Greg Hire is a guard? Yeah, great article.

A few things were off, including Hire as a guard, Wagstaff as a small forward etc. Plus the trip to the US was mainly used as a fact finding/game night production focus, rather than a coach search.

I do agree with some of the comments though. Signing an unknown U'u when a couple of quality players have been right under their noses all along did seem odd but he has obviously impressed in training so far.

Beal isn't a 2/3 either.

Takes a while to get to the particularly interesting bits, but worth a skim. Very glass half empty view though?

The Wildcats have also signed two imports, both 2/3 men...Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy???!?!

Beal is a 2/1 I would've thought. Not going to play as a SF if you're that height?

Currently out of the 10 players signed by the Wildcats, these are the guards:

Damian Martin
Erik Burdon
Drake U'u
James Ennis
Jermaine Beal
Greg Hire

Hire and Ennis play SF enough that that's basically 60% of the roster for 60% of the positions...

Redhage and Knight are worth their big deals, IMO. The Cats glut is SF/PF, but so be it - Redhage is good enough to keep, Hire has come up strongly and Wagstaff worth keeping too. Wagstaff can probably get away with playing C for patches given their style of D.

The main issue I'd have with the Perth squad if I were a fan is that Jervis back-up role. Burston would've been a decent option, as the writer says.

Where I think they went a bit wrong was signing Burdon rather than Daly. Sign Daly, and you have a back-up PG meaning your final import spot is whatever position you want. Sign Burdon and U'u (I assume he's a defensive SG?) and then you need that last import to play a bit of PG, and you ain't getting a PG/C...

Martin/Daly
Ennis/U'u or Burdon
Redhage/Hire
Wagstaff/Hudson
Knight/Jervis

Hudson would be decent insurance for Knight.

Could've gone for Burston instead of U'u at a pinch if you wanted to keep Beal. Someone a bit stronger than Jervis.

All that said, I think they'll be OK. The core they have with Martin, Redhage, Wagstaff, Hire (plus Knight when he can play) is strong enough defensively and with their chemistry to challenge any team at one end of the court.

The article says they talked to Wortho, but I thought Wortho came out and said he was spoken to by Bevo but not the Cats once Bevo moved on?

Quoted from Ozhoops:

He makes some good points but a lot is speculation and other parts are either poorly researched or twisted to make his point.

Part 1: Spruiking for Illiadis

Good points about the capabilities of the player and his pedigree.

But what about the other side of the coin. He trained with the Wildcats all last season for 1 appearance under Bevo as a development player. Purser, Field, Vigor, Armour were all preferred to him.

He trialled for several teams including Sydney over the offseason and was passed over for other players.

Hardly a lock for a vacant position.

He then states why Burdon, Muo and U'u were worse choices again he makes some good points but glosses over the fact that Burdon and U'u trialled against the other players mentioned Daly et. al. and won out.

Muo is actually from Perth (via Sudan) and was taken over to Sydney by the same guy responsible for managing Ater Majok, Majok Majok, Thon Maker etc

Part 2: The Bevo Saga

Can't fault anything here, on the money and has been discussed to death here already.

Part 3: Signing players without a coach.

Again it has been discussed to death that it was an odd way to do business but realistically Redhage, Knight and Hire were always going to be re-signed and on 3 year deals. Redhage missed the end of one season due to his hip injury and has not missed a beat since. That is the only games he has missed in his [U]entire NBL career[/U]. Knight has injury issues but does any seriously think that any NBL coach would not sign him to a three year deal?

Hire's virtues are listed in the article.

[quote]They have Jesse Wagstaff patiently waiting to take on the starting small forward role as his own but they go give Redhage another 3 years.[/quote]

If they wanted Jesse to start at SF he'd already be there; it isn't as if Tovey, Hire or Weigh had the starting spot locked down and Redhage hasn't played there since the first season in the Beveridge era.

The truth is that Redhage and Wagstaff both play the PF almost exclusively now with spot minutes at C and Wagstaff has not progressed sufficiently since his rookie season to warrant replacing Redhage full time.

Muo is the only other player signed before the coach and everything I have read of Gleeson since suggests that he was probably aware of the negotiations before he was officially announced as coach.

Part 4: The Worldwide Coaching Search

I agree that the coaching search was farcical; so farcical in fact that the new coach was "known" a month to six weeks before the announcement.

[quote]By the way Trev, we've not only already signed 70% of your roster (you’re welcome), we’ve also already signed your right hand men for you! (you’re welcome) So please, no need to submit anything to us with YOUR preferred
assistant coaches, it’ll just be a waste of time...[/quote]

Addressed above but 2 players still under contract, 3 players who started on a Grand Finalist team last season and 1 "local player". That is 60% for those playing at home and hardly over the top. To use their Paul Roos analogy how much of Melbournes list is still under contract?

As for the assistant coaches: Tatatalovich was under contract and Stewart was announced the day before Gleeson who as mentioned above was signed long before it was announced. Gleeson knew who was being recruited. Bevo inherited Radford and Stewart himself when he took the job.

Part 5: Where are the Local Guys

That could be the question for any team in the league. 2 players seems to be about the league average.

So we get to his list:

Daniel Johnson (Adelaide) - under contract with Adelaide; depending on who you talk to either did the dirty on Bevo/Wildcats and reneged on a contract or was told by Bevo that he wasn't interested.

Alex Loughton (Cairns) - walked out on the Wildcats when the league looked shaky and expressed no interest in returning when approached by Bevo upon his return.

Cam Gliddon(Cairns) - product of the Mick Downer connection chose Cairns (and guaranteed court time) over a contract offer from the Wildcats behind Kevin Lisch

Matt Burston (Cairns) - hasn't made any secret of the fact he has no desire to play for the Wildcats again. Not sure if his wife is still playing but at least until recently her being on a competitive WNBL team took precedence.

Liam Rush (Tigers) - well actually he is a free agent and has returned to Europe. Also plays that postion of combo forward that the author was bemoaning the logjam at.

Mark Worthington (Tigers) - see above re combo forward. Also has had his chances to play for Perth but always demands too much money. Also universally hated in WA.

James Harvey (Sydney) - hahahahahahahahahahaha do I even have to explain this one?

Tom Garlepp (Sydney) - Tom played for the Wildcats until he decided he didn't like playing second fiddle to Jeff Dowdell. Labelled as a lazy trainer by CJ Jackson and never recovered. Now his fiance's WNBL career is also a consideration.

Cody Ellis (Sydney) - spoken to, would have been in a Wildcats singlet next season but took the option of being able to play a half season earlier. Who can blame him. :)

Kyle Armour (Sydney) - see Illiadis

Luke Nevill (Somewhere) - Luke is still hunting the big bucks and glory. Didn't enjoy his last Wildcats experience due to having to change his game.

Part 6: Stocking up in the Guard Department

Lets start with the obvious Greg Hire is not a guard forward. Now with that out of the way, WHAT?! we have 5 guys who can play at guard and one of those is our starting SF that is a travesty! Wait...Martin, Robbins, Lisch, Bartlett, Tovey... hmm Martin, Robbins, Lisch, Williamson, Weigh (debateable but at the time we were naive)... Grace, Harvey, Black, Stewart, Timmons... you get my point.

[quote]The Wildcats have also signed two imports, both 2/3 men…Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy???!?![/quote]
Ummm because Beal is a PG/SG?

Oh right you didn't know that:
[quote]And remember, Knight’s out to start the season, so currently the Wildcats are more than likely looking at a starting five of Wagstaff, Redhage, Ennis, Beal & Martin. Not horrible, but very small. If they were to lose another starter, then they are in a fair bit of trouble. The recruitment of players has been way off. Far too guard heavy, not enough bigs and unless Beal can run the point, then they are terribly slim at the one also.[/quote]

So too many guards but not enough guards, carry on.

[quote]If you’re a Wildcats fan and you’re not concerned, you should be. If they can stay healthy, that’s huge, but when was the last time Redhage, Wagstaff, Knight and Martin didn’t have something going on with them?[/quote]

See above for Redhage. I wrote a lovely post debunking the rest of these players (save Knight) on Hoops a few weeks back.

[quote]If you’re not a Wildcats fan, you’ll be stoked and if there was ever going to be a season when the Wildcats miss the playoffs, ending their 238 year run of making the finals, this could be that year.[/quote]
Nothing but wishful thinking.

Why did they sign Burdon over Illiadis?? maybe because he is a one point player and Illidas is a three...

WA had no 'one point' pure shooters on offer.

Love how all these WA people want local players.. but then imagine the outcry if they were losing games with them!!

"The main issue I'd have with the Perth squad if I were a fan is that Jervis back-up role. Burston would've been a decent option, as the writer says."

I agree. I would have happily gone with Burston as a back-up C, another solid cheaper back-up/combo guard (eg Daniel Dillon) and forgone the second import. But at the same time, our starting five could potentially be one of the best of all time so will have to wait and see what happens.