Keith Hernandez
Years ago
Funny Shane Heal/Bullets vs Spartans scrimmage
Last night I caught a training session for the Southern Districts Spartans men who scrimmaged a "Bullets" line up. For those who are interested, the players "of note" from both teams were:
- Spartans: Ben Thompson (NZ Breakers), Greg Vanderjagt (Crocs), Brad Williamson (Bullets), Blair Smith (ex Tigers and Bullets) and coach Bruce Palmer
- Bullets: Mick Hill, Stephen Black, Sam McKinnon, Shane Heal (played on the Bullets team but is apparently deciding whether to play the rest of the season with Spartans) and Joey Wright (who was playing to make up the numbers).
Some observations:
- Shane Heal looks like he is in good shape but not the kind of shape he was in his last season in Sydney where he looked super lean and fit. He was a little rusty at the start of scrimmage (turnovers and missed shots) but as the scrimmage went longer he started sticking the downtown Js, creating for his teammates and playing full court D (albeit on Ben Thompson who was the Spartnas PG). Its hard to guage how he will go this season from one 2 hour scrimmage, but my best guess is he wont have the superstar impact for the Dragons as he once did for the Kings (as in he cant carry a team on his own), but he'll be a very good player who'll compliment the other players they have got down there.
- Stephen Black played really well in tandem with "Hammer" which suggests to me that the Black/CJ experiment may work. The Bullets five went through a patch where they penetrated and kicked out for a succesion of wide open jumpers - Hill, Black and Heal all getting into the lane or sharing it with each other for deep 3s. Cant wait for Black/Cj vs Maher/Farley!
- Sam Mackinnon looks really atheltic and "cut". I spoke with Big Joe (Bullets team manager) and he said he was in better shape this year than last. He threw down two really nice dunks, but didnt hit anything from outside the lane and only went right (has anything changed since his Magic days?).
- Greg Vanderjagt is apparently starting for the Crocs next season which will be really interesting to see how he handles the increased responsability. If you compare him to the 36ers Cooper, he is a much better offensive player, able to seal/pin his man, drop step and spin in the block, as well as shoot out to 18ft. But he's going to find it tough guarding any big bodies in the lane and his passing was in a word "awful".
- Brad Williamson (who is the Bullets 10th man) shot the hell out of it and was very impressive. Because Spartans didnt have a natural PG, he didnt have a lot of open looks created for him so he was shooting from deep and under pressure.
- It was all kinds of wierd to see Blair Smith out on the court...I kept looking around to see if Dave Simmons, Dave Colbert, Robert Sibley or any other ancient Tigers NBL players were going to join the scrimmage.
I'm going to watch the Spartans vs Townsville game on Friday night, so I'll give you another update of the NBl guys then.
Go Mets!
(Mod: Won't be of interest to all Hoops readers, but interesting for those following the NBL. Thanks for the write-up.)
