Starting 5: Gaze/Doug Overton/Chris Williams/Scott Fisher/Mark Bradtke
Bench: Dwayne Mclain/Darnell Mee/Leroy Loggins/Terry Dozier(power-forward)/Reggie Smith(centre)/Al Green(off-guard)/Chris Anstey(centre)

ps- I put up an 11 man squad on first post thinking it was 12. So now is my 12-man squad and "Al Green" makes my team

I'm taking longevity out of it and just picking my best team.

Anstey
C Williams
Childress
Gaze
Jackson

Without a good sortable stats database, its too hard to fairly work this out, so I'm just going to go with the five I'd like to see take on the best of the NBL...

Bradtke
MacKinnon
Rose
Gaze
Mee

In the modern tradition, I'd go small around Bradtke and rely on the length and athleticism of MacKinnon, Rose and Mee to clean the defensive glass. Plenty of defence, shooting, slashing and playmaking in that five!

Let's get a time machine and play all of these fives off against each other, now that would be amazing!

Now that would be something to watch Paul! Break 20 of the NBL's best ever players into four five man teams. Each team plays the other three. 4 x 5 min quarters. Bonus points for each quarter won. Top two fight it out in the title game!

2000's imports like Mike Chappell(future NBA) and Chris Burgess Cairns Taipans were very dominant, so much talent in league. Plus guys like Todd Lichti/Willie Farley/and so many more. Guys like Cal Bruton and Rocky Smith were great players to.

Ricky Grace / Cal Bruton (c)
Andrew Gaze / Al Green
Leroy Loggins / Robert Rose
Terry Dozier / Chris Williams
James Crawford / Reggie Smith

DP's Bradke,D-mac,Childress,Ennis,Fisher

I'm not sure I'd put late 90s in there, that period was dour and low scoring. Once they cleaned that up I thought 01 and 02 were both really entertaining seasons with high-quality basketball.

Agree about the late 80s and early 90s, that era can never be replicated, the NBL found itself, the public discovered basketball, not many teams had discovered defence, and the big disparity in talent between the best and rest players in the league allowed the stars to really stand out.

PG - Ricky Grace
SG - Andrew Gaze
SF - Leroy Loggins
PF - Mark Davis
C - Mark Bradtke

Bench - Brett Maher, James Crawford, Cal Bruton, Robert Rose, Chris Anstey.

Coach - Brian Goorjian

I would have loved to put Phil Smyth as coach, but Goorjian's record speaks for itself. 6 championships and no worse than the Semi-finals every season from 1990-2009. Can't get better than that in this league.

Grace / DMac
Gaze / Green
Rose / Loggins
Crawford / Williams
Bradtke / Smith

Add Overton and Childress because I'm allowed 12.

BG would have to be the coach.

Mills
Ware
Ennis
Childers
Jawai

I win!

Todd Fuller
Derrick Alston
Awvee Storey
Jo Jo English
Will Blalock

Mills
Ware
Ennis
Childers
Jawai

Oh, and just for fun coming off the bench I will have

Homicide Williams
Joe Ingles
Shane Heale
Dave Anderson
Matt Knight
Andrew Gaze
Leonard Copeland

I still win

Lol Bear, I'll take my 5 against yours... Bradtke, MacKinnon, Rose, Gaze, Mee!

Would be a fun game, but I feel like you'd only have the edge with a fully healthy Childress over MacKinnon.

And I'll take my five over both of yours! There have been so many great players over the years you could probably name 20 teams and still be right on the money.

Ha, seriously I would have a 30 point lead after the 1st quarter with that line up!

:)

Disgusted to see no Vlahov

Bradtke
Vukona
Vlahov
Lucas
Martin

I think you HAVE to factor in "longevity" or some notion of "overall" contribution.
Otherwise you have to contend with the guys who played a couple of games here after a successful NBA (or Euro) career, and someone like Longley who played a couple of games as a teenager.
So, that said:

Ricky Grace / Brett Maher
Andrew Gaze / Kevin Lisch
Leroy Loggins / Sam McKinnon
Scott Fisher / Mark Davis
Chris Anstey / Mark Bradke

Extended bench: Robert Rose & Wayne McDaniel

"Paul you have Jackson? I'm surprised after what I saw this year"

Here are some of the reasons why I chose Jackson over Grace, D-Mac and CJ Bruton:

Won assists title in first 4 years in NBL - only player in league history to do so.

Played in titles in first three years - only player in league history to do so.

Won 3 x club MVPs (I think) in championship years.

Won 2 x Grand Final MVP - equal best in league history with Grace, Maher and Anstey

IMO the import that is the best player that gets left out of these discussions is Ray Owes who played for the Geelong Supercats. Still to this day he is one of my favourite imports to ever play here. Owes went on to play for the New York Knicks after his few seasons here , and by memory he had a 16 point and 12 rebound game for the Knicks.

Great call Rass, he was a beast at the Supercats.

Yes agree that longevity is a factor, let's say 50+ games, I haven't checked the exact game number but that's the idea.. roster of 12

Modern game uses combo guards rather than traditional 1 or 2 spot players.
So in the guard positions: James Ennis, Andrew Gaze, Darnell Mee, Ricky Grace, CJ Bruton, Lanard Copeland
Forwards/Centre: Kevin Brooks, James Crawford, Dwayne McClain, Chris Anstey, Josh Childress, Leroy Loggins

Honourable mentions to: Heal, Fisher, Tim Dillon and a few others

Starters: pure opinion but you could go 99 different combinations and still win.
Didn't pick Longley as he played as a kid and I considered form in the NBL to be a selection criteria.

Oops Ennius didn't play 50 games, substitute for Heal Or Robert Rose.

And Brian Goorjian would coach that team to destroy any other lineup, the athleticism, quickness, inside out offensive firepower and defense would be world class.

Dwayne mclain JR was a shooting guard. Ennis by the way was a small forward

"Ha, seriously I would have a 30 point lead after the 1st quarter with that line up!"

Bear, that's because my boys would spot you a 30 point lead after the 1st just to make it a challenge!

I reckon Jawai would foul out pretty fast and then it'd be 5 on 4 :-)

To be fair, I haven't seen Ware play yet, but he'd need to be pretty good to have a bigger impact on the game than Mee or Rose!