Cairns pls

Sad to see him go. All the best Wild Kyle

United current roster:

Bigs: Smith-Milner
Forwards: Trist, Barlow, Moller
Guards: Goulding, Hooley

2 Aussies and 3 import spots available.

Rumoured: Pledger.

Gone: Majok, Wesley, Adnam.

Unknown status: Andersen, Dillon.

Going back to finish Primary School?

True I didn't mention other DPs like Von Hofe or Sam Short

Who's the really really tall Chinese guy? He must be 7 foot 1 or more. If he a legit DP or is it more a sponsorship thing? Is he any good?

He is absolute trash. I watched him play in uniteds off season league and lets just say he made tohi and a bunch of youth league guys look like stars.

Sam short is still a DP and isn't good enough to be elevated. Von hoffe is playing really well in seabl

United's Chinese training player is Xiang Yu Meng or Jet Meng a 7'2" centre who spent some time at the IMG Academy in the US.

If it's Sydney after all the locals they already have 'under the cap' there will be riots in the streets of seven other cities.

What.

Adnam never played with Randle in ADL...

If Kelly wants him it's Cairns. Only have Kenny as bench guard at present.

Not sure how Corey Webster would fit in at United, he's a genuine shooting guard? Would seem a strange move. If they're going with imports at the point, 2 and 5 that's the starting 5.

Whoever called him trash is a douche. He is a good PG. a great back up and has an excellent work ethic. Joey loves him, maybe he will return to Adelaide. BUT sixers already have Doyle at 5'9 and Adnam, whilst taller is another small quick guard. I think he will go to Sydney.

@anon He is not a great backup melbourne would of kept him otherwise. He struggled hard defending opposition point guards and got exposed easily. Hooley took his minutes because he is a better defender and better offensively.

All this highlights to me is how dumb Adelaide were to sign Doyle to a three year deal.

I would much rather Adnam over Doyle.

Even if Joey prefers Doyle, he should have been signed on a year-to-year deal - we were not competing for his services with other clubs. This would at least give Adelaide some negotiating power now that better players are readily available on the free agent market. If Doyle was a free agent this year, how many clubs would be interested?

While Sydney and United are going crazy retooling, we aren't in a position to pounce on opportunities which arise from this due to poor player and contract management. Now we are in a tough spot where we may have to turn away Teys (our captain and someone who provides more value than Doyle) to upgrade our team. It's not a good look and at the end of the day, we are worse off for it.

Doyle will be fine.

Sydney would be logical choice perhaps the only choice.
Adnam, Deng, Wilson, Pineau and an import as there 5 under 480K.
Collectively not a strong bench at all but keeping a spare import spot available helps if there is an injury to any of there starters is a good idea.

just another reason why the Sixers don't win championships.

Anon, what about all of the other coach's decisions that he has clearly made or influenced that has brought the club within a few whiskers of a championship, made the GF another year, played finals each year (except maybe one?), helped develop numerous players, especially young ones, plays a game style that has brought the fans back and with their consistent winning seasons. All while the club has had uncertainty and financial restraints that Perth, NZ and Melb haven't had the last 4 (?) or so years....

Yeah my bad. The 'trash' reference was towards the Chinese development player

People being harsh on Adnam here

At one end of the court he's definitely NBL standard. Anyone who can hit 23 in a game, and put up the kind of numbers in NZNBL is obviously comfortable enough with the ball in his hands and dangerous enough that you'd never leave him open. At the other end he has some obvious weaknesses due to his size.

It depends who he's playing alongside. I wouldn't ever play him with Randle. But if Lisch is the other guard on the floor- a strong, tough, elite defender, then Adnam may not be exposed as much. Especially if Bogut is there protecting the paint.

IMHO good pickup for the Kings. Its almost like-for-like replacement for Cadee. Despite the concern he wouldn't get much minutes, I think he'll get at least 15 a game with possibly more if they blowout teams early.

They'll likely try to conserve Randle & Lisch for later part of the season if possible, so its in Adnam's best interest to do well with his allotted time. His defense should improve as well under those the tutelage of those two & he definitely has the work ethics. It will work out well IMHO.

Isaac, my thoughts on the situation are simple. Unnecessarily locking up Doyle for three years (a head scratching decision at the time) has cost us the opportunity to sign a better player in his position. It also means if we were to sign a third import in addition to Creek, we would be sacrificing Teys in the process and keeping Doyle. IMO, Teys > Doyle - particularly in an 11th man role.

Without a third import, Teys should be our 11th man for the upcoming season. He provides leadership, can defend multiple positions and is a team first player. Whilst I understand the criticism of his game, Teys is a more than serviceable to be our last contracted player. This will be especially valuable if Creek and Childress do not return as they were our best leaders last year. Regardless of how trivial some may consider the 11th spot, if we can use it to keep a better player and leader in the squad we should be doing it.


To me, our biggest flaw last season was back end depth. After Childress' injury, the last three players suiting up in the finals series were Teys, Doyle and Larkins. I would personally take Adnam over all three of these options and he would be a perfect fit alongside someone like Moore or Sobey in spot minutes. I don't believe this is the reason we lost the championship but I do believe we would improve with this signing.

Right now I'm looking at a team who was so close to winning a championship possibly losing two of their best three players (and leaders) and being hamstrung to improve their depth based on poor decisions in the past. We should be leaving no stone unturned in looking for ways to improve, however marginal.

Because we signed Doyle to a three year deal (in a situation where he had already injured his ACL and no other teams were competing for his signature), we have limited our team building options for this year and in the process lost an opportunity to get someone like Adnam. When compared to Doyle, he is putting up better numbers in a much tougher competition this offseason. IMO, he is easily the better option.

If contracts were managed properly, we could sign Adnam, retain Teys and not renew Doyle. Two backup sub six foot PGs is one too many and we have missed out on the more talented option.

I would have preferred a team like this:


Moore / Adnam
Sobey / McVeigh
Import or Creek / Drmic / Teys
Import (hopefully Childress) / Froling
DJ / Deng

If Creek returns and we can afford three imports, do not sign Teys, reinstall Creek as captain and sign a budget SEABL import more ready to contribute than Doyle.

I don't know where to begin. Frolling is the replacement for Hodgson he is a back up centre. Moore won't be starting but rather backing up Sobey at the point. McVeigh is not a shooting guard.

Oops, my mistake Zodiac - swap Froling & Deng and McVeigh & Drmic. I meant for Deng to play 4 and Froling 5.

Personally, I would be starting Moore at PG and playing Sobey at SG. We need them on the court rather than splitting minutes.

Further to your point, if we have Sobey and Moore as PGs, even more reason why we shouldn't have signed Doyle to a three year deal!

No worries Ariel 92. I'm not keen of the idea of Sobey & Moore splitting time at the point either but the roster is going to remain in a state of flux I would assume until the team knows what Creek will be doing as they want to keep an import spot spare to potentially replace Creek with.

Unfortunately the makeup of the Sixers roster might not even be known until the season starts if Creek gets an NBA training camp invite he might not get cut (assuming he doesn't make it) until late October.

SteveK2

"They'll likely try to conserve Randle & Lisch for later part of the season if possible, so its in Adnam's best interest to do well with his allotted time."

Conserving important players shows management of player minutes to prevent injuries and fatigue. Sydney's recent history shows the opposite of this. Randle, Lisch, Newley all over-played in recent seasons.

“His defense should improve as well under those the tutelage of those two”. Definitely in training and scrimmage situations. Will he be given much opportunity in games? Maybe when Lisch or Randle get injured with their excessive workloads. This has already happened to Lisch, and a Randle is getting older.

Once again a thread descends into a discussion about the 36ers lineup... nice...

Not sure whose great idea this was, but being able to rest key players in Randle and Lisch all comes down to whether Gaze trusts Adnam & Wilson to play 10mpg each... With extra talent on board, that might help them actually get some leads so that he doesn't have to run Randle and Lisch at 38mpg because the team was losing and they needed them out there, but history dictates that he will want to get as much out of his top tier players as he can to get a win at the time and the rest of the season be damned...

Time will tell, I guess...

Well, "try" is the keyword. Depending on who are being recruited for the remaining two spots, Adnam will get minutes in the backcourt since they don't have anyone else, yet.

An import big will likely take up one spot, the last is ideally a versatile D in the mould of Craig but if nothing works out, it could be another guard that will then take minutes away from the Blondies. We'll see.

A lot depends on the type of the last 2 recruits. If they get the right defensive players to complement Bogut, Deng & Pineau then it will significantly offset Adnam's, Wilson's & Kickert's deficiencies.

What they do with their last signings is a good point, as looking at the team below, I think we're making assumptions at what they should be going after...

Randle* | Adnam
Lisch | Wilson
Newls | ???
Kickert | Deng | Pineau
Bogues | ???


Blanchfields leaving, while freeing up cash (assuming) and someone who didn't really seem that involved and would make a lot of premature and incorrect decisions when on the court, really leaves that backup SF spot empty...

I'm at least assuming they need a defensive big to back up Bogues and that backup SF spot, is that obvious to everyone else?

Surely they would be bordering on stupid to not take into account at least Lisch's injury history as that's more due to wear and tear and being overworked compared to Bogut's more "car accident injuries" (according to Mr Bogut) ones, but also need to factor that in somehow as well...

Some Questions:
- More immediately, are the Kings finished splashing the cash around?
- Is it just going to be two role players to fill the spots? Could they maybe be targeting a higher quality SF to either look toward the future and add some punch with Newls coming off the bench again? *cough*McCarron*cough*
- Will Adnam and Wilson be able to take the load if Lisch goes down?
- If not, what else are the options? Moving Newls to the 2, which means the Kings need a more skilled backup 3 option?
- What if Bogues goes down? Will Deng be able to step up to start if the Kings have to start at the 5 if the back up option is a cheaper one?

An import big in the Jameel McKay mould would be a good backup option for Bogut.
The small forward spot might be harder to fill again they could go cheaper import, not sure what local free agents are available.

Educated guess is 1 will be a decent import & the other is likely a roleplayer type. May get lucky with a decent one willing to sign for less after SL.

Deng is 3/4 more than 4/5. He'd be Newl's main backup for now. Not sure where he's at right now. Few years ago, he was a better prospect than Majok Deng but Lebanon, China & Finland are not really the best leagues to develop his talents.

He does have good defensive instincts & still a terrific weakside rim protector. Maybe a viable 5 for smallball lineup.

Cool, thanks for the extra info, didn't think Deng could have gone down to the 3, but will be interesting to see where they go...

McKay could be a decent cheaper option... How's he gone since leaving the NBL though?

Be interesting to see if they intend to comply with the 5-man cap, and if so how they slip the remaining allocation.
Presumably Pineau and Wilson wouldn't be getting much more than the minimum, maybe a bit more for Adnam. Do they split the rest 50/50, or go for another minimum leaving a chunk for somebody half decent?

There's a lot of old blokes in that lineup, I can't see them being too sharp at the pointy end of the season. And lets face it, not like Gaze is known for managing his players well.

Interesting to see how good Deng is. He may be better suited to a 3/4 type role.

For the remaining big spot, do you need a Rim protecting like McKay, or somebody with more offensive tools?

McKay got cut by his team in Spain during the pre-season.

That was awhile ago, he signed in Japan & got cut then recently signed in LKL. I heard he got cut again. Either way McKay should be available now. LKL season is concluding.