The circus continues.....

I'd be very interested to know what James Ennis thinks of this situation....

This is Nick Marvin's world and you're all just living in it!

Just called him, he said:

"Professional sport is a rollercoaster sometimes, and it's hard,"

“But if you work hard and stay positive, good things happen. I’m feeling very positive and excited going into the season."

“Jaron should feel the same way about the second chance he’s been offered with the Wildcats. It’s a great organisation with a history I’m proud to be a part of.”

the club's intention is for him to see out the rest of the 2016/17 season in a Wildcats singlet.

Top Bloke that Ennis guy.

It makes perfect sense. They used the rules in order to be able trial an import (their fourth) mid-season. That trial didn't work out as they'd hoped so they went back to Plan A.

No idea. Will be interesting tomorrow.

Tinfoil hat removed.

l don't understand why they deactivated him, didn't give him enough time. takes time to get going, either he comes out swinging or just go on the plane back from Sydney.

looking forward to see the game tomorrow night, him being back will be great to see.

glad people can use his jersey.

welcome back jj and he proves why he came out in the in the beginning.

I just read the Ennis thing how bizarre is that? What's he got to do with the price of eggs?

A bit of damage control there by Nick Marvin "Quick someone ring Ennis over in the states, we've gotta give em a bit of red meat the fans will tear us to shreds over this cock up".

"Hi James just say something mate anything I've got a blank cheque ready to pop in the mail tonight give the animals something tell em how good Johnson is"

"Yeah but I've never met him"

"They don't know that! Who cares my god man just do this favour for me I can't go out like this. I'm dying here they're trying to pin this Ingram thing on me. How was I meant to know he was crap? I mean they all look good in the D-League you know what I'm saying?"

"What do you mean by they?"

"Oh god mate come on mate James buddy blank cheque I'll even throw in one of those bloody koalas with the yellow t-shirt they look pretty swish."

"How big is the koala?"

"You do this for me I'll have a quiet word to Jack and we might be able to send ya a real live one over"

"For real?"

"For reals"

"Sweet!"

I think we all agreed this was likely to happen, but don't go suggesting it was all some kind of fiendish plot.
The Cats made what at the time seemed like a reasonable decision, to replace ONE of their players. Something they assumed they could handle.
Who knows, maybe they angered the Basketball Gods, but the wheels completely fell off. Lost both their PG's to injury, then suddenly their new import leaves.
Yes, it makes them look like Jackasses, but suddenly re-signing JJ looks like the sensible steadying move.
We know the guy can play, and if Prather has to run the point, suddenly having "another Prather" to play the 3 is highly desirable.
NBL Basketball is often about getting the best player available, and making the plays fit, rather than shopping for the perfect fit. Since the guy is still here and training that was obviously points in his favour.
Plus we don't really know how many players were on their "short-list"? Maybe it was only Ingram, JJ, and players similar.

As for "the club's intention is for him to see out the rest of the 2016/17 season in a Wildcats singlet" I guess at this point they just have to bite the bullet. As it is, they'll be scrubbing that egg off for months to come.

As for Ennis, yeah its a bit weird. But he's now a legit NBA player, and dropping his name occasionally is good for PR. And at this point, they pretty much need anything they can get.

Anyway, for me JJ is still the guy who dropped that clutch 3 to send us into overtime, so I'm glad he's back. (Or never left, as the case may be.)

That press release is cringeworthy.

Yep, so many reasons to hate Perth.

Gleeson is a flog

"James you just started in an NBA season opener and put up strong numbers while being matched up in stints against the biggest emerging NBA talent right now, Karl Anthony-Towns... what do you think about Jaron Johnson being re-activated by the Wildcats?"

- A reporter, probably

Plus we don't really know how many players were on their "short-list"? Maybe it was only Ingram, JJ, and players similar

Perth are like the Clinton's. They win a lot although its hard to like the way they go about it.

A conspiracy theorist would think Johnson did something wrong. The club needed to punish him, but didn't want the bad press. He becomes deactivated but not released.

The club gets media hype from signing a lights out d-league shooter, who then promptly returns to the USA.

Johnson has been training with the team and is straight back into the squad.

Others would say, it was a stroke of good luck that Johnson was still hanging around and training. Typically i'd lean this way and it was just good luck, but the whole use of the word "deactivated" makes me question logic.

Interesting that they are now saying he's hear for the rest of the season. What changed in 10 days for them to now think he's the right player for the job?

Personally, i was bamboozled when they released him in the first place.

Haters gonna hate.

Baby, Nick's just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
Shake it off
Shake it off

Why include that line even if it is true? It seems silly to commit to a guy they sacked a week ago. Sure go with any port in a storm but in the mean time they should be looking for someone good to replace him with.

Plus we don't really know how many players were on their "short-list"? Maybe it was only Ingram, JJ, and players similar

NBA clubs just made their final cuts a couple of days ago

Such a weird situation. I wonder if we'll ever know what went on.

Perth continually prove why they are so hated. This is stupid stuff.

If Ingram ever looks like saying anything Marvin will take him out on his boat to do a spot of fishing, minus the fishing rods.

Such a weird situation. I wonder if we'll ever know what went on.

True, but do we know if any of those were on the Cats short-list?

Or perhaps more to the point, how many NBA de-listees would be prepared to jump into the middle of this mess?

"the club's intention is for him to see out the rest of the 2016/17 season in a Wildcats singlet."

The clubs intention....that doesn't sound entirely concrete or confident to me.
I'd say Johnson has a few weeks to save his bacon. Cats would still be looking for a replacement and if he isn't "fitting" by the time they find someone it could be bye bye JJ again.

"The clubs intention....that doesn't sound entirely concrete or confident to me."

Exactly, Train. To me it's a silly add-in that at best sounds weak and at worst will result in even more egg on the face. That whole article was really clumsy.

"However, you can see the difference between a club that will actively strive for excellence, and one that does not."

Maybe, but it's also the difference between a club that has a sugar daddy and one that does not. Most clubs probably don't have a budget allowance to just sack an import and bring another one in.

Also, other clubs probably have some degree of faith in their coaching staff that they could help iron out any deficiencies with their playing group in the first instance. That's obviously not the case in Perth.

Gleason has the final say on recruiting and Bendat has not subsidized the team since the move to Perth Arena.

leungtl, thought the same thing. Surely he has other things to worry about. And even if they've pre-written it for his manager to approve, it's hardly relevant.

"Also, other clubs probably have some degree of faith in their coaching staff that they could help iron out any deficiencies with their playing group in the first instance. That's obviously not the case in Perth."

Yeah, spot on. Perth's coaching staff have clearly lost the plot over the past three seasons, to the complete detriment of the club. If they had a decent coaching staff they probably would have won three titles in that time instead of only two.

So, the guy who was a bad fit two weeks ago is now suddenly the right guy to finish out the season with? If I were a Cats fan I would be ... confused? Does that mean they don't want to do whatever it takes to get the right pieces to win this year?

It will be interesting to see how JJ responds to this. It would be easy to harbour some resentment that could easily mess with the chemistry of the team in the long run. These on-again-off-again relationships can be messy!

It's all quite weird.

But on the upside- for Perth- Johnson is a better, and more well rounded player than Ingram. This move improves their team.

Well actually no, it doesn't. It just returns the team back to what it was (injuries aside).

Cats with Johnson is better than Cats with Ingram. Ie: Bringing Johnson back improves their team.

LV, while you are of course right, so am I, we're just talking about different things. The Cats are no better than they were before this debacle unless the abject lesson meted out to JJ somehow makes him better than he would have been anyway.

We don't know for sure that there was "any lesson", there are a number of possibilities about what went on. We're all speculating.

All we know for sure right now, is that this week they have Johnson and last week they had Ingram. That makes them better (all other things being equal. ie: Putting aside the injuries).

Tonight JJ will torch Illawarra.

He will justify the recall and show he is the right fit for the club.

Any person who is still willing to play with the team after they deactivated him is a person who has fortitude.

It is carpe diem for JJ right now.

Go JJ.

"Any person who is deactivated and still gets paid is laughing all the way to the bank."

I'm sure he would rather be activated and getting paid.

"Any person who is still willing to play with the team after they deactivated him is a person who is short of a quid.

Fixed

Exactly, Train. To me it's a silly add-in that at best sounds weak and at worst will result in even more egg on the face. That whole article was really clumsy.

does he have a guaranteed contract? and they're just keeping him around as an expensive backup plan?

It's not rockets science.
When an NBL club is going to fringe players in the USA to convince them to move half way around the world, to a city they have never heard of, they strive hard to build credibility. Especially in this day of social media, treating an import poorly would be a bad move. Everyone understands getting cut, but if you maintain a reputation of looking after the player, that's a big plus. So yeah, I imagine he was still in the Big House, and still getting some kind of salary.
The Cats keep other guys around as Training Players, so why not a guy of his calibre. Beats training against the SBL guys.
And yeah, maybe they had reason to worry about Prather getting a call-up, or maybe they wanted to make sure Ingram worked out.
Plus for JJ, if he's looking for another gig, its better to stay fresh and keep training, plus I reckon a couple of other NBL teams might have been looking in his direction.

Now Yes, obviously this just reverts the team to version 1.0, but I would call it making the best of a bad situation.
We'll never know how many phone calls they made between losing Ingram and re-hiring JJ.

People just can't get past the fact that Perth released him, then re-signed him a week later. That simple issue seems to be more than their minds can handle.

It's funny, for the past couple of years people have banged on about how we need another wing-player (supposedly, according to all the armchair admirals, that is the way the modern game is played) so the Cats went out and got another "wing player"
And yeah, it doesn't really work.

From the moment he was announced, I thought he was a strange fit. But non, no, the armchair admirals banged, he's exactly what we want, "going to be a great partner for Prather," going to be fast exciting and athletic.
So yeah, turns out that what we need is an old school SG.

Thing is, Beal is gone, JJ is what we've got, and due to an unfortunate confluence of events, it looks like we'll have to live with that.

Some Perth fans ARE far too spoilt. They want a ring every year, but don't want the team to take a risk to get it.
We took a risk on Prather and Jawai last year, and it paid off. This year, in the wake of other teams loading up, we have tried to improve.

It pays to keep in mind that this time last year, people thought Jawai was a useless fat slob, and Prather a poor imitation of Deandre Daniels.

I would love to think that there are NBA quality players just lining up to come to Perth, but for whatever reasons that doesn't appear to be the case. Even at the best of times it's a gamble.

It's rather telling that when we attempted to replace JJ, our goto guy was Ingram.
Yes I know, according to all the armchair admirals, there's a whole squad of great players, freshly cut from the NBA, just itching for a chance to get on a plane to Perth.
Perhaps the best illustration of this fallacy is Sydney.
They are clearly outspending every other team by a significant amount, and are backed by the world famous Anschutz group. Yet even they have struggled to land better than average imports.

JJ looks to be a 3, when we need a 2, and his ball handling appears suspect. But he can hit the 3, so I'm hoping that he can develop into his role. Time will tell.

"People just can't get past the fact that Perth released him, then re-signed him a week later."

They didn't release him. They took him off their roster and then put him back on.

People just can't get past the fact that Perth released him, then re-signed him a week later.

They didn't release him. They took him off their roster and then put him back on.

Let's hope he was being paid from the salary cap.
Maybe the NBL should ask for clarification.

So if he was just "taken off the roster" was he still being paid?

lmao

So if he was just "taken off the roster" was he still being paid?

Seems legit