Btw Angus Brandt will suit up but no Matty Knight. Derek Cooke Jr is amazingly still waiting for visa clearance which may happen in the next 6 mins... or maybe not.

Ugh... just... ugh...

LOL I wonder if that small ball shenanigans is just pre-season clowning around or its their actual intended primary lineup? Vinnie's struggling and Ellis can hold his ground but that's not how you get the best out of him.

If 'experimenting' is their modus operandi, its just going to be another wasted season IMHO. Kings should quit clowning around, bite the bullet and sign that 3rd big import to mitigate Humphries' problems.

I'll throw a name I saw drafted by the new G-league expansion team (Wisconsin Herd) that also drafted Perry Ellis. Pretty sure it will make some Cats fans like Nick go rabid here... currently unsigned and sounded like he'd love to come back to the NBL... D-u-n-i-g-a-n.

Walker still killing it

That's because it's still pre-season... got at least one more game to convince everyone to draft him in their fantasy leagues and at the height of his popularity, buh bow... Brad Hill mode...

Although I think he still has the potential to actually put up some good numbers this season, especially if Knight plays limited minutes/games and Cooke Jnr takes a bit longer to actually get clearance lol...

Hmm... been about 12hours Steve and no nibbles on the Dunigan suggestion... I'm actually a little disappointed! I completely agree though, (strangely enough) and I don't think that this small ball is pre-season guff, I think it's how they actually intend to play most of the season... We've had some success with Isaac in the starting line up, but then who is in reserve? Singh grabbed four boards last night in limited minutes, so he's doing what he's been brought in to do, but it's not ENOUGH... Not sure if he's carrying an injury (there was an ankle injury late int he SEABL season?) or he's just out of favour, but Tommy played zero minutes last night and has probably only played a handful of them in the pre-season so far... He's one of the only Kings who played regularly (locally) but there WAS a rumour that he was thought to be let go of his final season of his contract earlier in the off-season, so who knows...

Dunigan would be great, I would have been happy with a Gladness to keep the budget down (but he's signed elsewhere now) but I'm wondering what sort of $$$ he'd be demanding... It would muck with our budget a bit to get a third import in, especially if we have two local marquee players, but really, enough is enough and they need to pull the pin now, or it will turn into a ripcord...

Can't be that hard to sort out a visa.
Tokoto already playing.
Is Steindl still in Perth training?

I'd assume not:

Huge thanks to Clint Steindl for joining the boys this pre-season.

The sharp-shooter is heading abroad and we wish him a big 2017/18! pic.twitter.com/7BzxOzN584

— Perth Wildcats (@PerthWildcats) September 21, 2017

Cheers Kober .

I've been screaming for Perth to get Dunigan back for years now. It just doesn't make any sense why no-one is interested in him. He's an absolute beast of a player.

Hey! We got a bite after 2 days! I guess the Dunigan love is fading :).

Kings salary cap this season is just shy of 1.3 Mil. I'm not sure if that figure is before or after the marquee allowance. Lets see if I can break it down without writing a thesis...

After the 5 players $400k limit, 900k would be the total salaries of Lisch, Newley, Humphries, Blanchfield and the 2 imports. Assuming Lisch and Newls on Marquee discount for 350k, that means 550k for the other 4. You can roughly guess that each Kings import would be on ~110k to 130k.

Dunigan would be on similar pay packet I'd imagine but losing 1 Marquee discount may push it up by a further 200k! So overall Dunigan may cost them 350 to 400k including the luxury tax.

Its all my speculation but you may ask Harvey Lister, is 400k worth the chance to double the number of fan attendance in the harbour city? Its a tough market and it definitely doesn't tolerate half-measures... Show the money or go home I guess.

I'd guess Lisch and Newley would be $500-600k between them, at least.

Who fills the Steindl role ?

What role?

I know this is not the thread for tonight's game, but man, Tokoto looked a hell of a lot better tonight than I remember him looking at UNC. Wow. Smooth as hell.

Pretty entertaining game, but what a miss by Newley at the end...

Newley and Lisch both shot awfully the entire night, especially Newley. Gaze was pulling out what's left of his hair. His stress levels in game are intense, strange given Lindsay was polar opposite.

Wonder how long it will be before they add someone who can rebound. Same old story too often tonight, despite the stats looking even.

(Tokoto) Both. His game winner was I think a drive and am easy short shot from the left. He had a monster dunk in the 4th qtr comeback also. Hit several jump shots in the 1st qtr.

Perry Ellis looked very good around the basket, he had nice post moves and scored often down there. Nice alley oop pass from Pineau too. Humphries was good, nice to see layups made, unlike Maric last season.

Blanchfield was injured for Sydney, looked like back pain, and there would appear no chance he plays v Jazz, and i'd be surprised if he travels with the team. He was playing well too. Feel bad for him.

Sadly, up to now, the Kings look as though there is no chemistry. Gaze was riding Leslie hard for mistakes, he responded but its risky treating your imports like that whilst they barely know you yet.

Gleeson was the first coach I have seen ejected in an NBL game in quite a long time. I imagine he didn't realise there would be no footage to watch in the locker room.

I'd imagine if Tokoto always shot as well as he did last night then he'd be in the NBA, but yeah, it was a mix of midrange and going to the basket. Only took the one 3pt shot. Made some nice passes off the drive as well. Easily the most impressive guy on the court.

Perry was #2... I think "iso Perry on the left" is going to be the Kings' #1 most effective play this season.

Brandt's touch around the hoop was impressive, I imagine Nielsen has had something to do with that. Even so, I think Perth are going to miss Knight's toughness around the hoop.

This seems as good a place as any as I don't know if it deserves it's own thread...

Tokoto was amazing last night... Offensively doing whatever he wanted and he owned Newls who had yet another poor pre-season game, but hopefully it's a pattern with him as he had a rubbish pre-season last year and came good... Other than that though, I can't really remember any other Wildcats standing out... Looking at the boxscore, Cotton and Brandt both had good games, and I remember seeing flashes of "ooh, nice" from Cotton and "that's solid" re: Brandt, but chalk this win up to great scoring from JPT and once again, the Kings inability to make changes on the fly and do what it takes to shut down the hot opposition player...

From the Kings side, was disappointing to see Blanchfield go down... Seemed to trip over his own feet and came up bad... Looking at him straight after on the bench, was holding his back as well, hopefully it's not serious... He was suited up at the airport with the team this morning in their tweets, so hopefully he's a game day inclusion in Utah if he's good to go as his rebounding has been great this pre-season and he was just getting his eye in from outside as well...

Tommy once again with very limited minutes... Managed to make some friends with JPT, JPT pushing off on him getting called for the foul and then Tommy gets a tech for clapping in his face, giving him a stir... I'm thinking that he's on the outer, Dane had 3x more minutes and you'd think that like Chris said above, the HUGE lack of chemistry being such a problem, you'd still want to be giving the proper team as much time together on court as possible because they've had such a limited time together, still...

But more on the serious lack of chemistry... This goes back to not having the team together for as long as others... Our imports got in at the start of this month, if that... Not good enough... Sure, we had Newls, Cadee and Vinnie off with Boomers duty, but there's no excuse that the rest of the team can't be working harder and starting sooner... Defensively, it was piss poor... JPT had a field day and boxing out was non-existent for stretches...

Some positives though... After a rocky start Travis came good... Isaac had a good game but wasn't on the court in the dying minutes, so obviously last night wasn't a true indication of how the team will be run this season... Isaac and Perry with great touches down low, but both seem to lack that toughness... IH seems more a 4 than a proper 5, on par with Brandt, really...

Was great to see Trev get ejected... he was riding the refs from the tip off, and just wouldn't let it go after that first tech, charging onto the court to give the refs a piece of his mind... More than enough chances were given, so he got an early mark...

Talking with a rival head coach after the game, when asked what he thought of the Kings small-ball approach, his initial facial reaction told the full story before he even tried to think of how to respond politely... "I'd be nervous if I was them, need at least another big" really reiterates the feeling a lot of us have been going on about for weeks...

Kings well ahead of schedule though, it took them nearly half a season last year to have me leaving Qudos feeling that disappointed and frustrated...

Last nights boxscore:
http://www.fibalivestats.com/matches/77987/18/96/37/22kbwFZUZplA/

Nice write ups guys, good to see we all saw it the same way. I guess what they could use is a Josh Boone type player. There will be another import. I don't see Leslie having any issue staying, unlike Bryson, so it won't be at the expense of a standing import.

I was very impressed with the crowd, would guess 2750 -3100 range. Ive seen at least that small a crowd back at the Entertainment Centre in years past. Factor in a Wednesday night and slightly pricey tickets for non members, it was a good showing.

That block from Leslie was the highlight of the night for me, the fact he didn't give up on it alone, and then stuffing it in his (Tokoto?) face. BS call by the ref.

The game felt like a regular game most of the way, after a slowish start. They tried hard to make the presentation as vanilla as possible though. Not sure that's a brilliant strategy when looking to add new fans, anyway its all about buildup I guess.

I hope those tables and high chairs are not a permanent fixture, otherwise Ill be asking to be moved from my low seat. Even 16 or 18 rows back last night it slightly interfered with the sideline.

I overheard someone say that the tables and high chairs were just for that game while the corporate boxes get sorted out.

Agree on Leslie, looks the goods - not a superstar 20ppg type of guy, but he contributes in a lot of different ways. I think the Newley/Leslie/Blanchfield combo at the 3/4 spots gives us great versatility and good rebounding despite the lack of height, but playing one of those guys at the 4 spot is really going to hurt us down the other end against bigs who can post up. The lineup with Perry at the 5 in particular... Perry did an OK job on Brandt, but just doesn't have the length to challenge the actual shot. I can just imagine what a big like Kickert is going to do to us down low.

Probably don't have to imagine what someone like Kickert can do to us, didn't he have a field day against us at the Blitz? Same with Wesley when we played United...

Leslie I think will fit well, but the problem has never really been our back court as such...

Kickert scored 25 against Kings and mostly in the paint. Brandt is not that good and should not be able to score that easily. Hope Jeff Wrongagain will listen to the fans soon and get an import centre.