Yeah, it would be great if we could sign Rees who would add some size, toughness and veteran leadership to our bench.

Throw in Ng and some other guard from the ABA and we are a decent import big man away from being competitive.

A lot will depend on Maher's fitness and Cat's decision.

However, at this stage all we can do is hope Maher comes back healthy, Cat stays and our import big man is better than Moore/Stiff/Pennisi.

If our off-season consists of Cat turning down Europe, Rychart resigning, Holmes resigning, Rees signing and a decent big man import addition then our off-season would have to be deemed a success in my opinion.

I'm confident the 36ers will find a decent big man. If for whatever reason there is simply no big man available who will help the team I can hardly see them picking up a chump just to say they have a big man. Surely if all the big men in our price range were chumps they would address our back court and pick up a decent guard and go with Rees, Rychart and Oscar as our big men.

Either way, I just hope Cat decides to stay! If he stays I think the rest will take care of itself.

I think this would be a competitive team:

Maher/Bell?
Nash/Ng?
Cat/Holmes
Rychart/Forman
Import?/Rees

But it would lay to bed the Farley for Cat rumour.

We're losing Thomas, Williams and Hawkes, but gaining an import, Rees and a rookie guard. I'd rather have Williams than a rookie guard, but the injury probably knocks that out as an option. If the import is half-decent, and either Nash/Ng/Bell? aren't terrible as guards, we might be OK.

What worries me is that most of that roster aren't clutch handlers of the ball. If a strong opponent ran a press against us, CT or Jason would've done OK (same with Farley), but I'm not sure that Ng, Bell, Holmes, Forman would be able to bring it down under pressure. And Rychart and Rees aren't really known for being fast on their feet.

I guess we'll see what happens. Ideally they'd get the final word from Cat before they settled on a big guy anyway.

I was extremely impressed with what I saw with Christian Bell in his couple of games last seasom, and he probably would have got more games had he not developed shin splints.

I know he has not been setting the ABL world on fire, but I think he has done enough to push into the 10 at the expense of Gower.

lets be real C Bell is a nice guy but he is not up to NBL level, he has been very consistant at ABL level, but thats it consistant at best, NG, Reggie, Williams, Oscar, Jacob, Nash are dominant ant ABL level, you need to be to take the next step.

There are better options.

What you need to remeber is the option they have to look for will need to be rated as a rookie with the points, and also get paid a rookie salary.

OK, guesses at the points system. Brett is a 5. Nash probably a 6 or 7. Ng is a 4. Oscar and Jacob (Jacob is a 7 brought down I think) are 5s. Rychart and Cat are probably 10s.

 5 Maher
10 Cattalini
10 Rychart
 7 Nash
 5 Holmes
 5 Forman
 4 Ng

Stephon, I am a bit concerned about your use of the word "resigning". Do you mean "resigning" as in handing in your resignation or do you mean "re signing" as in signing up again?

I think you will find it is re-signing.

Thanks Yogee and thank God for that, I was worried he meant Rychart & Holmes leaving the team.

Yep re-signing.

No Holmes and Rychart have not handed in their resignation papers. Sorry if you lost any sleep.

In my opinion our biggest worry is Cattalini, not whether Bell or Williams will be our 10th man.

It goes without saying that even in best case scenario that we will be light in the backcourt but as we all know we are limited in terms of cash under the salary cap. We will pretty much sign one moderately expensive player and 3 budget players to complete our roster.

Last year the question mark was how would guys like Nash, Holmes and Oscar go at playing on the inside. This year the question will be how will these guys handle playing on the outside.

I will go out on a limb and say if Cat stays we are looking at top four. I have no doubt that we will find a decent enough big guy. Worse case scenario is all he can do is rebound and defend and even in this case with the addition of Rees as a backup our front court is much improved. Rychart himself said all we needed was Rees to help out with the dirty work and a big man that could intimidate on defence.

However, if Cat leaves we will have to creative. I suppose in this scenario we could try and sign Moore and Farley (or other import guard) with the cap space created. We'd still look decent but I still think that Cat is in for a huge season if he can have some more help inside this season and doesn't have to match up on the oppositions biggest players all game.

Could you imagine we got lucky and picked up a Chris Williams/Kevin Freeman impact type big man straight out of college?

A starting line-up of this new import, Maher, Cat, Holmes and Rychart would look very good in the context of the current NBL.

Off the bench Oscar deserves more minutes, Nash will get time as will Rees and Ng (if he re-signs as is expected). It will be a juggling act trying to get these 9 guys in the rotation let alone worrying about adding a number 10 who expects to play.

Pochintesta anyone? That guy has the smoothest shooting action I've ever seen...built like an import OG too.

Indeed, oscar forman should be getting more minutes.

Let me play the pessimistic hand for a second:
1)Rees is our major signing (did anyone see him play last year?)
2)Farley: Did anyone see him play 2 season ago? Or even defensively in our 2002 championship year?
3)Do we really believe Nash, Holmes etc can hold down the off guard role when this league has 2 small, quick guards in most teams).
Why have we missed out on Stiff, Pennisi, Moore, Pepper, Hinder etc. etc. These are the pertinent questions!
4)Cheap good, efficient guards like Crosswell and Shanahan are not here, WHY?
Why, why why? Every team is announcing signings, were making excuses! Don't blame the salary cap!

Pochintesta anyone?

you musn't have seen him play yesterday, he couldnt have thrown a rock in the ocean.

Heard he may be off to Europe anyway.

Aye, inconsistent then is he? I was going by Saturday v the Flames...pretty sweet.

Old school your roumours of smak could not be furthur from the truth! I'm assuming you have seen this guy play?? "couldn't throw a rock into the ocean" Hmmm...dude, have I sold you one of my bags??? You are smokin' some serious s***!
He has had a up and down season, but he is cleared of his injury now and is back to his solid best!

So...whats in the bag? eh?

Word on the street is that Bob Runnerup sent one of his starters packing at training the other night.

Sacked for a bad attitude.

Am I right?

J bags, I know for a fact that Old school hooper has definately seen Ponchy pochy play.

Hmmm - I can only think of one starter with a poopey attitude.. is it Younie?

Julius, so true.

Your point are very much the thrust of my OzHoopos article, which is still in the waiting to be published pile.

I might have to speak to Isaac, see if he wants to chance it on here :).

Younie Cioffi/Crothers Bell Evans Phillips....

And looking at box scores for past few weeks, 1 of those didnt start Saturday!

Libertine is right - Adam Pearce started instead. This is not unusual though - Pearce does start sometimes.

ballinger

You bumped a 7 year old thread to say Ballinger? Can't even see how he's relevant to this thread.

Troll