GREAT POST!

He just needs to show some passion. If it is not beyond guys like Yao, Gasol etc why is it beyond him. Same for CJ.

It's as though he's lost confidence.

I'm afraid the team isn't helping him.

His coach lacks the competence,

Confidence was low, but probably due to the fact he has barely trained with the team and has been hampered by injury.
The passion thing shites me. Only a couple of Boomers had it last night.

1) His injured
2) Goorj has drained every little bit of confidence from him.

stop making excuses for him. He had no passion whatsoever, didn't cheer on the bench,and didn't look as though he cared. He thinks he is the MAN and that's all tyhat matters. Stuff the team.

Goorj's coaching is bad enough to make baby jesus cry.....

I've been saying this for years, but Goorj sucks ar$e and really needs to be replaced.

The Boomers just don't run an inside game, but you'd think Bogut should be use to chuckers after playing with Redd and Mo.

Agree with Oden. Yao was first off the bench EVERY single time his team mates did something good and that was when they were down 30. If I could adopt someone to inject some passion into the Boomers right now it would be Yao - and he wouldn't have to play a single minute.

I think the Boomers need to start with an intense, hard working crew to get the tempo right early. They are not actually that far off the mark if it wasn't for their poor starts.

How about Mills, Barlow, Newley, Nielsen and Anderson/Anstey. Hell even throw Redhage in for Barlow and move Newley to the 2. You now he would go at it 100%

well Bogut is the 72 million dollar man ... so he MUST be doing something right !!??

bogut doesnt care about the national team. he considers himself more croation anyway. let them have the up himself piece of shit. how dumb do milwaukee look now. remember this guy said he is the best aust player ever before stepping on an nba court, and considers toni kukoc and drazen petrovic as his idols

Like TR says: no inside game. You can't be particularly effective if all you're doing is trying to rebound your team mates bricks (assuming you're not Dennis Rodman).

Oh, and Kobe-for-MVP: You mean "he's injured", not "his injured" =P

Anon 597:

Are you serious?? I've got a feeling that playa was not banned because of his thoughts just the way he expressed them!

Nothing wrong with having Euro idols - most NBLers idolised NBA players growing up. Also, he made the "best Australian player" comment a few years back and I bet he regrets it now.

I don't think it's that he doesn't care, more so that he's lacking a spark (that most of his team mates have also lost).

Playa was blocked because they couldn't string together a cohesive sentence and wouldn't change despite requests. Given that they posted without leaving an email address for moderators to contact, there was no opportunity to discuss it with them.

I don't think many thought that the Boomers were anything but underdogs either.

wouldn't a 360 degree turn mean we are back where we started?

The passion/spark thing that I and others have already spoken about is the main thing for me. I can accept ordinary stats if he looks like he actually gives a f**k. I know it may not be in his nature, but take a leaf out of Yao's book - he knows that he is the one that billions of people are looking up to. The same applies to Bogut on a smaller scale - all Boomers fans want him to lead and inspire us. He can do it in two ways - dominating the game or showing some passion and/or inspirational leadership.

Admittedly he hasn't gotten many opportunities to dominate games. He needs to see mmore of it. But I would also like to see him vary his stuff when he does get it inside. He often turns middle (regardless of which side he is on) which is good because it means he can shoot left or right but bad because it becomes predictable. I'd like to see him drop step to the baseline occasional (after faking middle) and powering TO THE BASKET (not away).

On general Boomers play I think we are lacking two things in particular:
1. Ball movement. To get that we need better movement of our guys when they don't have the ball. (As I am writing this I am having some severe Andrew Gaze withdrawals - best mover without the ball I have ever seen.)
2. Penetration. Aside from Mills no-one is consistently and actively looking to penetrate. The others seem to be looking for the three as the primary option. If you look at the other (good) teams - esepecially the Euro ones - they rarely shoot a three without penetration first (or at least a post entry). The penetration creates open looks outside rather than us forcing them. I think part of this is the style of play that Australia have in general (how many Aussie NBL players can you name that are more slashers than shooters?)

Anyway sorry for the rave. We aren't gone yet (think positive, think positive). We should get Iran and then we need to beat one of Russia or Lithuania (possible - Croatia beat Russia). We need a good start and some inspiration!

1)Bogut is good and will get better
2)Plays better with mills than cj
3)needs a better offence to fully utilize his strengths
4)If we had a better coach right now we wouldnt be having this discussion

Tend to think that the Boomers style of play doesn't help... All the way through the Olympic lead up we have played an outside game, which is great as long as your making shots. I would have thought that with Bogut and Anderson in the line up some more emphasis would have been put on an inside game. For too long the down fall of aussie teams was a lack of bigman depth, now that we have that depth we are not using it.

The thing that worries me is "Bogut for three, airball" ... should NEVER be taking that shot, let alone in an Olympic match !

He probably saw Yao Ming hit that 3 in the China v. Spain game and said "...I can do that"

im doing a 720 followed by an olly and rounding of with a rail grind

oh no..i think im channelling playa :)

Anyone remember Longley at the Olympics? He was average at best. Was he crap? Certainly not - Chicago would not have won three consecutive championships without him. The Boomers just didnt fit his style of game. Same for Bogut.

He is not a natural shot maker or back to the basket player. He needs movement in offence and is a real confidence player. He IS down for many reasons but I'm not going to make excuses for him. If you are wearing the green and gold, come ready to sweat blood on the court.

Lets save our venom for Goorjian, and hope that the next coach can use the talent on the floor a little more effectively.

BTW - Petrovic is one of my heros too vanexel31. In fact Nick Van Exel is't Australian either and he looks like your idol. What's your point? Don't bring racial slurs into a forum and expect to be treated with anything less than contempt (That means we wont be nice to you, if you dont understand all the big words).

there is obviously an issue that bogut has with goorj and i believe there was an issue at the athens btw the coach and player.

As much as i think Bogut looks disinterested so far in the tournament I think the major problem we're having is with the game plan. Too often you see 4 guys standing around watching CJ drible the ball around the 3 point line, they need to get more movement away from the ball, making cuts that actually look like they want the ball and quicker ball movement. Bogut is one of the best passing big men in the world, it's probably his greatest strength, but if no one's making themselves available he's got to force something. They need to play more of a motion offence similar to the european style, with a guy like Bogut an offence like the Tigers shuffle is perfect because you need an excellent passing big man, but he still get shots inside as well without having 1-0n-1 post ups(similar to Mark Bradtke with the Tigers).

I also think Pat Mills has to replace CJ as starting PG, CJ is looking very slow this Olympics and let's face it guarding dribble penetration has never been his strong point and that's where we're getting burnt quite often. Plus i think Mills is much better at running a team offence whereas CJ tries to look for his own shot a lot.

I'm still not writing off this tournament, if you take out the first quarter of each game we've stuck with our opponents. Considering the oppostition we're up against, and the youth of a lot of our guys I think if way can make it out of the pool games it will be an excellent result for the future of Australian international basketball

Ashamed to be Australian after watching Andrew Bogut last night. Then proud to be Australian after watching Patrick Mills.

You've got to remember Mills is only just turned 20 this week, his energy and more importantly his passion to represent his country is second to none and can never be underestimated in a PG. Any experience he gains this olymipcs is HUGE and i think international bball has gone past CJ. Pat Mills will finish his career the best PG we've ever had. Anyway this blog is meant to be about Bogut, and he's been very disappointing so far.

He might be protecting his body for his multi million dollar contract.

Bogut is crap?

So that increase in scoring an tighter D whenever he is on the floor (please dont count the first quarter...ill give it there he played bad but who didnt?) That better play is all due to the threes that Barlow an Anstey throw up every time they touch it?

Lay off the man!
He has the pressure of the country on him all of a suden an he's not coping...wheres the love for our boy?