The start to this season is just more 'same old, same old' in my opinion.
We lost a game against the Sydney Boomers in overtime in which:
* we played ordinary for about 3 quarters,
* Maher actually made turnovers in a clutch situation for the first time in years,
* Copes and Farley shot poorly,
* Worthington had a career game and the Sydney imports came up big and yet could still only get us in overtime.
Hardly panic stations stuff.
We are 1-2 on the road which for anyone who has followed the 36ers during the past few years would not be shocked with. We struggle to beat any team on the road. It took a Maher game winner to even beat a depleted Razorbacks on the road last season.
The Wildcats game was disappointing but we would still be 1-3 if we lost another overtime game to Perth as opposed to getting thrashed by 35.
Smyth isn't calling time-outs?? He hasn't from the day he started coaching the 36ers. He wasn't calling time outs when we were winning championships and still isn't. His lack of time-outs in an attempt to stop an opposition team's run prior to it reaching something like 20 has infuriated me from day 1 but love him or hate him, Smyth has been consistent in this regard.
I don't recall Smyth calling time-outs last year either when we were 9-1 to start the season and won about 5x 1 point games. Anti-Smyth posters might argue that is why we won so many close games!
Ingles is the second SA phenom we have missed out on due to deficiencies in our talent identification. I cannot remember the last player Smyth has picked up from the AIS or the NCAA not originally from SA.
However, again in fairness to Smyth, love him or hate him but he has always shown a preference to veteran players and achieved results with veteran players.
Neither Newley or Ingles will be playing in the NBL when they are 25 years of age so the jury is still out as to whether they will prove massive losses long term. IE losing Ingles does not equate to losing Andrew Gaze as he won't stick around in the NBL for the next 15 years winning double digit MVP trophies. Don't get me wrong, missing out on them is still disappointing but only time will tell how many championships missing out on either of them has cost us.
The big problem in my opinion is we have become stale much like the old Melbourne Tigers became stale under Lindsay Gaze despite always recording plus 0.500 seasons.
It is obvious from the posts on this forum and the dropping attendances that the fans have become uninspired by this 'same old, same old'.
The current team is not awful by any means. We will win around 12 or so of our 16 home games and about 6 of our 16 road games for another 18 win or so season. We will tank games at the end of the season so we can get our preferred match-up only to get knocked out of the ridiculous finals system in one game.
We will go on to recruit other journey men NBL players to complete our roster for next season rather than building for the future and the cycle will repeat itself.
While I can't help but feel as though I know the ending to the story of this season as at week 3 of the season, come Friday, I am sure I will be over the disappointment of Round 2 and look forward to the Hawks game. I just hope there is a bigger crowd than the Kings game which felt like a pre-season game to me because of the shocking attendance.