for that and didnt help the crowds winning is the only thing that does that.

What about Jase? He's all about the SA:

= Sometimes Assists....

Congratulations Ninnis on selecting so many South Australians in the team. To many people it means a lot. Commiserations on the fact that it is far from a championship team. Now where does everyone think the fans will go to? A losing side made up of South Australians, or a winning side made up of good players from wherever? NBL stands for National Basketball League. National means all over Australia. Apart from Maher, Ballinger & Davidson, we are putting together another State League team.

Schenscher and Holmes are 'state league'?

Overlooked those 2 although Schenscher is not a proven NBL player.

julius hodge increases crowds over everything!

EC, I disagree with most of what you say but usually remain silent. I can't do that in this instance. What the hell are you talking about??? Do you not think before you hit the post button? How can you omit Holmes and Schensher in your reckoning? I would have thought 40% of the starting line up is fairly important when you're making a comment on the calibre of a team.

I don't understand what your agenda is with these constant digs at Ninnis' recruiting process. Any person with an open mind can clearly see he's done a great job in the offseason, but for some reason you're blinded to the fact he's recruited an ex NBA 7 footer, another team's reigning club MVP, and gambled on a potentially game changing spark plug off the bench (which wasn't much of a gamble due to the low low price) - would you be happier if these guys weren't South Austrailan?

I'm glad Hodge isn't South Austrailan as you would surely be upset about our attempt to re-sign him.

What's your beef with Ninnis?

That's right EC we were winning so much before with Copeland, Mastrovich, instead of Ingles, Newley, Holmes, Forman etc.

Give the guy a damn chance before you rip into him.

SA players do NOT help the crowd.

I thought Fil S was actively recruiting Schenscher already. Shouldn't he be acknowledged for that too? It's not like he hasn't been a sixers target before Ninnis got the job. Also, as far as I recall, all of the players listed in the first post, except maybe Ryan Kersten have played for the previous coach. AFAIK)
I know, knock me all you knockers of the previous coach, but he deserves some credit for bringing in Ballinger, Davidson and Hodge(?) as well as keeping Maher too.

billo, "constant digs at Ninnis recruiting process"? Its the first time I made any reference to Ninnis' recruiting" I have said in the past that the South Australian content of the team is not important but I have never criticized Ninnis. You really get carried away on your high horse suggesting I am discriminating against South Australians. That could not be further from the truth. My point is that if South Australians were the best available, then go for them. Don't just go for them because they are South Australian.

#183900, unlike you I don't post under the name of annonymous, but perhaps I should have if my identity reveals that I am voldermort. Like Dana said, I am glad I can take the credit for the interest in Schenscher and the part of the team that remains from previous years. After all, its my part of the recruitment process that sees the best players still remain with the 36ers, haha.

Having SA talent (Holmes, Hill etc)in the team will bring some fans as these people are known. Some fans have played with/against these people in juniors.
However, if they are not winning this attraction will some wear off.
I think it is a good step forward for the team.
It was reported that Coach Phil did target Big Luke. Whether it was the wrong time for him or whatever he didn't sign. Now he has. Let us move on.

EC, I agree that you don't just recruit SA players for the sake of it. If there are better interstate players you take a look at them. However, you have to factor in that you will have to pay a premimum to get such a player to leave say a Melbourne or a Sydney in the first place and will have a harder time retaining such a player.

We are always going to have a better chance of keeping a good SA junior than getting a star Victorian junior to come to Adelaide. IE The whole country knew that Drmic, Mackinnon, etc were going to be Boomer calibre players whilst they were progressing through junior ranks but what real chance did the 36ers ever have of signing these players? Putting energy into signing these guys would have been largely a waste of time.

In fact if you go through the last 20 years or so of the 36ers' history, the only time we successfully recruited young interstate players was during the Dunlap era when we signed Rillie and Cattalini. The rest of our interstate signings have been confined to journeymen and veterans needing a second chance. 2 interstate Boomers' players in twenty years is not a great success rate. Yet apart from the last few years we were always a top four chance despite our failure to attract star interstate players.

The reason we were successful was that we followed a model which revolved around retaining the best SA Boomer calibre talent and picking up quality imports. When you think of our great players from the 80s to present (apart from Rillie, Cat and to a lesser degree Stiff) you immediately think of our SA Boomer squad players such as Maher, Ninnis, Bradtke, McKay, Blakemore, Pearce, Ali, etc.

EC I understand that you would fail to appreciate this model of success as you started to support the 36ers during the Smyth era where no doubt you correlate 'young SA player' to equal some undersized fringe NBL player from the ABA brought in by reason of financial constraints.

The problem was that during the second half of the Smyth era we either failed to sign or re-sign our SA Boomer calibre players and didn't replace them with interstate standouts. Retaining Nash as opposed to signing Newley or signing Majstrovic to replace Holmes/Forman just didn't cut it.

The worst part of the problem (which i have posted about previously) is that we went through a period where SA produced AIS/Boomer squad players such as Schenscher, Holmes, Newley, Ingles, Forman, Hill and Kersten (more young SA NBL talent than in our past), none of which were playing with the 36ers.

It is obvious that Ninnis was keen to return the 36ers to its previous model of success and not allow our top young talent to be poached. I expected it would be a slow process given the damage that had already been done.

For Ninnis to come in and the 36ers to pick up Schenscher, Holmes, Hill and probably Kersten straight away is nothing short of sensational. These are players not only who can contribute straight away but more importanly are players we can build the next 5 years around which is more than we can say with last years team which did not have one player (other than Ballinger) which we could build around.

Hill is an example of a player who performed better for the 36ers straight out of the AIS than after being with the team because of his mismanagement and lack of opportunity. I am sure you will be presently surprised by what Hill will produce this season.

The only reason we might still not be a championship team is that there are a few teams spending close to double the cap.

As long as we don't have the funds to build an All-Star team like the Bullets did (which was short lived) then Ninnis' method of building a team around the very best SA talent is absolutely the way to go, and he has my support 100%.

Piss off @ Ronaldson. He's old, fat and has an odd shape body.

Produces one of the longest butts on a human.

Stephon, I appreciate your comments, but retaining good young South Australians does not guarantee that they will stay with the team for years to come. We lost both Holmes and Forman 2 years ago after being developed into quality players with the 36ers. More recently we have lost Ng. We will put the time and effort into these players but money usually dictates where they go. In 2 years time, if Kersten and Hill make a good development here in Adelaide and are attracted to Melbourne or another club who's budget is well above the salary cap and can offer them more, they will not stay here in Adelaide. Its always going to be a question of money when it comes to retaining players. You have to spend the money to compete. As an Adelaide 36ers fan, I want to see a successful team who makes a good bid for the championship, I do not want to just see a development league of players improving as the years go by but never quite getting there because our emphasis is on developing local juniors.

EC, this is about the hundreth time you have posted obout this. you say that the Sixers lost players like holmes amd Forman, but those guys did not want to leave. the sixers did nothing to retain them even though they were considered to be two of the better young bigs at the time and they had great points discounts. if you want to retain you have to be pro-active and sign players BEFORE they go out of contract like NZ who resigned forman more than a year before his contract ran out. NBL rules do not allow contracted players to be approached. your post suggests that clubs cant do anything about players leaving. not true. a player with family and friends will always prefer to play at home but still will not want to be taken for granted

thedoctor, where did you get your information that Forman and Holmes did not want to leave? Did the same apply with Ng?

Put a bit of heart in to it. Whilst the name Adelaide remains it is our team and should be full of our players.

Winning v SA Pride. I take pride in making it an SA team more than Winning. Anyone with enough $$$ can buy a championship. Real satisfaction is derived when you develop that championship from the ground up.

as usual stephon well thought out, constructive points,

FM,

one of the better post in a long time, sums it up perfectly ball worthy short sweet and makes one hell of a point