It's almost impossible to keep a ten-man unit together in any given off-season. Doubly so when you're a championship team, as your players are in high demand elsewhere.

So while the goal would have been to retain as many players as possible, the reality was always that at least a couple were likely to leave.

As you've noted, the departures of Jawai and Jervis are unlikely to be any real decision made by the club beyond what salary and minutes they could allocate, and there's only so many of each to go around.

In Beal's case, it seems the club and he don't agree on his value to the team, financially, so it's essentially the same case as Jervis.

There hasn't really been too much turnover.

NZ are in the same boat losing Ced Jackson, Charles Jackson, Tai Wesley, Rueban TeRangi.
All of them wanted more money and it just wasn't there.
They have all been replaced and the team still looks good.

Perth were very lucky to get Jawai for a year, for him to play outside of Cairns in the NBL was very unlikely, and for him to do so for more than a season was almost impossible.

I doubt it was for the money either, Nate has made that much overseas, it was timing and circumstance that fell in the Wildcats' favour and they did well to sign him.

Dazz, at the end of the day Jawai won Perth the championship.

Per http://www.pressreader.com/australia/the-west-australian/20160722/282114930928104

"The West Australian understands a new deal for Shawn Redhage and the signing of Victorian shooter Dexter Kernich-Drew are also in the works"

Nice.

Import Big on the way. The final piece to the puzzle

Beal leaving got me thinking: who are the Wildcats greatest shooting guards?

My top 4 in no particular order would be:
Beal
Lisch
Crawford
Harvey

Anyone reckon any others could be considered? Grace may have played SG with Mike Ellis, but he mostly played PG throughout the 1990s.

Stewie.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DwCdtWlVio8

Dazz for some reason this song came to mind after reading your post. I don't know why, it is 2 in the morning and I'm sleep deprived.

Most imports are only around one year though, which generally gets you excluded from this sort of a conversation.

Lichti was before my time, but from what I've seen of him on tape he's not as impressive as he's made out to be by some.

The year when we pretty much started 2 point guards, 2 power forwards and a centre.

Yeah, fair call on Lichti and Stewart.

Jawai said he was looking forward to returning to Perth, and was waiting for their offer.
Again, if you take that at face value, the outcome makes no sense. But if you take the view that, for whatever reason, he was never coming back, then fine the Cats are looking for someone new.
I think Marvin did let something close to the truth out, when he quipped something to the effect that Imports were cheaper/ easier to recruit than local marquees.

Meaning that if Jawai had accepted a lower offer, they'd have retained him.

But it was going to take way too much money to keep him away from Cairns, so they didn't.

I'm not sure why you think there's something sinister going on here.

Exactly.

Interesting that Grace played SG for 3 of his 4 championships. With Ellis in 90/91 and Trahair in 95.

I except in 90-91 & 95. Watch the games.

@Nix36 Grace and Ellis took turns early on, yes. But in 1995, Trahair was definitely the SG. Ricky ran point, as he did for most of 1990s. He was/is only 6'1"

Ok so it was Ellis' 'turn' every time he was on the court. And Grace definitely played PG except for the 90% of the time Tahair setup the play. You just need to watch the games.

Rashad Tucker is the best SG the cats ever had.

Tucker is over 200cm, he averaged 8rpg, he was a SF/PF, defs not a SG

Who said anything sinister was going on???

Jawai left the 'Cats for the Taipans because he was offered a three year deal and a post-basketball future promoting positive outcomes in the outlying parts of Queensland and TS Islands. Perth couldn't offer that.

Perth will contend for a premiership again this seeason and Beal has never been so good that he's irreplacable. Not in the league's top 5 (10?) imports last year. Jervis was good, but just a back-up centre, after all that.

Trahair was coming off the bench in '95 and Ellis had his minutes reduced when Murray Arnold was head coach. Grace was always the man

Rashad tucker is one of my all time favourites. Yes he was a SF but ran the point most of that year grace was injured and pretty much took over the offense on his own. From memory he had six triple doubles in one season

Tucker is over 200cm

Trahair was coming off the bench in '95

Nice to see a concession about Grace in 90. Ellis had reduced minutes but was still the starting PG. Hurley changed the lineup in 95 midseason after starting 8-6. Grace is the man regardless of position.

The 1995 starting five was essentially two point guards and three power forwards.

There's not really any need to shoehorn people into positions and have exactly one of each.

Rashad tucker had like 13 triple doubles that season. Or maybe it was 7

Was it ever a discussion about that? It started with Dazz alleging some sort of conspiracy on the part of the Wildcats.

Never a dull moment when Dazz is involved. Keeps the off-season less boring.. lol

Btw, speaking of Rashads, remember Rashad Philips..

I wasn't alleging anything.
I was really just making the point, that whilst the changes made no sense on face value,
they did if we considered what was probably the reality behind the scenes.

So you're saying the "& Media Spin" bit got added to the title of the thread without your knowledge?

I don't know?
What ARE you having such a hard time understanding???

The reason you created this thread.

Redhage is signing a 1 season deal
leaving 1 spot open for an import C.

Eager to find out who it may be