After Fordey gave the Taipans the rough end of the pineapple following the NZB game, there may be some charges in the starting lineup and a bit more fight.

*changes

Where's Big Nate been? Injured?

Yes, Nate's got an injury. Two more weeks? Not sure.

Same coach as last game?
So, who was supposed to be worse than silly?

Zimmerman has had a liquid trash season, and you can see that his teammates have given up on him.

What a shame. I was dead wrong; thought he'd be a ripper

Cairns not even looking like NBL standard the last two quarters. So sad to see them playing with so little confidence, teamwork or energy. Even missing sitters, so credit to Hawks for their stifling defence. Not like a Forde team at all.

Zimmy told us all he was going to be great, Manu.
And he came on Machado's recommendation.
Forde’s dream is going to be very hard to achieve any time soon.
I hope he learns.

Zimmerman has the worst hands. McCall looks burnt out. Emotion and effort can only carry yo so far when you lack the horses.

#44 Nelson reminds me of a very very young Sobey!

In all fairness to Cairns, the budget is absolute minimum, how many of that Cairns side makes other teams. Zimmerman as said above, hands are woeful, and how many air balls did Cairns shoot, it's lol material.

In all fairness to Cairns, the budget is absolute minimum,

#44 Nelson reminds me of a very very young Sobey!

To add context to this, ALL teams are required to spend the salary floor which is 90% of the Salary 'cap'. So they are only 10% off most teams, 10% I think we can all agree is not that much.

This club is pure trash from top to bottom.

Cairns spend 90% of their cap, other clubs spend the maximum plus they use all the rules re marquee and other rules. While big clubs spend 2.5 million or more Cairns are still around the 1.2 million.

Who is at greater risk of losing their job at the moment - Forde @ Snakes or Buford @ Kings??

Forde has 3 more years to go!

KR using 'data' by comparing Phoenix, Crocs, Gold Coast and the Bullets and GF appearances Vs Taipans. Hilarious!

"So they are only 10% off most teams, 10% I think we can all agree is not that much."

I think this is badly wrong on both claims

1. There's a number of teams who spend significantly more than the cap most seasons (Perth, Melbourne, SEM, NZ, Sydney, All those clubs would've spent well over the cap numerous times, if not every year for some of them. Maybe even Illawarra this season.

2. 10% is actually quite a bit for a relatively low money sport like basketball. We're not talking the NBA where Patty Mills can be super rich earning $8 mil for a championship contender, or super rich earning $12mil somewhere else.

And in addition to all that

3. There's extra difficulty attracting talent somewhere like FNQ I would imagine. If you were an import, would you rather go to a big city with culture, or a little place where it's 30 degrees with 90% humidity most days, and you can't even swim at the beach half the time due to stingers and crocs?

Cairns have actually done quite well over the last 10-12 years. Relative to all the factors working against them.

Last season and this season, not so good, but 2 Grand Finals under Fearne and a very good year under Kelly, they've regularly embarrassed clubs with far more resources than them. Their record speaks for itself.

Forde has 3 more years to go!

Well the struggles this season can be boiled down to where the money is going. Machado, zimm and McCall would be eating up a fair chunk of that cap and only 1 of those guys is playing like a marquee.

I actually like Forde as a coach - calls a spade a spade. Kelly seems like a nice guy but wasn't a great coach. Got results the first year when Oliver and Machado had blinders. Fearne seemed to get the most out of the clientele he was provided - had a lot of solid Australian guys wanting to play for him (Gliddon, McCarron, Sobey, Jack White) but management wanted to go a different way. How’d that turn out?

You can’t keep blaming/firing coaches. When are people going to started making the board/GM accountable? The whole of the Taipans management is starting to become a laughing stock. No Australian players want to play there and the imports last a year and realise they want out. Taipans need a change from the top!!

"No Australian players want to play there"

Would you go there for significantly less money? That is all it is at the end of the day

Under Fearne they were getting young Aussie prospects (McCarron and co) and would have got Jack White retuning from College. They now spend all their money on imports who are short term and focussed on padding their own stats and therefore struggle to build team culture which they had under Fearne. To his credit, I think Forde is trying to instil this.
After spending a large chunk of our money on imports, we are left with Australian players that are journeymen and essentially not wanted by any other program = cheap.

My intel is that the current team salary cap is just under $300k MORE than Fearne in 2016.

For all of his faults Fearne was able to get more out of his players than any other Taipans coach in history. The board made the decision which is proved to be wrong and rather than be held accountable, they have sacked Kelly to make him the scapegoat and then hired another Australian coach that seems to have a number of similarities to Fearne.

Beecroft has been in charge for way too long. Re: scapegoats - let's not forget when asked by the club to be coach he himself declined the role.

McCarron was a D2 college player. That was just a lucky pick

White would never go to Cairns as Melbourne would always pay overs for him

"My intel is that the current team salary cap is just under $300k MORE than Fearne in 2016."

Context is important as that is what they have to pay now to be 90% of the salary. Other teams have gone up by more than $300k I suspect

Yeah, 2016 was the first year of the new salary cap structure. Cap has gone way up since then.

I feel you're exaggerating Fearne's pull on Australian players in your previous 2 posts @TaipansHoops23. McCarron came because of Mark Worthington's influence. Sobey came because he was given an opportunity to be a training player, not because Fearne was the coach. Gliddon came because it was the best opportunity for him. You say imports only stay for 1 season yet Machado is in his 3rd season. Newbill stayed 2 seasons and would have been required for a 3rd season however the 2 import rule put paid to that. In his last 2 or 3 seasons Fearne handled the imports poorly with a case in point being Torrey Craig. Craig left because of Fearne.

Players go where either the best opportunity is or where the best money is. Forde has already attracted 2 good Australian players in Pinder and Kuol. Whilst covid has affected every team this year, the Taipans have also had to deal with and are still dealing with a spate of injuries. Machado has only just returned from 2 months out where he would have lost a lot of fitness and is lacking match practice. His injury could well still be a problem. Djeric has only just returned from more than 2 months out. We still have 3 players on the sidelines including Noi who was generally playing quite well until injured.

It is a new coach with a completely different system. He may well need more time to get the team running better. I'm personally not convinced either way whether he will succeed or not however he has had a lot go against him so far and should be cut some slack.