I highly doubt Giddey was seriously in the running not because he didn't deserve to be there much better player than Green but because Goorj, BA and Giddey's reps would've known a serious injury at the Olympics would've had a big impact on where Giddey would've been drafted. We all remember what happened to Dante Exum at the 2014 WC thankfully though he had already been drafted by the Jazz at that point.

I assume the anon means credibility wise. Creek's very lucky he's still got another year to go on his contract with SEM otherwise it could already be career over for him. Even then I don't like his chances of getting another NBL contract after this season.

Yeah, I totally agree. I mean why should Creek be allowed to play basketball when there was a mere allegation against him that went on to be thrown out? Everybody who ever has anything said about them should be completely banned from all sports!

Back on topic, #419 Motum was still selected as an emergency and Zodiac, I understand your point about the draft but has Goorj have some history of lying that I'm not aware of? Otherwise I think it’s safe to say (at that point in time) green was better and especially no point in taking giddey since there was already delly, sobey and exum. Plus patty and ingles to handle the ball also, no need to have another ball handler from his POV. Don’t want to run into the same issue like 2016 were we had both martin and lisch doing fuck all at the end of the bench

I find it hard to question the choices and judgement of the first Boomers coach to ever take us to a medal - a coach that did that while missing our starting center in Baynes, our best player in Simmons, and influential possible pieces like Maker, Humphries and Broekhoff.

If Goorjian is saying that Green was more ready than Giddey, and says Sobey was the better choice for the style he was running, then those are basically the facts. I am not saying his success suddenly makes him infalluble but I think his opinion trumps anyone on this board and we should treat it with the respect it deserves.

I think Sobes completely proved goorg wrong from not having him in the initial squad. He also went about it in a way that made Brian totally respect his game & his attitude. Goorg could have been stubborn & stuck by his guns but being the coach he is rewarded him for how he balled all season.

Well done to sobey to solidify a spot!

Creek was convicted by a hoops.com jury.

Credit where it's due, Sobey had a great season, probably his best ever, and was in top form going into the tryouts and Olympics.

Giddey did exceptionally well, for a kid making his professional debut. Whether that would have translated to international level, well I guess we'll never know. Hopefully he's available for future WCs and Olympics

Tbh those points by Goorj are good points.

Didn't force a Lemanis offence on a bunch of new guys where that could easily be a disaster - can’t have them learning how to apply it and chemistry during the Olympics compared to a bunch of guys that spent yonks together working on it.

But then let those who have been apply it still.

Focussed on defence - used Thybulle brilliantly for that, made the Delly adjustment in the medal game.

I know he said it was Green vs Giddey, but probably also gave Sobey the nod over Giddey for the defensive athleticism and shooting - tbh that’s fair.

Was Lemanis' offence/game-plan that hard to learn/implement?

I would think that X's and O's are important but not the issue. With new players, Chemistry, execution, timing are.

Sounds like a Gurujian master-stroke, especially with the ultimate result, However, it still seems simpler for half the team to learn the "Lemanis"-O, with the other half of the team helping out (cos they already know it) than for the whole team to learn a new, unfamiliar one.

More like, Gurujian is his own coach! Different system? Yes. Reasons? Not the ones above!

Goorj didn't place a big emphasis on X and Os offensively - looked largely structure-less which is what they went for. Avoids being slow and stifling themselves which can happen if you’re not the spurs or spurs-lite boomers.

" More like, Gurujian is his own coach! Different system? Yes. Reasons? Not the ones above!"

No, I’d say it is the ones above. Goorj has said as much himself multiple times.

It looked to me like Goorj thought "shit, I have maybe a week of camp, if that, a bunch of new guys flying in from all over. Not sure who will even show and who won't (Simmons). Let's go on Synergy and see how their domestic teams use the main guys and put those actions in."

Result was what we saw. Smart way to do it with stuff all prep time and so much uncertainty. Remember they also lost a practice game due to covid protocols.

Very interesting comments and it's hard to criticise any of his explanations.

I've always been an advocate of selecting players to win now, so I'm not particularly critical of Giddey's omission. Having said that, usually a 12th man can be allocated to a promising young player. I wonder if later we might regret not letting Giddey be more involved. He played a warm-up game, but that's quite different to major tournament experience. Considering Delly's regression and Simmons unreliability, Giddey might be a starter by the next major tournament, aged just 20.

Might the reason Goorj didn't choose the Lemanis O because he also didn't have assistants with experience running it? Who was the assistant in charge of offense? Caporn? I recall Goorj saying that Rillie was in charge of the defensive system.

I can see the argument for not running the Lemanis O with little preparation time and several new players, but let's take a look at who had experience with the Lemanis offense:

A lot of experience:
Baynes, Landale, Kay, Ingles, Goulding, Mills, Delly, Sobey

Some experience:
Exum

Very little/no experience:
Thybulle, Reath, Green

So that's all of the main rotation with enough Lemanis-O experience to know it well, with the exception of Thybulle. Combined with the statement that the system was built with the expectation that Simmons would play, who has almost no experience running the Lemanis offense, then the offensive change makes a lot more sense. Simmons's withdrawal made more of an impact that simply him not playing.

I don't want to play down the achievement of winning bronze in Tokyo, but I think we had some luck to get there. We need to improve to medal in the World Cup and it's our offense that could be improved most. There should be an established system.

This is where having the same coach for the B-team was so valuable. In the past we had players like Kay, Creek and Goulding slot in beautifully with the A-team that was running the same system. It's under this arrangement Australia went from being ranked barely top-10 to a top 3 ranked team. What's the coaching arrangement for the upcoming Asia games?