There were some seriously injury decimated teams last season.

Even better question - worst starting 5 to win a game?

Probably the injury ravaged SEM team that beat the kings a couple seasons ago. That team ended up playing guys like Anzac Risetto, Rhys Vague and Kody Stattman heavy minutes every night. From memory kings smacked them up by about 50 in the season ending rematch

Ever? Or in the past five years? Because the latter restriction is the only way any of these make sense.

The answer is going to be Geelong, Gold Coast, or Hobart near the end of their existence, one of the one-and-done clubs in the 70s/80s, an expansion team in the 80s, the Canberra lineup from 2003 that pulled James Crawford and Butch Hays out of mothballs when all their players quit, or the Spirit/Razorbacks in a similar situation.

Wonder if the original Statman has any data for this?

I like the 2003 Cannons suggestion.

Not even close to being the worst the ones you mentioned some of the early to mid nineties Tassie devil teams we're horrific would struggle to be nbl1 standard

Would suggest it shouldn't be once off, but a consistent starting five during the whole season, with a player off the bench filling in where needed.
And also be consistent with eras. The old NBA goat arguments about Jordan playing against plumbers vs LeBron. Early days of the league did have few professionals, even the imports had to get jobs to supplement their income, so similar to what nbl1 is like in most of its conferences these days.
So teams like the 79 St Kilda Saints despite having a few Australian legends would be beaten by teams in initial post.
So statistically the 88 cats would be a prime candidate being winless.
Another thing being a factor would be coaching and getting the best out of the team. Recent one is SEM this season, looked terrible and winless, sack the coach and make finals. On paper would say no-one gave Tassie a chance in first couple of years, grand finals and a title makes up for talent.
Could have a most talented individual 5 that were terrible as a team, some recent sixer teams could be candidates.
So maybe worst team this century. Just saw the Hunter Pirates from 03 04 with the record 2-31. Can't even remember KB being in this team, so his inclusion shows how bad they were.


Kevin Brooks: Small forward, played all 33 games during the season.

Geordie Cullen: Center, logged significant minutes and was named the team's Most Improved Player for the season.

Brendan Mann: Team captain and point guard.

Jason Morgan: Guard/forward.

Cameron Harriman: Forward.

Nice one Phantom.

Brooks was well past his best at that point, Cullen went from 3ppg to 17ppg, which is insane, couldn't tell you a thing about the other 3

By the way, has anyone found a good database for NBL starting 5 info, basketball reference basically gives you every NBA starting 5 ever, how good would an NBL equivalent be?

I remember Brendan Mann pretty sure he won the ROTY when he was at the Cannons. The other two I don't remember at all and yeah KB was well past it at that point.

Anyone know what KB is up to now?

Looking it up it was actually Lachlan Armfield who won ROTY at the Cannons in 1992.

Believe KB is still running his basketball camps and training sessions for kids

Actually 2001 Cannons were the awful team, not 2003.

DPs making their debut as a starter would be interesting. We had at least 2 this season with Foxwell and Stoddart.

Joel Foxwell hasn't started a game for United.

Actually 2001 Cannons were the awful team, not 2003.

Phantom, Saints 1979 team would walk all over teams in that first post. You can't possibly think that Sengstock, Morseau, Barnett, Breheny and Cadee would lose to those hacks?

Phantom, Saints 1979 team would walk all over teams in that first post. You can't possibly think that Sengstock, Morseau, Barnett, Breheny and Cadee would lose to those hacks?

Should be Josh "Joey" Morgan (who currently coaches Newcastle in NBL1 East) and Chris Harriman. Brendan Mann barely played in the 2-31 2003/04 team, he suffered a season-ending injury about a minute into their third game of the season against the Hawks (shades of Grant Kruger in the Falcons' last season). From memory the starting lineup for the Pirates' first game was Mann, Chris Brown, KB, Cullen and Michael Kingma.

Phantom, Saints 1979 team would walk all over teams in that first post. You can't possibly think that Sengstock, Morseau, Barnett, Breheny and Cadee would lose to those hacks?

Crackers, the team back then would have had a few Winnie Blues at halftime and have no clue with a shotclock, 3 point line etc. Would be lucky to get a couple of dollars petrol money and free beer at the bar after games.
Don't want to disrespect teams back then but would lose by 60 plus.

If the conversation is about consistent lineups, sure. But they went into receivership mid way through the 2003 season, Bruton, Chappell, and Thomas all left, and they ran this lineup in Perth:

Reginald Poole
Brad Williams
Brendan Mann
Cameron Rigby
Mick Hill
Butch Hays
Emmanuell D'Cress
Blake Truslove
James Crawford
Glenn Baird

Not sure who started though.

I remember those Cannons well... traveled down to the Gong to watch a game with the family of one of the Cannons players, and caught up with the player after the game who went into some detail about how the players were hanging on for dear life just to keep the whole thing going.

Looking at the league now vs then is pretty incredible in hindsight.

Koberulz, that is the most ridiculous statement I have heard in a long time. It's up there with 'Andrew Gaze is only on the Olympic team cause his dads the coach’ My reply to that was ‘have a look at your watch and tell me how long you’ve been involved in basketball’

I've seen the 1979 Saints play. They're not that good.

Cheeky.