Newley, Simpson, Delly off the radar...

Clarke to chase talented Aussies...

He would never have really been on the radar. Newley recently moved from his Lithuanian club, where he himself said he wasn't getting much playing time, to the Spanish club Valencia Basket.
In the Eurocup semi-final he top scored for his new team against his old team. Even though he only played seven minutes in the grand final, he is on his way up in the new club. And he gets to play in the Spanish league - better than the NBL.
Andrew Ogilvy, also with Valencia, didn't play at all in the Eurocup finlas (injured?) and Matt Nielson, who was on the winning team Khimki, only played 15 minutes in the final. These are two players that aren't being touted to come back to Australia as they are 'established' in Europe.
I don't think the Sixers could afford Newley at the moment any way - or at least afford him and some other decent players.

No star players to sixers we will have crappy team again in 2012/13 season,if clarke cant get talent that he wants ,might as well retain majoity of team and get simpson back with a consistent point guard!!!

Ogilvy has been battling injury...

Not a chance. Will not return until he is at least in his early 30s.

Anon 358973, Clarke mentioned that Newley was not on their radar, thus, he is a no go.

I cant think of a top class Aussie that they might seriously attract? I'm usually an optimist but I think all this talk about obtaining an Aussie Marquee talent could all be smoke screens?!

I hope I am wrong though!

To paraphase the Police Commissioner on Rastamouse

"Tiger Watcher comin, comin, we need your help"

(All those parents with young children who watch ABC 2 in the mornings will appreciate the reference).

What news can you draw from your sources?

Everytime I see Clarke's name associated with the Sixers, I get a little sadder and someone kills a puppy.

I've got it from strong sources that they have tabled offers to 2 very solid current Australian NBL players!

Both of these guys you would think are untouchable but things aren't quite so sunny as they appear from the outside. Old Melb & Syd town is having management/player issues due to extra off season work loads (i.e 6-8 hours of clinics a day, no option to play ABA back home etc)

If i was a betting man i'd suggest you'll get at least one of these players pending meeting between us on Monday/Tuesday afternoon.

Just so your aware you probably can't take both as 36er's have offer 2 & 3 year deals with very competitive $$$ attached.

I'll know more by tuesday afternoon!

Bose and trigger?

Didn't Clarke bring in Creek and Johnson?

Wait and c who clarke gets,would like to get bose he be solid sf,trigger would go to other melb team if that happens.still awhile yet before free agents start another 2.5 weeks to go.We will be in bottom group AGAIN.

Bose would be a good pick up!

Perhaps Madgen, Dillon?

Tiger Watcher, so those players they were looking at O/S are no longer on the radar?

This is Plan B?

Is there a Plan C?

Message i got from the 6er's is they sort out Aussies first then imports.

FYI - Ballinger is a last resort @ PF due to fitness issues and they'll hold on resigning him until they get yes/no from a couple of targets.
(No such thing as loyalty anymore)

Still looking OS but got litttle to none positive feedback doesn't mean they won't pull it off, but niether Euro returnee wants to play for a cellar dweller! (Hint: sign better NBL players first, then i'll be back)

I'd go with Julian Khazzouh and Lucas Walker or Liam Rush

What happened to Liam Rush this season??

He was playing well in Europe and then had a very crap season in the NBL

It's a fair step up in quality from the comp he was playing in to the NBL, it just took him a while to re-adjust. His form in the second half of the year was defintiely better than early in the season.

Who you get is not as important as what Clarke will do with them. A bit like a state of the art piece of equipment and not knowing how to operate it.

no he did increase creeks minutes and responsibility this year especially as the season went on. i do agree re daly though. thats a general fault of the nbl though, we wait far to long to develop players and in dalys case when do we find out if he can be a quality long term player or not??? when he is in his late 20's????

its easy to be in a position to recruit but not that easy to pull it off.....especially when you're talking about players in Europe and College. If they werent successfull over there then we probably wouldnt want them right? If they are successfull we want them but they have bigger and better things they want to accomplish.

It's easire said than done!

In terms of Daly, if he were that good to warrant developing then he would likely have been at the AIS. I'm not too fussed about his development. How many other teams of late have development players that end up being solid NBL players?

was interesting that they did say they expect newls will look at coming home in the next couple of years..

who would we be talking to from sydney and melb??

ild think rush could be one who may want elsewhere after his year but what does he add to our side..dont we have the sf position sewn up with weigh/ creek??

if we add rush do we end up running with a side like

johnson
weigh
rush
sg
pg

and going small again and no-one that can guard as well!!!!!!!!!! same problems.

and ild be surprised if we could get bose, kid will be very sought after but again we would be stuck with a very small and weak defensive side.

??

we could use madgen in the sg position i think and it may be possible but its not going to turn us into a contender. maybe we are targeting matt bursten to come back to be a back-up centre. would be better than helliwell.

yeah thats where ill place my bets we are going for madgen and bursten to be our back-up centre. not any stars or big leaps forward but an improvement to our current side if we did get those 2 ( and matt stays half-fit) and we get a good pg import.

tornado what does that say about our ability to develop basketballers??

dont we have professional systems in the nbl???

cant anyone who wasnt a prodigy at 15 or in the top 5% of basketballers in the country rise up to become a great player? why not???

I think the problem is that the depth in the league due to the reduction in teams, and the physicality allowed by the refs, means only the real stand out young players can make an impact before at least 23, and often players find their feet at 25-26.

If you look back at the years when there were 90-110 Aussies in the league, instead of 70 now, players got a chance to play sooner and improve quicker (or at least find out they werent good enough rather than just becoming dispirited training fodder).

Phil, I am saying anyone who is half decent is either at the AIS or they head over to the US and try their hand at college. There are players that head to college who havent been at the AIS too. So when you factor all of that in we are basically left with the best of the worst as harsh as that may sound. As a result, we unfortunately dont get the opportunity to really develop talent like we once did due to those reasons.

Take Madgen for example, was on the 6ers roster as a development player and then went to college, came back as a decent player at NBL level.

American colleges are the best way to develop, majority of the best coaches and you get to play against the best talent for your age. Its a no brainer really!

Having said that, there may be one that sneaks through every now and then but I dont think Daly is one of those?

im only having a go at our system and its ability to develop players. which on evidence is massively poor.

a good example although a little out of place is to look at the afl...

so about 50-80 players will be put onto rosters through the drafts each year. you can consider the first 20 kids to be whatever top %. say top 20% of your talent. 5 years on if you identify the top 20% talents to come from that year maybe less than half would have come from that original top 20 % and the rest from outside that margin.

in the nbl equivilent those top 20% will be the ones to go on to ais/ college or whatever good opportunities while the others rot away because we cant get them into good programs to identify and build talent. inevitably a great number of those 20% fail or dont quite become as good as was hoped and, the other % of players rarely get a chance to get identified and developed.

again to go back to footy nathan fyfe, a ridiculous talent and one of afls best at what 22ish? was pick number 20 in his afl draft. if, like the nbl there was only much smaller fixed number of opportunities ( say 19 spots available ) and not a very good secondary competition with plenty of gametime against seasoned players and other guys on afl lists such as sanfl/ wafl/ vfl than what would have happened to nathan fyfe?? he would have had to get a job/ tertiary study and play his sport around that. would we have the nathan fyfe we have now??? almost certainly not.

appreciated we cant put 60 guys a year on lists with team lists half the size of football and half as many teams.

still, even as a percentage, how many new players brought in would be far lower than the afl. as a percentage, and again as a percentage the amount of new players that even get gametime lets say as a measure how many new players would get say 1/4 of total gametime per a match per 1/4 of the season?

for the afl that statistic would be in the 15-40 guys and a single figure as a percentage. in the nbl, we wouldnt add more than one locally developed new player per a season that plays that much gametime. its percentage would be 0.03 percent.

how the frak our we ever gonna develop better players except for the handful that are good at 15 and go to the ais or get into a college???

im talking about coachs etc stop looking elsewhere for players or whinging how we cant get any good players to come home and actually start trying to develop players.

no-one is expecting someone to field only a team of kids.

you know how afl players become good afl players?? by playing in the afl. you dont become a good afl player by playing state league. and no way can you become a good nbl player by playing abl etc.

A lot of players get a good start in state league footy. The issue is basketball doesnt have an equivalent to state league. The difference between the NBL and second tier is too great and too many players who would help make the second tier strong are at college.

It's a real pity that the old SEABL comp from the late 80's/early 90's dropped away. Some great young talent was nurtured in that comp.