Very good points Muzz Buzz. However it also comes down to salary as well. Creek could go to another team that will pay him more and give him the minutes he deserves.

Johnson is no certainty to stay either as people will be very interested in him.

Whats the chances we could get balls cheaper than a 10? Hes hasnt played like a 10 this season.

I reckon Balls has played his last game. Out for the season and he will find it hard to come back.

Bartlett is the perfect type of bench man. Surely cheap money wise, cheap points wise, can play for limited minutes with energy, wont have issues moving the ball and bringing it up the court, decent defence and can knock down the three.

We need a 'less is more' approach to next season

C Johnson/Pero?
F Simpson/Dowdell type
F TBA/Creek
G Weigh/Ng
G Import/Bartlett

Are we not 3 and 1 without Ballinger? The way he has played for the last season or so, he is no loss sadly. Very impressed with Bartlett, he added a great deal of energy to the team.

could you go with a line up of say

(approx salaries based on 1 mil cap and a max salary of 175k, (assuming salary cap is stuck to))

C Johnson (175k)/Helliwell(40 k)
PF Simpson (175 k)/ ?? Motum (65 k) or other young college returnee
SF Weigh (125 k)/Creek (100 k)
SG Warren (135 k)/Herbert (65 k)
PG Crosswell (65 k)/Bartlett (55 K)

I reckon that would be fairly solid and should be able to fit in under salary and points caps.

With rotations of

C Johnson (30)/Motum (5)/Helliwell (5)
PF Simpson (30)/Motum (10)
SF Weigh (25)/Creek (15)
SG Warren (20)/Creek (10)/Herbert (10)
PG Crosswell (15)/Bartlett (15)/Warren (10)

Well rounded line up with good athleticism, shooting/scoring, weakness will still be defense, but with Simpson, Creek, Crosswell, Herbert and guys like Johnson improving should improve and not be totally terrible.

"We need a 'less is more' approach to next season

C Johnson/Pero?"

including Pero would be a little too much "less" then any NBL team could afford I think.

Lol, when was "less" and "Pero" used in a sentence

I think after this year Everard Bartlett will be chased by most teams.. He's kiwi so it wouldn't surprise me if signs in NZ

Wasn't he originally a development player with the Breakers, at the time he competed in (won?) the NBL Slam Dunk Contest?

i agree we should consider keeping him next year but with crosswell signed for next year it would be hard.

guards

warren/crosswell/ ng/ daly/ herbert/ bartlett.

that a alot of guards and most of them very small.

if we lost warren then keeping bartlett becomes a good option if we target a bigger sg? for example

pg crosswell/ daly/ bartlett

sg newley or similiar type/ ng

jettison herbert maybe. but you would want whatever sg you get to be a very good defender as that is our weakness.

warren is one of our better players quite consistantly putting up big scoring numbers unfortunately he isnt a stopper but we would most likely not want to lose him so it makes it pretty hard to add another guard such as bartlett.

most of those line-ups listed above our just the team we are carrying around now. its not quite good enough now so why next year?? although i do think there is improvement in alot of guys and the team in itself but we do need to bring another body in.

ballinger will add alot next year. either he is fully fit and is looking like the balls of old before the season or we look elsewhere. bringing in a sg like i mentioned ( a strong scorer/ stopper at least bigger than our current crop but still mobile enough to guard the leagues guards ). one of our biggest problems is we are an offensive threat but defensively weak. you can forgive johnson cause he will get alot of boards score bigtime. but we have too many small guards that cannot contain other teams scorers.

Bartletts mrs (and kid I think) live in Perth which is why he was training with the wildcats, so not sure if going back to NZ to go home is as much as a draw as you think. He will definitely be picked up by an NBL team as a nice backup since he already has NBL experience, whoever has the cash to entice him.

Also If DJ and creek are both out of contract they will be definitely checking out their options, and so they should.

i have a feeling halfway through that statement you went away and spent the weekend with keith richards and some of the guys from 'The Doors', then came back and finished it off. maybe we will never know the meaning of it.

Yep Bartlett won the dunk comp in NZ. I've seen him in shoot arounds, he can really get up.

NZ won't chase Bartlett, Breakers Academy will provide replacement players for Bruton and Boucher when they are ready to retire.

i do want to see daly given more opportunity as time goes by. we could easily have both on the same team though except for the fact crosswell is contracted and we could have warren , ng and herbert next year. as i said that is too many small guards who would struggle to guard alot of the stronger guards in the league.

the thing that i like about daly is that he always looks composed and doesnt seem to make flustered decisions with the ball. the downside is i dont remember him really pushing the ball up the floor and playing uptempo basketball?

Anon I hope your right, and i hope ballinger takes that money and leaves. We have had no success with him around, and he is a woeful captain, just not voacl enough, why they offered him the captaincy is beyond me! His ankles appear to be slowing down his performances now, and once ankles go, they usually stay gone. Move on and use the points on a new talent/franchise player type.

Phil, I know you mention Newley or similar type but who is similar?
I think we should stop dreaming about Newley and Ingles for a few years. Newley is on $850,000 which gives him about 700,000 good reasons not to come back anytime soon I would think.
Ingles absolutely loves it over there too.
I can never understand all the Balls hate on here either.
Have the Sixers run a play for him in the past two seasons? Did he get played in his position last year?

Jackie C
Have we ever gone close to a title with Balls in the team? In how many years?

I'd prefer to see the 36ers develop Daly. This team ain't gona win a title this year so minutes and money would be better used just keeping Warren as starting PG and having Daly rotate for him off the bench when he needs a rest.

I have only seen him play the one game, but I like the way Barlett gets the ball up quickly and easily, not scared to kick the ball on with an early pass.

I have never seen Daly
or even Crosswell that often do that.

hey squid how about you grab your tenticales wrap them around your testicales a pull hard the guy won the MVP last year has had major ops twice played about 4 games and you make a dumb arse comment .no wonder squid is used for bait or salt and pepper

So ITK, you're saying its exclusively Balls' fault we haven't challenged for a title?
So the players around him have been championship calibre you reckon?
The one year we had him, Mahersy, and then Hodge came in when they finally dumped Chappell, that team could have challenged had Mal Dingaling not waited so long to cut Chappell. They made a great run at the playoffs and missed by a game.
Had the move been made sooner, who knows?
AFAIK, Balls has no input on who they recruit around him, so saying we haven't won a title with him is like saying we didn't win a title with Rob Rose, right? Rose must've been bad then? Check the personnel around Rose when we didn't win a title, then check the personnel around Balls.
I still think Rose was our best import ever but on your reasoning it was a great move to cut him for Rick Brunson???