36ers Recruiting Model - Way of the future?

The 36ers went the opposite route of most NBL clubs last season recruiting a pack of youngsters with minimal professional experience and to many fans surprise they performed extremely well together. Looking towards the future, the 36ers look like they will have a really strong Australian core for years to come.

Could we see other teams go this route of collecting and retaining young talent to build a strong foundation for the future?

Also in addition, could we see teams do the same with imports? People view guys like Majok Deng and Mitch McCarron as potential NBL stars however there are Americans in the SEABL and smaller schools in the college system that would have equal or greater playing ability.

With 3 spots available for imports this seems to make a lot of sense

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Anonymous
Years ago

Can you explain your point here further:

"People view guys like Majok Deng and Mitch McCarron as potential NBL stars however there are Americans in the SEABL and smaller schools in the college system that would have equal or greater playing ability."

Majok was at a smaller school and absolutely dominated for them. Are you suggesting signing and and stashing imports to develop over locals like Deng?

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Sixers Fan
Years ago

What I mean is that imports are judged so harshly compared to Aussies. For example Blanchfield is hailed as a potential star while Fiquan Edwin was called a bust while puting up identical stats.

A young import could be developed here and turn into a superstar at NBL level

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koberulz
Years ago

Could we see other teams go this route of collecting and retaining young talent to build a strong foundation for the future?

You mean like Perth, NZ, and Townsville?

I'm not sure what this has to do with the future, given that the model of building and retaining a strong local core has won the last eight championships.

Townsville were going the same way, but struggled to retain talent who got big offers from other clubs.

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Isaac
Years ago

What Adelaide have done is nothing new, as kobe said. Perth and NZ especially have done it before, and both had the spending power to get them over the top.

I'm not sure that young imports are a way to go, or certainly not with all three spots. And Adelaide showed the limitations of a very young import. Generally a more experienced import is going to be more comfortable slotting into a team, living in a new place, etc. Some come over still expecting to spring into the NBA when they might not be outcompeting midrange local players.

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Freethrows
Years ago

Also remember that a "long term" contract in the NBL is rarely longer than three years (Joey's five year deal - as a coach - is very much the exception), so stashing young talent is a very dicey game to play, as pointed out by @koberulz and @Isaac, in terms of what happened to Townsville.

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proud
Years ago

I think I kinda agree with the OP in that if you can retain a young import then they can blossom in future years like Prather and Craig and numerous times in the past with players that have become naturalised Australians (and New Zealanders).

Whilst I'm not sure NBL will ever enforce this, I'd like to see a 3rd import spot go to a first year professional (hopefully one with ties to NBA) and if that player sticks around another season then that rule should be ignored for that organisation.

I personally would love to get back to the days where imports wanted to naturalise and if there is some way to encourage that then I'd be all for it

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Freethrows
Years ago

@proud, there are a number of imports who have (or have wanted to be) naturalised in recent years. Craig is doing it now. I do think it's a good thing. I'm not sure if I like the idea of second year pros being able to play as non-restricted agents (even if they had to be 1st year pros in their first NBL season to be eligible,) because it may cause more of a division between the haves and the have-nots.

With the NBL clearly showing its leadership by conveniently forgetting their statements at the start of last season about soft salary caps, taxes, and so forth, parity within the league is increasingly important. If one or two clubs fold from here, the league will become completely irrelevant, unless larger market teams come into the picture. Some would argue this is what Kestelman et al are looking for. It would turn me off the NBL completely, if it happened.

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36ers Recruiting Model - Way of the future?

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