Juicy, there were rumours last season that XRM was the cause of some discontent in that Hawks team. He came off of the bench for them but you would expect he's been signed as Delly's replacement. Not sure he's got the tools to be a starting PG in the NBL.

cant see this enduing well...

Bad signing IMO. High turnover, pounds the ball incessantly and takes low percentage shots.

Think this does mean however Ili's got the starting PG gig

Interesting season coming up, United lost some big pieces, like Illawarra seem to be spending less. XRM had some memorable game last season but some shockers as well.

Lol xrm will start there is a 4 that will be announced by tomorrow or Friday

XRM was I think on the way to being 6th Man OTY from the first third of the season then seemed to drop off a bit.

I don't know who the rumours of a toxic import were about, could have been Harvey or Cleveland too.

XRM could have come cheap because his GF is from Sydney and maybe he wanted to stay in the NBL for that reason.

XRM is a solid player, I was hoping for another genuine stud like Tucker but hey, you can't have everything

Continues a long tradition of United signing guys they're familiar with from playing against them (Prather, Long, Trimble....Are there others I'm forgetting?)

Humphries/Hukporti
***/Peatling/Okwera
Tucker/Newley/Maluach
Goulding/Triplett
XRM/Ili/Duach

If Tucker's as good as I'm hoping and if Humphries is healthy, United is right there contending for the title

A couple of IF's, but there's big IF's every season in NBL. It's the nature of the sport

@lv wait to see the 4 announcement he has similar stats to Tucker

Tucker is a PG/SG, will start next to Ili in the back court.

XRM will come off the bench as a spark plug scorer

Vickerman has been known to implement starting 5s for balance and sometimes does what others consider unconventional

Eg starting McDaniel, Peatling. Trimble off the bench. CG coming off the bench occasionally

The only certainties with this current roster I'd suggest is CG and Tucker will both be starting

XRM gonna drive dean insane

PG Ili / XRM / Duach *
SG Tucker / Headly / Triplett *
SF Goulding / Newley / Maluach
PF Hoard / Peatling Okwera
C Hukaporti / Humphries

Continues a long tradition of United signing guys they're familiar with from playing against them (Prather, Long, Trimble....Are there others I'm forgetting?)

Who is Headly at SG ?
Have I missed a signing.

Of course Hopson

Interesting XRM wasn't a superstar with his first NBL team unlike those other four

Add Ekene ebekwe and Cedric Jackson to the list also.

United love to sing imports from other teams.

"United love to sing imports from other teams"

I'm not familiar with that song?

I don't think United are after Jaylen Hoard. He played some games in the nba and g-league.

Hoard too young. Vickerman said on SEN they're looking for older guys. XRM is true to those words

Yeah I knew there were a few others, brain fade moment

Jackson was on the way downhill when United got him. The league was getting stronger and he was aging quickly. Only 30 but past his best

As a general statement Vickerman's United has done better with local players

Eg McCarron, who many people thought wasn't a PG, became an all NBL 2nd team PG at United

Delly, who many said was cooked and a major downgrade, followed McCarron becoming all nbl 2 PG, then went back to the NBA

Jack White. Who ever thought he'd play NBA

JLA came in as a turnover prone, foul prone bench player coming off a moderate College career and one season in the Israeli 2nd division. Left 3 years later as an All NBL 1st teamer on a Chinese contract so big he was priced out of the NBL

Ili has become a better 3 point shooter and playing career best bball

Peatling and McDaniel unexpectedly became starters on a championship team

Barlow had a career renaissance of sorts and continued playing an effective role into his late 30s

Yet Hopson, Trimble, while they both found their groove eventually, fair to say underachieved overall compared to expectations coming in

Kennedy eventually became a gun, and played near all NBL level in the latter stages of the 2019 season. But, only after many people rightly questioned whether he was worthy of his reputation over the first half of the season

The consistent theme there with those 3, is taking a while to get going

Others like Long and Prather were good for United but not unexpectedly good

Boone and Casper dominated for United but both are absolute guns which they'd already proven late in the previous season

So it's interesting the contrast between the relative success of locals and imports here

Continues a long tradition of United signing guys they're familiar with from playing against them (Prather, Long, Trimble....Are there others I'm forgetting?)

What did Dorsey say

Was it dig at Seamus and the relatively unprofessional, autocratic mgmt style? Wouldn't surprise me

In defence of adding another squad member to an already high spending side McPeake came out in the media and said all the existing players had taken a pay cut to accommodate it. I can't remember who the addition was but do recall the whole scenario being farcical.

Then Dorsey laughed about it on Twitter saying how it was all BS and not to believe the spin plus didn't retract or delete any of his tweets. Anyone following the league back then suspected it anyway re: Tigers being over the salary cap but a player directly contradicting an owner's public statements was something else.

Those were the days. Now things are way too sanitised under LK.

It was Patty Mills.

Thanks.

Don't know how I missed that at the time

Yeah thank goodness for LK, hey. His detractors seem to have slowly quietened down over the years

Don't know how I missed that at the time

I definitely remember Seamus stormed into the change rooms telling Ubaka his services were no longer required

You gotta remember those times in order to appreciate the current ones

Yeah and it was without the consent of Gleeson. Classic.

This is great news as a Hawks fan.

Hated to see Cleveland and Simon leave the past two years, but happy to see the back of XRM.

Super talented individually, and in instagram runs, but it was painful to watch his over dribbling and must take the last shot of the quarter last year.

Good mates with Goulding.

Poaching imports can be a great way to get a predictable piece for your team, but wouldn't they have seen enough from XRM at the Hawks? Unless it's a cheap bench third import thing? But even then, if he agitates for minutes, chemistry will suffer.

Didn't make sense until this was posted:

XRM could have come cheap because his GF is from Sydney and maybe he wanted to stay in the NBL for that reason.

That explain why he wanted to stay here but it doesn't explain why United were remotely interested in him.

United are cheapening out a tad compared to their spending of the past, although they blew their load on Delly.

I know I realise they're cutting back financially on this roster but mediocre imports can be had on the cheap anyway there was a quite a bit of talk last season that XRM was causing issues at the Hawks, I just can't understand why Vickerman would okay his signing.

Vickerman spoke to Goorjian and if there had been an issue I'm sure Goorjian would've relayed that

I'm not sure United is becoming el cheapos, I think it's more true that other clubs are catching up

A few years ago there were 2 or 3 teams every season who spent big of which United was always one.

Then Illawarra spent bigger than usual for 2 years under Goorjian, SEM went big ever since their second season. This year Brisbane signed Baynes and Johnson, Adelaide went after 2 of the gun imports from last year (after poaching McCarron the year before).

So I think the gap has closed, not because United's spending less (although perhaps it's dropped a little), more others increasing.