I can see what you are saying Onlooker
I think in reality most championship teams have both, a MVP calibre import and a Boomer level Aussie, the really strong teams over a sustained period often have 2 of atleast one of these things, eg Wildcats have been good since having Martin, Redhage and either Lisch or Beal, when they had that plus an extra stud import ie last season with Ennis they were almost unstoppable, same with the 98/99 36ers with Mee, Brooks, Cat, Maher, you can see why that group went back to back.
I have often wondered what it would look like if say the 36ers went for a NBA style big 3 and then filled the roster with role players. The problem is to do this successfully your imports would need to be both MVP level and you would only be able to pay them a max salary of around $200k, which is probably unlikely to get a proven stud import, you would have to rely on finding a Lisch, Ced Jackson, Ennis, Clarke imports every year, as at first they would have likely been on $200k or less, and im sure thats very hard as teams would be always trying to do it.
But lets say you went for it and got the right imports, to use names lets call the imports Brooks and Mee, as to me they are the right style of imports you would need in this style of set up, you got them for $200k each, you lucked out on them being first year out of college
Then your stud Aussie would have to be a big, who is already in the NBL, as the ones outside of the NBL would be too expensive. You would be looking at Wortho, Loughton, Kickert, Knight that type of player, all with there good and bad bits, lets say we grab Wortho.
That gives us a line up of
C
PF Wortho
SF Brooks
SG
PG Mee
Which is great but we have spent $600k, so we have $400k on 7 spots, average of $57k.
So lets give Teys $70 k and put him in at starting SG, and the C spot is an issue lets go Burston at $80k, but not sure if we can even get him for that. (ideally you would love a Schenscher type for this spot, but i dont think you could afford him, unless he comes in at a home town discount)
Thats a solid staritng 5, but going to be a real cheap bench, and if anyone like Burston goes down with injury for any stretch its going to be costly.
So lets have a bench of
PG Daly 40k
SG Carter $70k
SF Henry 50k
PF Anthony 50k
C ??? Truslove (cant think of any cheap bigs) $40k
That gives you a roster of
Burston/Truslove
Wortho/Anthony
Brooks/Henry
Teys/Carter
Mee/Daly
For the $1 mil cap, obviously you can do this a little better and easier if you utilise the marquee player rule
(Thats possibly stretching it with a few of the bench salaries, but not too rediculous at the same time)
Is that roster better than the current 36ers??? If you get all those guys, have no injury issues especially to Burston and get imports who are both MVPish level then arguably yes, but it would only take a few of those things to go slightly wrong then you woukdnt have as good of a team.
You could argue watching Mee and Brooks type imports even if the team overall is only just as good is worth the risk as they would likely be more entertaining and be able to win a few games off there own back and be more consistant than guys like Gibbo offensively from game to game, that alone could be an upgrade in many peoples eyes.
But the problem is it would be tough to find imports of that level year after year for NBL money, otherwise id be all for it, there would be situations when you end up getting a Wilson type import who is decent but not a MVP level and pay them $200kish which is really the max a team can pay someone with a decent 7-8 man rotation under the $1mil cap imo, which isnt ideal, but not always a disaster either.
I wouldnt be against trying it, but to be a little safe you would want atleast one of the imports to have NBL experience, but even if they didnt it would be fun to watch year after year, and if you do get it right (or close to it) on the import front you would be very likely a playoff team atleast.
The problem is from the 36ers front is we have alot of good Aussies and its probably not worth the risk at this point.
The Aussies on higher salaries at the 36ers you would need to swap out the get a stud import would be guys like Gibson, Schenscher, Petrie. You could make arguments for getting a import to replace one of these guys, and you could upgrade your roster significantly if you get it right, but if you get it wrong it could be a even more significant loss to the roster, so is it worth the risk?
For me id try to keep our Aussie core, id try and swap out Jamar Wilson for Stephen Dennis, who isnt a stud so far, but is a nice, smooth, versatile player, who seems to blend in well with his team well and would likely be affordable, and he doesnt seem to have any sort of attitude/ego problem, so should fit in with Joey and the team.
I would then try and re-sign Schenscher who im pretty sure is off contract, for around $30k less (as much less as possible really, i doubt you would do better than that though, unless Schenshcer gives us a really good home town discount). Schenscher is a funny one, as his on court stats, production, when you take into account age and injury history is probably only worth $80-$100k, but then he is over 7 foot, Australian, NBA experience, plays fairly hard at both ends of the floor, and most of the teams he has played on, and even a very key role on, have won more than they have lost. So that all makes him a bit rarer, especially the 7 foot bit, which bumps his salary up $30k-$50k, if he was 6'8 he wouldnt get as much in imo. But yes keep him if possible for say around $120k instead of the $150kish he is rumoured to be on.
Then spend that extra $30k ish and upgrade Crawfords spot to a import for around $80k. Go for a young guy from college, see if you can get lucky and land a stud, go for a versatile swing man, worse case scenario Torrey Craig from Cairns would be a solid upgrade on Crawford.
This gives us 2 imports who are 6'6+, athletic, versatile and would enable us to go with a very wide variety of line ups, ie could run Gibbo at pg, Teys at sg and dennis at sf if you want Gibbo to be pg.
So the roster id try for next season, if none of our Aussies leave is
Motum/Schenscher
Petrie/Anthony
Creek/Import
Gibson/Teys
Dennis/Daly
If we lose say Gibson or Schenscher id be all for spending that money on the best import we can get.