Exactly the same reason why the boomers should have drafted in Josh Green and Makur maker for this years' WC. They are around the same age as Lamelo, but are probably better player than Lamelo right now. They are more than ready for professional and international basketball.

Our School Holidays don't start for another week
Must be different in other states

Lamelo's performance is a big middle finger salute to those who discriminate against young players., especially those who said josh green is ready for the boomers

Makur and Green better than Lamelo, lmao. It's a long season and they will be great but give it a rest.

If you have nba lottery talents, pick them young for the national team.
Doncic and Hachimura were ready for their national teams at 18.

Lamelo's performance is a big middle finger salute to those who discriminate against young players., especially those who said josh green is not ready for the boomers

let's face it, Australia is a conservative country. Most national teams in europe play their talented youngsters at an early age.
Luka Doncic is a good example. Doncic is now the best player for Slovenia, and he is only 20 !
When are Australia going to have a 20 year old as it's best players ?

" When a 20 year old is ACTUALLY our best player? Sorry but these guys being listed aren't there yet and will be as useless as Sobey and Gliddon at the Olympics if selected."

see what I mean? You have already written them off before they have played a single game for the boomers.

LaMelo's performance is vindication that young players should be given a chance. When 13-year-old Billy Douglas turned up to a training session this week for the Brisbane Bullets, he was told to take a seat in the stands. Not once did Andre Lemanis offer him minutes as a backup point guard. Billy thought that this must be how Green, Makur Maker and Adel feels. Little Billy might be young, and just 150cm, but he has the most valuable asset in all of basketball on his side: youth. If we are not going to let ballers like Billy play NBL, he will just take his huge potential elsewhere, like the local U14 league.

yes , decent nba lottery picks would dominate the nbl. Simmons would have easily averaged a triple doubles if he played his rookie season in the nbl.

Zion Williamson would absolutely kills it if he plays this year in the nbl.

Green was recovering from injury. We couldn't have taken him to the WC.

So many of the arguments in this thread are terrible. "Doncic played for Slovenia so Maker should play for us." Well Jack White is at Duke and so was Zion Williamson, so maybe Jack White should be the #1 pick in the NBA draft? Doncic was an absolute freak, already playing - and performing exceptionally well - at a professional level. Maker has done nothing.

I saw Simmons at Boomers camp for the 2014 WC, when he was 17. He was a walking highlight in that group, but he was also lost.

What I hope this crop of Next Stars demonstrate is that genuine lottery pick kids are ready for the NBL. The 'prospects' who've come in like Ferguson and Bowen were projected as mid-first or lower, and that's a range where kids are drafted on potential. The top 3 picks in almost NBA draft and the top 5 picks in most would be outstanding NBL players as rookies. These guys might not continue to perform at such a high level in the regular season, but LaMelo and RJ are not just going to be spot-minute marketing ploys.

Very hard for a 17 year old to perform better at a senior level than the 17 year veteran when he has only played against juniors, but not impossible.

Pretty sure our greatest ever player was selected for an Olympics at 17 or 18 and Patty Mills played an Olympics at 20. Delly was about the same age too. Simmons was in a World Cup squad at 17 even though he was at high school in the USA.

Slovenia are not selecting every 17 year old, just the awesome one. We have done that too, but when we were in development phases.

We are now in a medalling phase. Whoever helps the team the most now will be selected. There is little incentive for the coach to develop a Green or Maker because they won't help us win a medal next year and that is the end of the coach's 'contract'.

Consider the careers and dreams of the veterans players and the coach too, not just the good kid. Should Patty and Bogut miss their best chance to win a gold medal just so a kid can have some experience?

And sometimes guys knock it back to pursue their NBA dream, knowing that the national team will always be there. I think Bogut and Simmons both fall into this group.

But to address the title...yes, NBA lottery picks would dominate the NBL and every other league in the world. Sometimes they actually do pretty good in the NBA too...

OP is completely wrong.
Obviously a player who hopes to be a top draft pick in the NBA at the end of the season is going suck badly in the NBL, because the NBL is such a vastly superior league.

Clearly the Next Stars program is failing, because the aim was to recruit total spuds who would carry the towels all season

Good list, PeterJohn. Add Bogut in 2004 there at age 19, as one of the few that earned rotation minutes. Players like Bogut, Mills, Exum were still known quantities to some extent as they starred on junior national teams. Notice that we typically lacked depth in these positions, so it was easier for them to rise up the ranks. We didn't have many good alternatives when Mills, Bogut and Delly first played for the Boomers.

Also notice that the list of young players who didn't command rotation minutes, and just sat at the end of the bench, is comprised nearly entirely of players who never made the Boomers rotation in subsequent tournaments. Think players like Drmic, Dwight, Melmeth (1998). So if you are filling end of bench spots for players based on potential, who aren't yet up to international level, it's arguably more of a gamble than using those spots for veterans for insurance.

Jonny Flynn was a lottery pick wasn't he? Hardly dominated a much weaker NBL than it is now. In fact, he was taken ahead of Steph Curry.

Is that your argument? That one of the worst lottery picks ever didn't dominate the NBL because he only averaged 17/6/4

La Melo early on in the game was shithouse. Undisiplined shots, bad passing and turn overs. He hit a puple patch for sure, 3 x 3's in a row. I know I was far from convinced. Shows how he wasn't guarded properly that's all. With the line up Gleeson was playing with that's why he looked good!
Stop looking at the score line and go to a game.

Of course they would. NBL is the NBL

A nba role player like Bogut , who averaged 3pts per game in his last nba season became nbl mvp, tells you how low the nbl standard really is.

The worst thing is Andrei Lemanis picked mediocre players like sobey, gliddon Kay, goulding and Barlow from this sub standard league for the World cup. No wonder the boomers did not medal in China !

Andrei should have picked his players predominantly from the nba and europe. Even picking young aussie stars in US High Schools would have helped.

A high school kid like Lamelo Ball dominated the reigning NBL champion Perth with almost a triple doubles. What does this tell about the standard of this league? LOL

Seriously, what kind of brain-dead, drug-addled, moron, tries to assert anything, based on a single pre-season game?

Moreover, why try to assert something so utterly meaningless? Who are these presumed "lottery picks" and when are they dominating the NBL exactly?
What exactly is it you're trying to say?
That the NBA is a better league than the NBL? Doh.
That guys at the bottom end or fringe of the NBA are still better than most players in the NBL? Doh.

Anybody with half a brain (which I guess excludes the OP) wants the Next Stars program to succeed. So yeah, lets hope they all have great seasons and go on to be top NBA draftees. Maybe at the end of the season we can talk about how "dominant" they have been.

Dave or Piggy would like us all to believe this thread is to do with LaMelo Ball but it is all about Deng Adel, Jonah Bolden, Josh Green and Makur Maker.

Get over it you're a bigger dickhead than Perthworld.