One thing I hav noticed/felt this season is the disconnect between the players/coaches/club and the members. The Sixers used to be great at all of this but it seems this has slipped.

Player talent is one thing, but playing style is another. The common thread that binds all good teams to premierships is defence. The Sixers defence is ranked 9th out of the 9 teams. Now someone has to be last, but the gap between 1 and 9 is wide enough for a Toorak Tractor to drive through on its way to Cibo at Burnside Village to admire the biggest pot plant in SA.

If you are looking for improvement, you will never find it within your own industry. May I suggest someone from the Sixers has a chat with Pottsy to see how differently things are done at the Cows.

Financially, the club will always be under pressure. They probably do it anyhow, but I would like to see the club benchmark themselves against other NBL clubs, but more importantly, other sports. The best income stream is passive income. How can the Sixers secure a passive source of income?

There is always talk about how the NBL need a strong Sydney or Brisbane team or even a second Melbourne team. The NBL needs a strong Adelaide team! We cannot have a capital city like Adelaide become whipping boys.

Our 36ers have finished in the bottom half for 5 years straight. There are few teams in any sporting code in Aust that have such a continuous poor result.

There have been off court issues & no doubt these have an effect. But, losing is losing. Other teams like the Hawks & Taipans have gone broke yet still posted winning seasons in the past few years and both have made grandfinals.

You cannot change a culture if you still have the same people invloved, you cannot win if you continue the same losing behaviour, you cannot win if you continue the same ineffective strategies, techniques, and delivery.

Whoever has been involved with the club in a professional postion contributing to team performance during this period needs to be moved on. Thank them for their contribution but ask them to resign, or don't renew their contract, or fire them outright. It doesnt matter how, they must go.

Head coach, asst coaches, skills coaches, team manager, strength coach, trainer, operations person, recruitment panel, and especially PLAYERS. If you have been involved for much of these losing seasons then you MUST GO!

No particular animosity . This might be an inaccurate , speculative appraisal .
SOS are a little undermanned these days.
I seem to recall that they always replied and also spoke on here.
Probably could do with a top up there , for some passive income , and a bitta work on re-connection.

Johnson (and Creek ,underplayed) are gonna get plenty of offers and seem unlikely here , and we got Weigh for 34mins a game . I just get bored.

1. New Coach
2. New Coach's assistant
3. New Scoreboard
4. Food that is semi healthy.
5. An occasional W in the results column. (Might occur automatically if items 1 and 2 are implemented)

It's difficult to comment on the SOS team and management because we don't see what happens behind closed doors, but reports that SOS now only has 2 members are of concern.
If the $$$ are not there, finals won't be either.
The Team:
BALLINGER-No guarantee with the ankle.Should only be
kept if he takes a large paycut.
BARTLETT-Does some good work, plus, even at this
level people don't guard lefties that well.
CREEK-Must keep.
CROSSWELL. Thanks for coming.
DALY-Keep him, should have more minutes though.
HELLIWELL-Good value if he would look at the basket
more. I'd keep him.
HERBERT-We can do better.
JOHNSON-Oh Yeh!!! MVP IMO
NG-Done enough to go around one more time . Plus he's
a local lad.
SIMPSON-Smooth operater. Must keep.
WARREN- Too inconsistent. Thanks for coming.
WEIGH-When the team that always plays finals didn't
want him, we should have asked why.

CLARKE-The players say he's a good developement coach
so keep him in that role. Then buy Lemanis.
RADFORD- NO!!!!!

Anonymous above - they actually saved the brand , its not totally their fault that the last 2 coaches have been duds. A three year deal to Clarke without an out was not a smart move - but ...

I must admit that if Clarke stays and creek goes - well I'll have a hard time convincing myself that next year will be worth watching.

If Clarke stays with the existing support staff - then I'll need to see Creek and simpson signed up for 2 years, and ( damn I hate saying this) - I think Helliwell deserves a good run next season.

The cost of the 36ers roster is one of the highest in the NBL. People are forgetting the teams best player sat idle for the entire season and was not replaced.

The few games he played he was still no better than 60%.

To beat teams that are superior in depth is a fair achievement in my opinion. The team has been showing good signs too. wind the clock back 2 months and Saturday night would have been a 20 point loss. Instead they fought back and made a game of it

I personally think everyone needs to lay of Marty & Mark. IMO there has been significant improvement over the last month and it appears that the things they've been trying to implement are being translated from practice to the games.

If you watch the sets that are run, when our PG runs them properly we get plenty of open looks at the basket - is that the coaches fault if we miss?

Defensively, I agree we have some issues, but these are also on the move in a positive direction.

Other teams to have lost starting players without replacing them:

Sydney (Bruce)
Melbourne (Mills)

Melbourne just lost by double figures to Wollongong, in Melbourne. Ballinger when he's fit (and I'd say he wasn't even 60% when he played) is hopefully going to give more than Bruce.

Bizzy, Actually, I must admit I agree with the comments on the coaches. The March 12 versions compared to the January 12 versions are vastly different.

The Sixers still have a few opportunities for improvement in their general play style, but the last few home games I have definitely noticed a "Smarter Marty" when it comes to rotations, matchups, set plays and general feel. Two months ago, you could look at the 5 on the court against the 5 opponents and think "so what matchups are we actually winning?" Two months ago the Sixers would have a shooter knocking down 3's off a fade away with an opponent running at them, so we sub them off to rest them. A few months ago, the Sixers would choke up a 10 point lead with teams going on a zero to hiding run, yet no time out to talk it over.

I know this isn't 100%, but look at the start of the season compared to the last few months:

Month Ave For Ave Aga Result W L
Oct-10 82.3 96.3 (14.0) 1 3
Nov-10 92.8 99.0 (6.3) 1 3
Dec-10 88.7 85.5 3.2 3 3
Jan-11 68.5 79.5 (11.0) 0 4
Feb-11 80.4 84.6 (4.2) 2 3
Mar-11 78.7 82.7 (4.0) 1 2

You could argue that since Feb, the Sixers are probably 3 well executed plays away from the win in most games, or 3 offensive rebounds off the win depending upon your POV.

Steve Carfino commented on One last night that the two top teams for forced turnovers were Perth and NZB.

advanced stats on lobpasstoabercrombie tell an interesting story

36ers are the 4th best offensive team but the worst defensively by a fair margin. We are 1.4 points off the wildcats in offence but a huge differential of 14 points defensively.

We are mid pack on most stats categories except defense ( last) defensive rebounding ( second last) and assist % ( last)

We have 2 players in the top 4 of efficiency ratings ( Diamon at #1 and DJ at #4)

the highest ranked 36ers guard is Chris Warren at #33

Isaac, can we put Penney into that list? Harvey for GC could be another one.

The way I look at it is:

Clarke bad
* In both seasons he had the worst Sixers season record in history.
* Was able to change imports a luxury that Ninnis was not able to have (and still he got a better record). Two of those imports were shooting guards when we already had 3 shooting guards
* Poor game day coach.
* Unable to learn from his mistakes.
* His disconnect from the fans.
* Never takes responsibility for poor performance or Radfords tech that gave us no chance to win the game.
* Plays Weigh 35mpg regardless of how he is playing.
* The teams defense is pathetic. I have never seen so many uncontested layups by the other team.
* The offense is cringe worthy.
* Bizarre substitutions and strategies.

* Brags that he has been focusing on giving more minutes to younger players yet DJ played only 20 mpg last season with Holmes (in his worst season ever) playing more. Creek's minutes have gone down from 17mpg to 15mpg.

* Had the option to sign Schenscher (the starting center for the reigning champions) and instead got DJ for similar money and played him only 20 minutes a season. DJ showed in the previous season as well as during that season that he deserved more minutes and finally when he was given minutes he scored 32 points. This season he finally gives him minutes and everyone thinks Clarke is a hero for developing DJ when he already showed what he was capable of 2 seasons before that.



Clarke good
* With his 'Connections' he got Creek (due to limited opportunities it wont surprise me that he leaves). He also got Weigh but the money they threw at him as well as offering 35 minutes per game I think any coach could have gotten him.
* Signed Bartlett to replace the injured Crosswell.

Clarke's Scape goat
* With the team not replacing Ballinger, Clarke will probably keep his job, since SOS wont want to pay him out and can use the excuse of "We were without Ballinger for the season so that is why we had a bad record" (regardless of the fact the team was basically at full strength the season before and got the worst club season record ever)


Recent form
* I put the recent form down to playing weaker opponents and the players having no pressure on them. When the season was not written off it was a different story.

I'd also say that because of Clarke, it is much easier to get a close, back street parking space on game day than it ever has been before.

Mutley - I'm also expecting to get a significant upgrade in my seat positioning this season, I think that by 2014 I should be in a very nice spot and will look forward to a vastly improved team for 2014 !

New coach, new team, Simpson may be naturalised ( almost) and we will be happy to pay mega $ to get Creek back from Wollongong ( who else to get Campbells' and Savilles' minutes - Geordie will be after him bigtime, standing just behind the new Melbourne team)

ahh well.

I personally think that offering free tickets to the junior district clubs for players & coaches was a fantastic idea the atmosphere Saturday night was great, probably the best I have ever witnessed. Maybe look at doing that at the first home game instead of the last to create more interest for the season. But its definately something the 36ers need to continue doing.

King James you have some errors in your argument:

DJ was already signed before the offer to Schensch

Weigh has played more than 35 mins 5 times this year. 3 of those games where in the first 4 games of the season. 1 of the others went into OT

Weigh has played less than 30 mins in 9 games too.

Your comment re Ninnis and changing imports is not correct. Ninnis never asked to change imports.

"Offense is cringe worthy" yet as at round 23 it was ranked the 4th best in the league. Means the 5 teams below must be really bad right?

Gold Coast brought in DeLeon to run the point when Joey already had 2 boomer squad PG's on his team. good decision? based on your comments it is a dumb move by the Blaze.

Would like to know what you think of Gleeson and McLeod. Both former coaches of the year. By your rationale the teams performance is solely to do with the coach.

"DJ was already signed before the offer to Schensch"

that is totally incorrect as far as I am aware. Why would they sign DJ for a huge contract and then offer Schenscher a huge contract (before they changed their mind)?

"Weigh has played more than 35 mins 5 times this year. 3 of those games where in the first 4 games of the season. 1 of the others went into OT"

You are right he averages 32mpg about 6th highest average in the league.

"Your comment re Ninnis and changing imports is not correct. Ninnis never asked to change imports."

As if, there is no way he would have continued with Groves. Why would a Coach whose team finished last not want to change an import? The season prior he was able to change but in his final season as far as I know he wasn't able to.

"Offense is cringe worthy" yet as at round 23 it was ranked the 4th best in the league."

Worst in assist in the league says it is cringe worthy. Also if it wasn't for Simpson almost shooting at 60% our teams shooting percentage would be close to bottom.

"Gold Coast brought in DeLeon to run the point when Joey already had 2 boomer squad PG's on his team. good decision? based on your comments it is a dumb move by the Blaze."

Not really since their forward line is solid and Gibson is a versatile player and Harvey has been injured most of the season.

I had already answered your question about Gleeson and Mcleod in another thread "BFJ, McLeods coaching use to be good but I think he has lost it now. I have no idea why he doesn't use Davidson more and as Skud said he should have been out there to finish the game. Gleeson use to be good in Townsville but I don't think he has the respect of the players at the Tigers and put all his Eggs in one basket with Pat Mills with no back up plan if he left. It is interesting to see that he played walker for 30 minutes last game though." having said that I have no doubt both of these coaches would have gotten more out of this Sixers team and made players actually earn their minutes.

I think I may know the facts a little better than you.

You use the teams success to argue against it, you use the teams deficiencies to argue against it. Highlighting Simpson's strengths to emphasise a negative is a little futile.

To me you are the type of person who would complain about getting a cheque for your cross lotto winning instead of cash

Our forward line last year was solid too, not league best but solid hence the addition of an import guard.

In what way is Gibson versatile? play the 3 ? No. Guard a 3? No. Shoot the 3 at a high clip? No. He is a guard and that is it, albeit a good one

Right, so Gleeson losing his best player and not replacing him justifies their record yet not replacing Ballinger means we have a coach who doesn't know what he is doing.

Re "doesn't use Davidson more" The guy has had more success in the league as a coach yet it is his use of 1 player that has seen the Hawks at the bottom. Right. Wow.

Bottom 5 teams this season are 2 COTY and 2 Boomer assistants. The other coach made the GF last season with left over parts. They cant all be that bad at coaching can they?

King James every comment you make is based on hindsight, and as they say everyone is a genius with hindsight.

Spot on King James you have covered most of the season ticket holders I know in your valuation of the Clarke season.
Start of season still believed in him but as KJ stated just continued to get it all wrong to lose so many winnable matches.
It looked like he thought up ways to lose games with subs and tactics .
How come he could not improve our defensive work .
Remember players are who he picked .
BJF how can you defend the over use of Weigh everyone talks about after every game. The guy just keeps turning ball over and no real shot and no real defence. Yet he plays Maher type minutes and always there to lose it for us at crunch time.
Even worse than his coaching is his disdain for us the members who pay him.
I really feel for SOS especially those that have stuck it out but unless a change in coach you will not believe how many season ticket holders will lose.
BJF either you are a blind loyal supporter but as not seen posted before more likely close to owners but your selling ice to eskimos to tell us Clarke should coach again.
Yes you may be hinting that club might fold but dont get rid of Clarke will not help and force the issue a year later.

where did i defend Weigh? KJ said he plays 35 mins every game. the facts say he doesnt. Pretty simple

Just to spice up the convo, it wasn't Weight that had the 2 killer TO's on Saturday night.

a quick scout of the stats tells me some of the names that have more TO's per game than Weigh

Cedric Jackson
Jamar Wilson
Chris Warren
Nathan Crosswell
Aaron Bruce
Eddie Gill

In total 12 other players that have more turnovers per game than Weigh. Heck he is "only" 3rd worst on the team

if you want to call that defending him , fine. I think some actual facts not rhetoric and opinion are important in a balanced discussion about performance.

BJF, you need to put things in perspective of those 12 players how many of them have a worse assist to turnover ratio?

so i prove you wrong and you want to switch the rules?
gee unlike you

for the sheer fun of it

Weigh has 2.6 to per game

Crawford 2.8
Crosswhite 2.5
Khazzouh 2.5
Vukona 2.4
Redhage 2.3

your calling sheep stations over .1 turnovers a game?

"Isaac, can we put Penney into that list?"

Why would we put Penney onto a list of players suiting this season and being lost to their teams without replacements?

Even then, Melbourne didn't have to keep paying Mills while he went to China and now the NBA. Adelaide have been paying Ballinger's salary meaning it's just that much harder to cover replacing him.

Gruber wasn't planned as a starter this year (though he was last year before Forman took his spot and made the most of it) but missed a lot of games this year without being replaced.

Harvey sure. Though they seemed to improve without him and are showing no interest in keeping him after this season.

At no point this year did Adelaide have Ballinger at anything close to his best. That's going to hurt a young team tipped as middle of the road at best. Both captains gone in one round!


DJ was signed before Schensch. You might want to pay BJF some heed in knowledge about the order of this sort of thing. They had DJ in. Then an offer was put to Schensch and later reconsidered (one reason being that they had promised a future to DJ and had already spent a year keeping him on the bench for reasons discussed many times). I don't think not signing Schensch is a horror black mark - the Cats didn't keep him and the Boomers haven't shown as much interest as you'd expect. That said, I'd like him here because he's local, identifiable and a good guy - we could do with some locals in the team.

I noticed at the training that Clarke likes Weigh.
' Don't go home with your hard on , Marty . '
I heard somebody shout !

BJF, I was just making the point that he shouldn't be compared with point guards. In fact I don't think Weigh excessively turns the ball over for two reasons. 1 he isn't aggressive enough in games 2 he would rather shoot it (unfortunately shoots at a low percentage when he is actually a good shooter). These two reasons are why I have been disappointed with him this season and believe he is a much better player. If Clarke had made him earn his minutes then I think he would have came out with more urgency rather then just give him 32 minutes regardless of how he is playing. I think that when he does get turnovers they really stand out due to being really sloppy and is why people think that he turns it over lots.

Isaac, I was looking at it from a point of view that they didn't really replace him rather then from a financial point. Perhaps they gave a bit more money to Abercrombie and Jackson. So I was just pointing out that NZ could use that as an excuse this season but they have actually done better then last season despite not having the best player in the league. That and the fact we had a full team last year shows that Ballingers absense shouldn't really be the scape goat for Clarke. Also we don't know how the chemistry would have gone with Simpson in the team as well. Tigers had a loaded team (even without Mills) and should have excelled but they didn't so it is purely speculative how we would have gone with Ballinger in the team.

Isaac can you clarify that, that signing was 2 seasons ago and not just last season? I got confused because you said that they had already spent a year with him on the bench. If it was 2 seasons ago then I apologise BJF for the mistake about the timing of the DJ Schenscher signing. I am surprised to hear that. Isaac I would have rather had Schesncher here (besides for the reasons you mentioned) because he has been a proven winner in this league and helped his team to second on the ladder last season (they sucked in the playoffs but oh well). I believe we would have had a better record last season and if he wasn't injured this season as well. I probably would have been more happy with the DJ signing if he was actually given the minutes he deserved last season regardless of people feeling his defense was no good. He can only get better if he is on the court. Also the main point is DJ could leave next season and therefore putting up with poor season records in the hope he would develop into a player that would lead us to become a strong team is then pointless and wasted time.

Anon #354861

Weigh was like Cattalini at that age. lose him now and he will burn us from another team the same with Creek and Johnson.

Personally, I would prefer DJ over an ageing and declining Schensch. I would rather us develop a core of young players for a longer success in the future than a quick fix now, which I have my doubts Schesch would have even been. Also, wasnt it widely reported that Schensch was neever played in 4th quarters last season? DJ is on the cusp of potentially becoming a Boomer wher as Schensch has slid from those considerations. The decision to revoke the offer to Schensch was a good one imo.

Weigh hasnt lived up to expectations this year but I think we can all see the potential there. Yes, he commits TO's at crucial times and probably plays more minutes than he should but who would you play in his place? Creek I dont believe is ready to step into that starters role just yet and is a bit more limited than Weigh offensively and not as reliable at the line should the game be close and FT's required. I actually thought Weigh played reasonably well on Sat until he had those two crucial TO's in the last, albeit one was due to a bad pass from Warren to his feet.

Our defense has sucked this year I think because Clarke has focussed on offense. Last year he tried instilling a defensive mindset but it didnt work so this year who could blame him for trying to outscore teams. Having said that I think our defense has been alot better the last month and you can see the improvement starting to come through.

I and all of the members I sit with and have asked think Clarke deserves to see out his contract, I dont think he is a bad coach and we need some stability, especially if he is going to be part of the reason why players like DJ & Creek sign on.

If you choose not to become a season ticket holder next season and not support the team or the guys who saved the team then you're not a true supporter!!

DJ 4 Schensch 5

wow if you all chip in fiddy bucks each you could take control of the team and we'd be all sweet!

get some decent bloody food at a decent bloody price for starters
why on earth would you take away the baked spud van??
they wouldnt agree to the percentage you wanted take as a cut???

seriously the food there is shite

and the prices of the shirts???
maybe if they were a little bit cheaper more people might buy them, and in the long run you might actually make a few more bucks and the whole place would be a sea of blue..just maybe.

more signed stuff for raffles
crikey im pretty sure you could get hold of a sixers basketball and get it signed pretty easily...2 bucks a ticket
40 tickets and the cost is prob covered
youd prob sell a thousand ffs
and seriously whats in that little booklet at the gate for $2?
not much
id pay 4 bucks for it if it was double the size though with interesting stuff and interviews and MORE basketball info
you should be able to book your own tickets thru the sixers website with a friggin MAP TO LOOK AT!!

2cents
end rant

oh
p.s
get williamson...
farley even at his age wouldve been better than some of the recruits over the last three years ffs

That was Clarke , just then, onair@5aa. -
Of the 8 owners - three (3) are left .
8 was too many ( a few disagreements on directions , obviously , as ya would with 8 people anywheres.)
1 is not enough , and 3 is just good/right - he told us.
He'd like an additional assistant coach , and he and the club also wanna get old sixrs 'stars' in more involved , from now on.
Sounds likely MVP - 1) Johnson 2 Simpson 3 Warren
4 Weigh
Seems Weigh and Crosswell are already signed
and is gonna try to sign Creek and Johnson
as well as Ballinger Ng Herbert (other teams wud be thinking the same thing , he said.)
Seems the league is 2 guards - like a Crosswell PG with a Warren SG - he thought.
Seems Helliwell played pro in Europe for 10 years and his experience is handy.

harry

I am pretty sure that ever since I have been a Sixers member they have ALWAYS had a $2 raffle to win a signed basketball. Not sure they sell thousands of tickets though - maybe a hundred each game.

Helliwell's stats provide opacity.
He's screening and stopping bigs from scoring
and that's important to the coach .
Some fans don't give that any attention.

Seems the next 2 weeks are gonna be busy on the phones and in the board room with regards to re-signings.

Warren is the league's best shooting guard
Clarke also mentioned.

" .. and , that's where we missed Crossey.....
Crossey at PG and Warren at SG...
Anyways , shoulda , coulda , woulda
this season , wins were insufficient.. "

Well.....

I think there could be a lot of hard questions asked after this season. The post season navel contemplation would have started and I think the MVP night on Tuesday might be the last official function for some at the Club.

Why dont they look at some of the imports that play over the winter in SEABL and BigV, having seen many of these players over the years and have seen many NBL games some of these guys are better players than the current crop of imports. Plus they are already in the country and you can find out what kind of person they are.