This has been done before. I take it that you're looking at where a player is born, which doesn't necessarily cover where they grew up? For example, Aaron Olson plays for the Tall Blacks but was born in Canada. Mika Vukona is in the Tall Blacks squad but was born in Fiji.

Place of birth and sense of ownership are not the same thing, though can be related. For example, a Kings fan would count Worthington (WA-born unless I'm mistaken) as being grown as a King. Who really counts Ronaldson as a South Australian (besides Boti)?

Place of birth or sense of ownership doesn't bring wins, it goes towards bringing crowds.

If Majstrovich had improved out of sight this season (showed some potential towards the beginning), he would've been quickly adopted. Ownership is history and the future - having seen the road a player has taken, and waiting to see where they'll go from here, IMO.

you could argue that Newley is as much a Qld boy as a South Aussie.

Janelle Newley hails from the sunshine state and if memory doesn't fail me both Newley children spent some time growing up in Qld.

You don't need home grown players to win premierships but even as far as your own local ABL people like to see players they know.

Players they can relate to - their is a sense of ownership to local players.

in 86 we had a premiership with four imports but the rest or at least the majority of Sykes, Ali, Spear, Sexton, McKay, Wood, Pearce were Adelaide boys.

They were players we could go and watch at apollo on a wednesday night playing for their respective teams.

Who looks at Copeland and sees a Tiger, Mastro & Horvarth have both racked up so many clubs its not sure where they belong.

Why is the crowd reserves its biggest cheers when the Ng's & Suttons hit court? (well apart from Maher).

1989 Highlight tapes I think your being a little kind there. :)

So basically your saying it doesn't matter where they are from, as long as they play well and the team wins, then they are treated as a local!
So then who really cares if we play SA born players???
In a previous post, you said players such as Rees, Sapwell, Catallini, Nash were treated as locals because they played a few years in SA. Yet you don't count Brett Wheeler who is born in SA, played junior basketball in SA and started his career and played 7 years at the Sixers???
SA will adopt any one player who comes across and plays well. So why not recruit juniors from interstate who would have a real legitimate chance of contributing rather than do the "nice" thing and put someone in the team who really won't eventuate to a NBL standard player because they are SA born!

I reckon it's really good when a team has local players. What good would it be if a team from SA had no SA players, it wouldn't be right. It's interesting because in the NBA it's extremely rare to see a player playing for their home town, so compared to the NBA the NBL in doing quite well in that department.

Tony, in reference to your 1986 point, in 1998 we had 3 players from SA in that Championship winning team in Maher, Ninnis and Brogan.
The next year we had Maher, Jason Williams and Paul Bauer (both Jason and Paul not really contributing a whole lot either).
Why not affiliate each player that is recruited to a local team and have them play there in the off season?
In your mentioned team(from memory) from the 1986 team- Al Green-West, Bill Jones- Sturt, Mike McKay-West, Ray Wood (West or Woodville I think??), Mark Davis- South, Scott Ninnis- South, Mark Sykes-South, Ali-West, Spear-West, Pearce- Forestville (I think), Sexton-Sturt (I think) I'm guessing a lot of these and for those who are about to jump on me about my errors I apologise but you can see my point with the fact all of these guys played for local clubs.
The fact that most of the players go and play in another league or conference to our own, doesn't that tell you something about the quality of players and basketball in SA???

I'm saying that it's a combination of things - potential, performance, background, etc.

I'm all for recruiting promising talent wherever they're from, and have been all along. If they show ability, they'll be supported. If they're South Australian, that's even better.

A few signings this season haven't ticked those boxes which leaves them needing to flat-out perform.

Money talks Panther.......

Have a look at all the professional sports teams around the world (as well as Australia), the fair majority have a minority of "home grown" or "local" players and chase the best possible players that are available to them in their circumstances (money, division they play in, needs for the team etc). Why should we promote an SA kid (just because he is from SA) as opposed to any other young AIS tyro who could become a 10-year player?

I think we need monique bowley to say a few words

Sexton was a Bearcat panther Wood was either Woodville or West as you say and i cant remember but recall his son played for Woodville yet remember training at West under Ray so who knows???

Ray Wood played for West
He did play a handful of games when needed to when he was coaching SEABL at Woodville.

but you'll remember he had to stop playing national league due to a serious eye injury.

No wonder both South and West dominated through those years!!!
Liber, i'm confused are you agreeing or disagreeing??? Because besides money you basically agreed with me!
There are a lot of good players in the SEABL comp who don't get opportunities to play NBL who don't do a whole lot besides ball so why wouldn't even a rookie contract not be attractive to them???
I'm sure bench players on most teams would be getting the same as our bench players.

It's hard to compare the 86 sixers team to now, because back then it was semi professional, most players had another job so it wasn't too viable to move, plus those guys were old school, they were extremely loyal. Look at the Bio on Smyth, he was pretty much trying for a spot in the Boomers squad and was still playing for little ole Sturt. It was only because we didn't have an SA team that he went to Canberra.

Mmmm think you are a little wrong there Panther

Smyth played with St Kilda first and Adelaide did have two sides in the NBL a composite Eagles side (with Noarlunga and South i think) and West Adelaide.

Smyth I believe gave the a verbal agreement to play for West in the NBL yet chose to travel interstate each week to play for the Saints.

But yes the league has changed they were old school with many as you say with full time jobs and some with families.

But many were loyal look at Davis many would now consider him a local boy.

Phillips, Cannon, Lindsay, Boyd (she played the majority of her WNBL Career here and married a local boy) Lorensi and Bowley

But in the past premierships have been won with

Daldy, Sporn, Brogan, Beatty, Boyd, Lindsay, Moffa etc.

Do you want to see home grown talent or a premiership?

It would be great to see both, but I will take a premiership anyday.

aders can I be greedy I want both.

I would just like the majority of Sixers not to be recieving the pension as well as the match payments for NBL games. It is affecting my taxes! Who cares what state players are born in once they put that Adelaide 36er's singlet on they are from Adelaide. If they play well we love them!

Phil Smyth spoke about this on Channel 9 news tonight. He said don't expect locals in the team unless they are up to it.
What you can expect will be big changes next season.

Interesting though that the Adelaide Crows prefer SA born players to draft first as there is a better chance of retaining them long term. Sure, they will take players from other states but being homegrown has to work in a situation where it is line ball on who to pick. Surely the same could be said for basketball.

I am surprised that they are showing their hand this early - surely it could impact morale?

Well, that might narrow it down to:

Sam Harris - 7'3", but barely scores or gets time; has trained with the 36ers before.

Matthew Knight - 6'8", does pretty well for LMU.

Nic Campbell - 6'6", does OK, but nothing outrageous.

Knight sounds like he'd be worth looking at further?

Anon 109582, surely there should be an expectation that they (the coaching staff) are constantly looking at players for the future?

Isaac....saw Matthew Knight on ESPN last week in a game in Canada. He's quality, very very quality, looks a lot better than NBL standard.

Panther....was agreeing with you! Don't see the purpose of going with SA only boys if they aren't that flash compared to other kids. We should have been and can still talk to all of Newley's mates on the U19 World Championship team that are coming to the end of their college careers.

The "money talks" comment was in regard to "zoning" off Adelaide NBL players to the local teams. If the players get a far better $$$ offer to play in the NZNBL or SEABL for example, staying in Adelaide for purely bball reasons has little incentive, correct?

Haven't seen Knight come up in the usual NBA-potential conversations before - he's a Senior - would be ripe for an offer at some stage or to at least be speaking to ASAP? This is exactly the sort of player I would like to see us pursue - comes in with some grounding of the game and maturity, has a future, ready to deliver a la Worthington and co.

looking at the aussie hoops america site a few college seniors i reckon we need to look at for next year are:
Matt Knight 6-8 PF
Stefan Blaszvynski 6-5 G/F
Blagoj Janev 6-8 F
I wonder if we will see any of them in the NBL next year, if i were the 36ers i would atleast try and see some game tape and possibly invite them for a trial, some one like Knight may be worth just making a contract offer to as he seems pretty highly touted