Category: Off Court

36ers passionate man Mitch Creek is always quick to defend his club, but should he have to? Photo by Zimbio

If you’re a journalist in the NBL at the moment, there are plenty of things to dig for story wise early this season. Many questions with little answers are creating pressure for clubs in the competition and I don’t think many realise it may be starting to affect the performance of the clubs that the fans support. As much as we cling to the old adage that professionals can handle the criticism and the flack we as fans give our own team, perhaps we need to recognise that this has died and our professionals are more human than they’ve ever been in feeling the pressure from their fan base to perform.

As someone who’s been on the inside of a professional club like Adelaide, you have no idea about the positive impact some players who appear to “do nothing” in the eyes of the public have on their club. The only place you have to look for an example you’ll understand is in your own team in your weekly competition. How often do you look at a box score from your team’s game and see a player with four fouls and no points, an opposition team sees that and probably thinks that player has no impact on the match. Unless they watched the game they didn’t see that player rebound it more than double the team, make passes which set up baskets, provided tenacity in defence and vocally call screens and shooters for the opposition. Without that player that night the team would’ve probably lost the game without that crucial contribution. That’s not even realising that player helps the team stick together like glue at a training session mid-week which you don’t see.

Two key questions I’ve heard raised recently have irked me personally from fans and supporters of the NBL, the first is why given the Sydney Kings have struggled why has Tom Garlepp not been playing significant minutes for the Kings? Of course it’s fun like I said in my last article to guess and surmise about the reasons around the office water-cooler but to create speculation publicly just to get noticed by creating stories and claim them as fact, that’s pushing it into territory that is the coaching staff of that club’s responsibility to release that information. Do you really think we as journalists and supporters always have all the information on the player and coaching staff and their training, personal life off-court and dealings to really make a clear appraisal? Apart from the Sydney Kings management and the inner sanctum of the club, no one really knows the answer to the original question. We need to consider it could be something quite private to the individuals involved and in reality they are far more experienced and better at handling the situation than we are as supporters.

The closer to home one of course is the seeming speculation of Nathan Sobey and Joey Wright having consistent disagreements week in week out. Let me be the first to highlight that Wright is consistent in the way he talks about his players weaknesses and strengths in public. I take the recent comments about Majok Deng as an example where Wright said that he can do anything offensively but defence is what he needs to work hard on. If you look closely, the games that Deng has played quality defence he has seen more minutes while also touching double figures frequently on the same night. We heard Sobey and Wright say their piece when asked yesterday during the NBL coverage so rather than putting pressure on the both of them to give answers about the situation, we should now give them their space and allow them to get back to doing what their job is, winning games of basketball for the state of South Australia.

The passionate Mitch Creek has consistently gotten on the front foot after losses like yesterday’s against Melbourne United. He apologised again directly to fans and whilst this is a credit to him and his character for taking responsibility, it’s because of fans chucking criticism at our team that players feel rather than letting the group get back to working hard they have to instead feel they have to write responses to a fan base that doesn’t know about everything going on in the inner sanctum.

Whilst this is basketball related, we can apply this to our lives off the court as well. We need to realise that by making our opinions based on what we see on the surface only and by not really knowing what’s happening beneath the surface, we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg of the individual. Perhaps we shouldn’t judge the individual and the situation until we know the true full facts then rather than ridicule, support them to be better. On the court, it can be the difference in winning a championship.

36ers Coach Joey Wright has learnt to make the tough calls - Photo by Wide World of Sports/Channel Nine

It doesn’t matter whether it’s prior to a season tipping off or the tough decisions to make at the end of the season, generally nobody enjoys this stage of the season. What many people fail to recognise is that for an athlete, this is the time where we see an individual’s true colours both coach, player, team-mates, fans and supporters. Plenty of people have different opinions from different perspectives and know different sets of information. A fan will claim a player is required by their club while their coach will know that retaining the player will not allow the team to grow and prosper, it’s a hard call if you don’t know all the facts. We as fans and supporters love to speculate, predict and play the role of list manager and who doesn’t, our water cooler discussions about sport at this time of the season are mainly dominated by these topics.

As has been reported this week (and also on this website) 36ers import Ronald Roberts has been released due to not meeting the requirements of coach Wright. Read that as you will whether its knee issues or its attitude problem or something else, to me this shouldn’t matter. Here we have an example of the cut being spoken about in negative terms but surprisingly it’s not always a dreadful thing when a player is cut from a roster. Opportunities open up for people within the club to stand up and fill the role, players who have considered trading themselves to a club may now seriously put their name on the trade table with that piece acquired, a trade can form the last part of the championship puzzle for any side. Roberts came with a huge reputation as a D league All-Star and the kind of game Adelaide needed for their style of up tempo full court ball. You could consider that his initial recruitment was a good thing and that sure if given the time he may produce what is needed for the 36ers in the areas they need. So why did Wright release a “good” player just one day before the NBL season tipped off on Thursday night?

Wright has made a tough call early in the season for the good of the club and his team. I have no doubt it was a tough decision to make as a much earlier call than supporters and fans had expected but Wright had stated clearly, he has a number one priority in his team to makes sure that he gives his chargers the best shot of a championship, character. Wright and his 36ers involvement in the NBA Summer League has seen a new attitude that matches his passion for the club in putting character before ability first as well as doing what is best for the “whole” club and not necessarily individuals. Roberts for whatever reason has not met Wright’s requirements so Wright has cut something good to create growth for the 36ers. The 36ers have been notorious for holding onto imports for well beyond their input in the past and it looks like those lessons have been learned for the benefit of all at the club. In this day and age of “me”, it is refreshing to see the group prioritised before the individual.

I too have gone through this stage only recently with the local club I play for. I had an extremely tough decision to make to leave a team on the cusp of winning a championship after coming so agonisingly close to winning one. The decision stunned many of my team and friends but when I explained my reasoning behind it they understood. I was giving up something good to create growth for our club taking on a playing coach role in another team of new players to help grow the club even further. My personal goals of winning championships are not bad of course which is why coming so close to that goal and cutting myself to start again was a challenge. It was however going to create a win for our club off the court and these wins are perhaps worth more in the long run. The move has helped my teammates from that finals team acquire one of their friends to play in that team, players I’d coached at youth level were moving into seniors that I’d now play with and could mentor on court as well as off and our club would have another avenue to grow for the benefit of all.

I get Joey Wright’s decision and at this stage of the season whether it be the end or the beginning, consider when you’re thinking about your team you support, coach or even in life that cutting good things can create new growth that might just be better for you and others than you think.

Written by Tristan Prentice