Interesting Vukona made number 9 when according to a few posters on here Anthony Petrie is the better player (although he did get an honorable mention).

I would have had Gibson further up the list and Rhys Martin further down as I am rating him as the best Aussie PG in the league at the mo (he is a huuuuge reason the Hawks are where they are).

not surprised Abercrombie didn't get a mention as his season has been AVERAGE but he has been stepping up at times (hit a couble of shots at crucial times against Wollongong).

Does anyone disagree with the top 2?

* Gibson further up as in towards 15 and Rhys Martin down the list as in closer to 1 (obviously not number 1 and number 15 but you get my drift) lol

Switch Scott and Flynn based on their actual contributions so far.

Ben Madgen is having a great season but I still wouldn't put him as the #2 player. Also, Luke Nevill is way better than 11th. I know Deleon has played garbage recently, but he still isn't good enough to make the top 15?

Interesting that neither Johnson or Schenscher made the 15.

Johnson in that list instead of Crosswhite.

Knight is good but isn't 3rd best in the league.

Agreed with Flynn and Scott being swapped

I think Cam Tovey was 16th.

The main thing I notice about this list is the talent drain on the NBL. The imports seem to be of a lower standard to yesteryear and we have lost most of our national stars to overseas competitiions. I think the overall depth of Oz basketball is stronger but at the NBL level we have suffered from the talent drain.
Just thinking of the late 90's when the 36ers were firing the league had years with the following players:

Maher
Sam Mac
Cat
Dwight
Anstey
Vlahov
Gaze
Bradtke
Nielsen
Heal
Sav
Rillie
Smith
Ronaldson

Those names would all be in the above list if playing now, and that doesn't include imports such as:

DMac
Rose
Grace
Brooks
Mee
Fisher
Maley
Crawford
Davis
Copeland
Rucker

My List of best 15 players
(I like to take into account not only skill but importance to thier teams success)

15 Cameron Tragardh (Cairns Taipans)
14 Matt Knight (Perth Wildcats)
13 Seth Scott (Melbourne Tigers)
12 Jamar Wilson (Cairns Taipans)
11 Jonny Flynn (Melbourne Tigers)
10 Rhys Martin (Wollongong Hawks)
9 Daniel Johnson (Adelaide 36ers)
8 Michael Dunigan (Perth Wildcats)*
7 Shawn Redhage (Perth Wildcats)
6 Adam Gibson (Adelaide 36ers)
5 Luke Neville (Townsville Crocs)
4 Gary Ervin (Townsville Crocs)
3 Kevin Lisch (Perth Wildcats)
2 Ben Madgen (Sydney Kings)
1 Cedric Jackson (NZ Breakers)

*Isn't in the league any longer but most exciting C when he was.

@nutwork - There's no doubt the league has excellent depth of good players now, due to fewer teams, but not nearly as many stars as at the turn of the millenium, which is probably the NBL's peak standard along with perhaps 07 and 08.

Although I think you were a little kind to some players like Davis, Maley, Fisher, Crawford who were past their best at that 99-00 period. And there were a lot of role playing imports at that stage because of the depth of Aussie talent taking the cash and the low Aussie dollar back then.

There is definitely a much smaller gap between best and worst today.

For mine broken down by true position.

Point Guards
1. Jackson
2. Ervin
3. Flynn
4. D Martin
5. Deleon

Shooting Guards
1. Madgen
2. Lisch
3. Gibson
4. R Martin
5. Crawford

Small Forward
1. Redhage
2. Abercrombie
3. Weigh
4. Rush
5. Blanchfield

Power Forwards
1. Knight
2. Scott
3. Vukona
4. Johnson
5. Lazare

Centres
1. Neville
2. Dunnigan
3. Schensher
4. Crosswhite
5. Pledger

Agreed Paul, but I would rather have Fisher, Vlahov, Davis, Maley as my 9th man than Pero.

A starting 5 of

PG. Jackson
SG. Madgen
SF. Abercrombie (Although Redhage better in NBL)
PF. Knight
C. Neville

I would really like to see them against the winner of the NBA D league. To prove our players are much better than the likes of the D League. Maybe start NBA CEO looking at players from Oz.

@Nutwork - Some of the back-up bigs in 99 where Phil Doherty, Mat Low, Blair Smith, Paul Denman, Craig McAndrew, Pero. We have always had dud big men at the end of rosters, in fact, most teams around the world do.

The old saying is if youre 7'0 foot you get five years to prove yourself and if your 6'0 you get five minutes!

I think a few Adelaide fans are over rating the soft Ginge.

Ian Crosswhite in the top 15?????

weird that our Olympian doesn't get a mention - definitely not shooting well this season.

I definitely agree with Crosswhite being in the list. Next Kings game, have a look at what he does off-ball. Communication and defensive positioning. When given the chance, is actually a good offensive player. It's an unlikely selection, but warranted.

Neville should be right up there in the top 5 I reckon.

This is so out of wack, Don't take it seriously.

Gibsons stats make him the 7th best this season, This list has him as the second best behind Ervin, Go figure???

I thought this post was about the best number 15 player in the NBL...?

I ment 7th best PG in above post, Gibson is defiantly not 7th best in the league.

I thought this post was about the best number 15 player in the NBL...?







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sorry, feel free to use one of these

I'd go this top 15 based on form AND talent.

1. Cedric Jackson
2. Kevin Lisch
3. Ben Madgen
4. Gary Ervin
5. Luke Nevill
6. Jonny Flynn
7. Adam Gibson
8. Seth Scott
9. Matt Knight
10. Shawn Redhage
11. Jamar Wilson
12. Daniel Johnson
13. Damian Martin
14. Thomas Abercrombie
15. Adris Deleon

Thought the article was quite balanced and included an emphasis on defense. Always going to create debate.
Comparing different eras is fraught with danger. Yesterday was always better. The bottom end of teams is in my opinion much better now than in days gone by.
Obviously only 8 teams contributes to this. The stars
of today dont seem as good as the past. Is that because they cant shoot, pass etc as well or is it the style of play and the emphasis on defence, not to mention 40 minute games. Look at the score lines in the past, Andrew Gaze ave 40ppg in a season, Al Green 70 in a game, what the! Also the league is much more transient so we dont get to identify with the imports or build "fan relationships" with Australian stars.
How much better is Brett than Gibbo. McKinnon/ Abbercrombie, Goulding/Rillie, Neville/Anstey Remember that Jason Williams was a starter on our last championship team. Is Jackson better than Ricky
Grace. When was the last time we had 4 or 5 top quality import guards.
This is more about marketing and perception.
Imports come here and are solid many go O/S and are very good.
Good to want better but dont knock the product, many of the young stars will become household names.
Easy to sit back and knock what are the best 80 playing in Australia at the moment.

"Gibsons stats make him the 7th best this season, This list has him as the second best behind Ervin, Go figure???"

Defence.

Mystro is going to hate this comment, but when Mika Vukona makes the top ten list for the league, you know the NBL standard has severely fallen away over the past decade.

The sad thing is, I don't strongly disagree with the list. The league is poor overall now.

madgen defiantly deserves to be in top 3, and damian martin would proberly be somewhere up there to for defence, he is so fast at catching up and blocking its not funny.
and ian crosswhite is also up there because for a 6'11 guy, his 3 point shooting is great.

the doctor: why would I be upset? I have posted here long enough to know that pre-season the top 10 players in the league are from Adelaide and then by halfway half of them are the worst and the other half are still the best.

As far as quality, the standard of Australians may have fallen away slightly (Worthington leaving, some struggling with form etc) but the standard of Imports is great and the NZ players have prob never been better (apart from Penney playing in Europe and Abercrombies slump).

Mika Vukona is a hack. Shouldn't get a sniff on this list.

yet most NBL Head Coaches would disagree with that satement AK-47 as would anyone who has had to box him out in the NBL, Olympics or World Champs.
I guess most of the Breakers are hacks who "suck" lmao.

Crosswhite and Vukona amongst the top 15 players is bordering on laughable. As "role" players they have tremendous value for their D and off the ball stuff. This hardly qualifies them as top 15 players..

Tragardh and Johnson get the nod.. easily over these two.

Spot on Anon, probably the two worst front court defenders in League. Major reason for their teams struggles. Sorry not probably, definitely.

^I don't. Coaches tend to be smart.

Tragardh and DJ apart from being unable to defend a chair also both need the ball in their hands to influence the game, Mika does not. He also brings immense leadership qualities, have you seen how well NZ play after he rips them a new asshole in a time out?
I'm pretty sure that if Lemanis woke up stupid tomorrow and he cut Vukona, every single other Coach in the League would ring him and Bevo would be 1st.

i agree we are missing the stars of the league we had in yesteryear.

im not sure what kind of talent we had playing in europe at those times though?

were they of the calibre of anatoly bose, markovic, ingles, newley, baynes, kickert, ogilivy, anderson, maric , khazzouh, etc (missing some) ??

so maybe we just have a drain on our talent from strong europe competitions rather than not producing that talent anymore? im not sure to be honest as i cant recall aussies that played overseas in the nbl's heydays besides cattalini may have?

the majority of them spent more time in oz than europe and certainly were here when they were still in their prime.

Who ever says Vukona is a 'Role Player' is a retard.

phil, the term yesteryear probably isnt the right one. The NBL only really picked up in standard in the late 90's once it dropped to 11 teams and the first crop of youngsters from the Jordan-inspired participation boom established themselves in the league.

In a period from about 99-2002 they mixed with the established stars and the league really stepped up. But after that a lot of the legends retired or faded and quite a few players went overseas. A similar mix of veterans and young guns occurred around 07 and 08 but apart from that the there havent been times with lots of world class players in the NBL.

Also, the number of players overseas also correlates a bit with how many good local big guys we have.

Early 90s we had Longley, Bradtke, Dorge and a fading Borner and Uthoff. Longley was always OS, Bradtke had some time OS and the other three played in OZ. We didnt have a lot to offer Europe.

In the 2000s we had Bradtke, Anstey, Rogers, Pepper, Andersen, Melmoth, Dwight and Nielsen. Andersen was OS whole time, Anstey and Nielsen large part of the time, Rogers some of the time and Pepper, Melmoth and Bradtke played here while sadly Dwight retired early.

Now we have heaps of good local bigs - Bogut, Jawai, Nevill, Ogilvy, Baynes, Pledger, Nielsen, Andersen, Schenscher, Knight, Johnson, Khazzouh, Maric, Kickert and Crosswhite - so we have more overseas.

The difference is some of today's perimeter players (5 in decent leagues compared to just Heal and Gaze in the 90s) have been able to get and hold jobs in Europe longer than the likes of Maher, Harvey, Rillie, Smyth, Davies, Mackinnon, Saville etc prob because there are more European leagues and (for the moment) they have money and more Aussies have Euro passports.

Agree mystro , if u took vukona out of nz and put him in Perth they would be unbackable fav for the championship

if Perth had Vukona complimenting their already tough D, no one would ever watch a Perth game outside Perth, the other team simply would struggle to get 10 points a quarter.

Mika Vukona is the dennis rodman of this league , what he does every game saves at least 10points . If he was 6ft10 he would be in the nba.

Any team would take him over a flashy point guard like flynn if they wanted to win a championship!