NBL 2019/20 Season - Congratulations to the Perth Wildcats

Who takes the 2019/20 Title?

  • Adelaide 36ers

    Votes: 1 2.6%
  • Brisbane Bullets

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Cairns Taipans

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Illawarra Hawks

    Votes: 3 7.9%
  • Melbourne United

    Votes: 8 21.1%
  • New Zealand Breakers

    Votes: 1 2.6%
  • Perth Wildcats

    Votes: 14 36.8%
  • South East Melbourne Phoenix

    Votes: 10 26.3%
  • Sydney Kings

    Votes: 1 2.6%

  • Total voters
    38
  • Poll closed .
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Dec 21, 2012
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As purely a basketball fan, how good is this league? Inside 24 hours the bottom two teams beat the top two teams.
You don't get that in the NBA, it's the type of parity the AFL strives for but so rarely produces.

I don’t even like Basketball that much (it’s ok but much prefer other sports) and I enjoy following the NBL.

There’s always someone to barrack for unless Perth, Melbourne or Sydney are playing one another.
 

DT_35

Brownlow Medallist
Jun 14, 2010
15,117
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St Kilda
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I reckon that was one of the cleanest screens I’ve seen from Vukona yet somehow gets called for the offensive foul...madness
 
Oct 5, 2007
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Punt Road
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Richmond
Remember in the 80s and 90s, when it was exciting if a club signed a bloke, who was drafted in 6th round but never even stepped foot on an NBA court?

Then getting a guy like Lanard Copeland or Adrian Branch was almost prime time news.

It’s amazing how many guys with NBA experience (even if modest) we end up with now.
 
May 5, 2006
62,726
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Remember in the 80s and 90s, when it was exciting if a club signed a bloke, who was drafted in 6th round but never even stepped foot on an NBA court?

Then getting a guy like Lanard Copeland or Adrian Branch was almost prime time news.

It’s amazing how many guys with NBA experience (even if modest) we end up with now.

It's a different world.

Bryce Cotton who is admittedly pretty small showed (just once) he could score 20+ in a game for the Jazz and they still cut him at age 23. Our 30th anniversary starting 5 has 3 guys who were undrafted, Ricky Grace who was a 3rd round pick who never made it onto a roster and Andrew Vlahov who is a local and also attended college in the US and was undrafted. Pretty much all the great Wildcats imports over the last 30 odd years never got near the NBA. Todd Lichti (who?) is about the only one I remember coming as a "former NBA player!". Compare that to now and we have 2 guys on the roster with NBA experience, and a former club MVP is playing in the NBA.

Slight tangent but Andrew Gaze as the NBL GOAT couldn't get near it in the NBA. Played 7 games with the Bullets then 19 games with the Spurs 5 years later. Minimal minutes, minimal output. Shane Heal fared slightly better but still had almost no impact. Joe Ingles at 21 was averaging 15 points a game in the NBL and is now a starter for an NBA playoff team after going undrafted and spending a few years in Europe. At the same age Gaze was averaging 44 points a game and was also undrafted after being a good college player. He put up 30+ a game for years on end as a young player.

LaMelo Ball has come here at 18 and done well (17/7/7) and people look at him as a serious #1 pick prospect. Now LaMelo is obviously a bit more athletic than bobblehead Gaze and Slow-mo Joe but in the 80s and 90s no one cared what you could do in the NBL. It's almost like it took a few players from outside the USA to make it in the NBA by stealth for teams to realise that there are actually good players out there that either aren't American, aren't in the college system or both. If someone in their teens or early 20s was averaging 30+ points in the NBL now I reckon NBA scouts would be looking at them closely.
 
Oct 5, 2007
6,207
18,533
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AFL Club
Richmond
It's a different world.

Bryce Cotton who is admittedly pretty small showed (just once) he could score 20+ in a game for the Jazz and they still cut him at age 23. Our 30th anniversary starting 5 has 3 guys who were undrafted, Ricky Grace who was a 3rd round pick who never made it onto a roster and Andrew Vlahov who is a local and also attended college in the US and was undrafted. Pretty much all the great Wildcats imports over the last 30 odd years never got near the NBA. Todd Lichti (who?) is about the only one I remember coming as a "former NBA player!". Compare that to now and we have 2 guys on the roster with NBA experience, and a former club MVP is playing in the NBA.

Slight tangent but Andrew Gaze as the NBL GOAT couldn't get near it in the NBA. Played 7 games with the Bullets then 19 games with the Spurs 5 years later. Minimal minutes, minimal output. Shane Heal fared slightly better but still had almost no impact. Joe Ingles at 21 was averaging 15 points a game in the NBL and is now a starter for an NBA playoff team after going undrafted and spending a few years in Europe. At the same age Gaze was averaging 44 points a game and was also undrafted after being a good college player. He put up 30+ a game for years on end as a young player.

LaMelo Ball has come here at 18 and done well (17/7/7) and people look at him as a serious #1 pick prospect. Now LaMelo is obviously a bit more athletic than bobblehead Gaze and Slow-mo Joe but in the 80s and 90s no one cared what you could do in the NBL. It's almost like it took a few players from outside the USA to make it in the NBA by stealth for teams to realise that there are actually good players out there that either aren't American, aren't in the college system or both. If someone in their teens or early 20s was averaging 30+ points in the NBL now I reckon NBA scouts would be looking at them closely.

No doubt to any of that. It’s a combination of things, the perception of our league has grown alongside the standard, NBA teams then over more players these days with 10 day contracts and all, so there are more ex-NBA players to go around.

Gaze was more than capable of having an NBA career, especially in a less athletic era. Only in recent times have we seen the yanks legitimately look at foeign players as worthy of starting positions in their league, thanks to Dirk in the largest part. I still think it can and will go further, watching the World Cup, when given opportunities, foreign NBA role players torched the US team. And if a teen was racking up 30+ in the NBL, NBA scouts would be all over it.

Anyway I was primarily reminiscing about how the signing of Plumlee doesn’t seem like a big deal, but how massive it would have been 30 years ago.
 
Feb 28, 2009
37,074
34,239
AFL Club
Essendon
Other Teams
Baltimore Ravens, Atletico
It's almost like it took a few players from outside the USA to make it in the NBA by stealth for teams to realise that there are actually good players out there that either aren't American, aren't in the college system or both
Pretty sure its exactly this. I think the fact that college basketball players consistently won the Olympic gold medal against the rest of the world led them to believe that nobody else could beat them.

It was only the success of the Yugoslavians in the late 80s-early 90s (guys like Vlade Divac, Drazen Petrovic, Toni Kukoc etc) that proved that guys that didn't have to play college to be successful in the NBA
 
I think to an extent the NBA still don‘t (or at least didn’t 2 years ago) realise just how good the international leagues are. Luka not going number 1 despite being a EuroLeague MVP sounds absolutely absurd the more you think about it.
 

Shifty1

Club Legend
Aug 1, 2009
2,016
2,196
AFL Club
West Coast
I think to an extent the NBA still don‘t (or at least didn’t 2 years ago) realise just how good the international leagues are. Luka not going number 1 despite being a EuroLeague MVP sounds absolutely absurd the more you think about it.
Agree but I believe at the time Phoenix went with Ayton because he went to college at Arizona and they believed they could retain him for the future and partner him with Booker. I think Kings really flubbed this going with Bagley instead of Doncic. Could have also flipped Fox for something half decent. Hield and Bogdan being fed by Doncic would have been awesome. That's great spacing.
 
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