I really liked Jacobsen. Will be in strife if we lose Sobey and Jerome!If fit Webster would be handy.

Wesley instead of Jacobsen unless Vickerman gives him a new life at United .

I wouldn't put the 36ers in the same conversation as Illawarra and Cairns anymore. The new major stakeholder Grant Kelly is probably the wealthiest owner in the league, that is if he's willing to spend the money. I'd be surprised if Randle leaves, it's rare for a player and city to have such a strong connection and if Joey definitely wants him back then he'll be back, barring any monstrous offer coming from overseas. Sobey is the guy I'm worried about. He's currently starring in Europe and that kind of play for a powerhouse club guarantees big money offers.

I could be wrong here, but I'd disabuse the notion that the new majority shareholder of the 36ers is the wealthiest owner in the NBL, has deep pockets and will spend with the best of them.

I don't have all the info but I believe Grant Kelley, not Kelly, is the CEO of CDL which is owned by the Kwek family in Singapore. His reported annual remuneration hovers around the $3 million mark with unknown personal portfolio of investments.

To put things in perspective, Larry Kestelman who owns the NBL, United and Bullets, sold Dodo for $250 million which I believe was split with his Ukrainian co-founder. Last known wealth was $90 million around a decade ago. Likely to be more than that in 2017, but not enough to crack the top 200 BRW list in 2016 with the poorest only having a paltry $303 million.

For Wildcats haters, things can't be much worse... I'm not sure if Jack Bendat has shares in the club, but if he does, he should take the crown for the wealthiest individual owner in the NBL, even more than LK. Currently sitting at no. 93 in the 2016 BRW rich list, Jack appears to have donated a bit too much and dropped a few places with only $637 million left in the piggy bank.

Last but not least, Kings owner AEG Ogden is a subsidiary of a massive multi-billion dollars international corporation Anschutz Company.

There are serious money behind the major clubs but I seriously doubt that they will hand a blank chequebook to the GMs. Grant Kelley may be able to afford the odd spending or two but I doubt he'd tolerate exorbitant asking price.

Without sober and randle Joey wright will further be exposed.... going to be a long few seasons for Adelaide. Great logos though haha

Let's hope he goes back to back as Semi-Finalist Coach of the Year

He wasn't expected to even make the finals. He was exposed as doing better than expected. He was potentially a missed call away from going 2-0 and setting up a grand final series.

Joey certainly attracts some irrational haters. His coaching job this season was one of the greatest coaching performances in NBL history. Everyone and their dog picked Adelaide with that young rebuilding roster to finish bottom or at best 7th. They finished top and were so good they had the minor round championship locked up with 4 games still to go.

Yes, we should've won that SF series 2-0 but some Randle hero ball in the 4th of G2 and our choke job at home in G3 went against us and we were knocked out early but that disappointing finish doesn't take away from such a great job Joey did this season.

Nothing irrational about it.

Does not matter what pre-season polls picked, fact is you were the best H&A Team ....Jerome played exceptionally well, Drmic & Sobey outperformed all expectations, Creek was a strong leader and Daniel Johnson played to the high expectations he is capable of.

With all that going for them they managed to stuff it up and sorry Wright gets to wear a lot of that - massively missed opportunity that just doesn't automatically roll back around.

Resting your starting 5 against Cairns is an arrogance that I'm not sure Perth would do under Gleeson, mocking and calling out a club like the Hawks is just stupid ...when your the class team, you don't motivate the battlers. Wright has to won this.

If Sobey walks to bigger & better things - massive blow.

Agree Zodiac.

@ Zodiac, what does 'haters' mean? It's just a lazy & fashionable word used to misrepresent people you don't agree with and people should stop saying it so much.

It doesn't matter now, but i think Adelaide were underrated from the start. It was never beyond a team that has Randle, Creek & Johnson as a core to make the playoffs in the first place but most would agree finishing top as comfortably as they did was a very good effort by all.

Everyone is right here though. Joey deserves a lot of credit for what they achieved, but those who challenge why they were so feebly swept aside on home court in a semi final again are free to do so. I've said before that Joey needs to learn and evolve if he is to lead Adelaide to a title during his time hear, because he clearly has a lot of unique upside as a coach.

In regards to Webster, i wouldn't even think twice and just take the gamble if we lose Sobey. There's no doubt that his absence wasn't injury related so hopefully he can be one of those who comes good in a fresh start. A couple of seasons ago, i couldn't split Goulding and Webster as the best local pure shooting guard in the league.

Adelaide to a title during his time HERE, because he clearly has a lot of unique upside as a coach.

The main reason the Sixers lost game 3 was that our defensive rotations went back to the bad old days. All of a sudden the team wasn't working together to close off dribble penetration and the Hawks had a drive and kick for three party.

In the second half of the season and in game 1, our defensive rotations were great. Was the failure of the team to execute defensively under pressure in game 3 Joey's fault or the players? I think if you can truly answer that, then you go a long way to working out how good a coach Joey is!

Personally, I don't know the answer to that question. I think Joey seems to be a great motivator and is good at keeping his players happy. Those are important characteristics for a head coach. Defensive systems and the ability to drill them into his players? We saw improvement this season, but I think the jury is still out on that one.

I think Joey is a good coach, but like anyone probably has weaknesses to work on. If the Sixers can bring back largely the same team, I think a great measure of Joey as a coach will be how much this team improves defensively next season.

@ Zodiac, what does 'haters' mean? It's just a lazy & fashionable word used to misrepresent people you don't agree with and people should stop saying it so much."

In regards to Webster, i wouldn't even think twice and just take the gamble if we lose Sobey.

Ignore them - of course he can coach, that is without question.

Can he coach this team to a championship is a different question.

@Beantown, agree with that. But the question isn't whether it's one or the other but more so who is ultimately responsible? In any scenario, it's always the coach.

Joey needs to see that going forward and address why they're prone to poor defensive displays & how it's costing them taking another step.

They need a plan B to bail them out at the other end also. Just some basic sets to get looks for shooters like any other team can. Those little things helps in tight games.

Anon, we were playing with house money. Everyone picked that team to finish down the bottom he did an incredible job.

Yes, the end wasn't great and I too was disappointed with our foot off the pedal approach into the playoffs as it's more difficult for a younger team to flick the switch then it is for a veteran team.

We got too cute there at the end and Joey deserves some criticism for that but there were even idiots on here saying the Sixers were going to fire Joey because of the way we finished the regular season before the playoffs had even started. It's ludicrous.

@ Zodiac, it was more a universal question. I agree that negativity for the sake of negativity exists and that is frustrating, but i was more so talking about how that term is used so much to dismiss & misrepresent the opinions of people who don't happen to agree with the opposing view. I can't stand it when i hear that response to a challenge and because it's fashionable, it gets applauded, even though nothing original or interesting was said. I wasn't even referring to your post mainly, i see it all the time and it's dangerous & annoying when independence of mind is swept aside.

I think a Randle/Webster back court would be perfect. I'd like to see Randle drive and dish a bit more. He could be even more lethal than he is currently if we tweaked the system a bit.

Yeah, I tend to think it is a bit of both Master Chief. I don't think the players did a good job of sticking to the plan defensively in game 3, but some of that has to come back on Joey as coach as well. Hopefully Joey and the team learn from this and can take another step forward next season.

@ Beantown, who is ultimately responsible for the reasons behind players not sticking to a game plan though?

There's no doubting that the 36ers overachieved last season and all awards were well deserved, but as to exactly how good a coach Joey is, how many of the teams wins can truly be attributed to his brilliant coaching and how many were due to Randle and/or Sobey going off?

Who was the coach that gave Sobey a spot on a roster when no other coach thought he was up to it? And thought enough of him to elevate him to the starting lineup?

Who was the coach that allows Randle to play his own game something probably no other coach in the NBL would allow and clearly not many elsewhere given how much he's bounced around in Europe?

Also who was the coach who gave Hodgson a spot on a roster when no other coach would?

Randle, Sobey & Hodgson are in their great current situations in large part because of Joey.

Agree completely Zodiac, some very good recruiting moves to be sure, but how much of that is down to good coaching? Letting Randle play his game (like any coach would really have a choice) is easy as, and Sobey has a starting spot because he's worked hard and manages to score at will most games... My point is that how much of all that is great coaching? Letting scorers score isn't a complicated science, but what happens when they're not scoring, a Plan B, is the mark of great coaching...

How many games were won by the 36ers when they didn't have one or all of their stars firing and putting on lots of points? Did Joey have other game plans that were successful other than "just let Randle and Sobes go to work"? Mostly a legit question, as I didn't watch all the 36ers games last season and the ones I saw were mostly the 36ers blowing teams away...

@Zodiac.

"His coaching job this season was one of the greatest coaching performances in NBL history."

If you can isolate this performance to just the regular season (minus the last 4 games), yes of course. But if consider the 1-6 ending to the season, it certainly detracts from the hyperbole.

The Sixers were so far in front where the next opponent is barely making above .500, thats with them not trying to win for the last 4 games. Then to lose at home to 4th place, all this to me reduces the good work!

I think another thing to remember in Joey's favour is the clear improvement the team made on defence about 6 games into the season. The coach must have had something to do with that. Likewise, Hodgson and Sobey have improved a great deal over 2 seasons in Adelaide and Creek has been improving every season too. Even DJ has improved his defence and rebounding over the past couple of seasons. So I think Joey is doing very well in some areas and could improve in others.

Beantown, agree.

Wookiee, I hear what you're saying aside from Randle in what way was Sobey a scorer? He wasn't a big scorer in college and obviously wasn't scoring much in Cairns so he found all that under the opportunities from Joey.

But Sobey did start to taper off a bit towards the end of the season the last 7-8 games of the regular season he wasn't scoring as much or as efficiently as he was previously and the team kept winning up until the last four games of the season.

Don't forget the reason Sobey was given a chance to shine was the injury to Creek and Creek returned late in the season but IMO wasn't the same player he was in pre-season games.

So Zodiac, should Sobey ignore all other offers regardless?
What? When have I ever said or implied he should? If I were Sobey and there was a reasonable sized difference in offers I'd go with the bigger one, Europe, interstate, where ever. He's mid-20's now try and make as much as he can really until old age or a knee injury reduces his earning ability.

Stuffed up the quote again.

So Zodiac, should Sobey ignore all other offers regardless?

I support the philosophy that 95% of your winning games are won because of the work the coach does prior and after game time. ( L Gaze, Smyth and Boy Gorj are good examples IMHO). the question is on that 20th game - can the coach pull out a change that changes a "L" to a "W" DURING game time.


That Joey is a good coach is not really in debate. Is he an elite level NBL coach, probably , he almost certainly is one of the better ones.

Longevity tends to be an indicator of that, if only because head Coaches are amongst the first to be given their DCM's when a team goes bad. He hasn't been sacked from a club for bad performance AFAIK.

the question is, and it has been raised here, how well does he cope with having to go to a plan "B" - does he even have one ? Is he able to see a game night flaw in the strategy or implementation of Plan A and adapt on the night ?

Marty Clarke ran great trainings, recruited reasonably well, but failed to produce a consistent "Plan A" , much less a plan B.

Joey has definitely developed, trained and implemented very successful "Plan A's" for competitive, talented ( not always "loaded") rosters. He is a very good NBL coach.

The next step for Joey is getting and implementing a plan B that can do the job when his teams run up against well coached and talented teams who are able to derail his Plan A.

Coaches can always develop as well as players.