Yeah agreed with above - nothing wrong with it. NBL is allowed to have characters in it.

If you don't like him, go to the arena and boo him whenever he touches the ball to make yourself feel better.

Ket, almost right. "If you don't like him, go to the arena [stay home] and boo him whenever he touches the ball to make yourself [and the rest of the world] feel better."

Landale is fine.
Goulding is a banker.

Landale has a Bogut/Kyrgios/Tomic vibe to him. The game needs villains, just embrace him.

Landale carries himself completely differently from Kyrgios and Tomic. If only they had half of his competitiveness, drive and focus. He seems super determined to achieve results which must be great for a coach and for teammates. On the world stage Aussies have a reputation of being intense (Delly/Ingles/Bogut) and I think the way Jock carries himself will position him well for higher honours. Surely we'll all love his intensity at the next Games.

Saw the smile from Goulding to Norton, who knows but it's Boomers training teammates and I’d say Goulding was simply acknowledging Norton’s toughness in playing on with a serious injury. Definitely no spite IMO.

Jock's performance in the playoffs has reminded me of Jason Akermanis circa 2003

Big time villain, used to love talking it up. Talked it up all Grand Final week, the aging Lions a slight outsider at the MCG against the younger Pies who had beaten them in the same finals series. Aker comes out and kicks 5 as the Lions steamroll the Pies.

Landale has talked it up all year. "Undefeated". Not afraid to voice displeasure at MVP snub.

And he's backed it up. Easily the MVP of the playoffs so far.

I like his competitiveness, enjoying watching him here and looking forward to seeing how he goes at the Olympics.

It's not a formal award. But it's a thing that can be discussed. And it goes to Landale easily for mine.

Finals MVP hard to split Jock and CG43 at this stage. 17 rebounds today was huge after his big Game 1. Perth is hustling hard and Jock matched that. But CG has been the only guy to consistently break open this dour, scrappy defensive series.

LV, Landale is not 'easily' the Finals MVP at the moment!
That would be Chris Goulding.

Yes Goulding is definitely leading Finals MVP

Yes he walks the walk. Great player. But even Akermanis and all his brilliance on the field was sacked by the Lions.

I said playoffs MVP.

Eg Landale has been the most valuable player in the playoffs as a whole.

Finals MVP, hard to split him and CG. It'll be decided in remaining game/s

And yes, playoffs MVP isn't an official thing, but maybe it should be

Hodgson is the grand final MVP and it's not even close.

KR is the saltiest guy on Hoops right now and it's not even close.

LV, once again it's not hard to split Landale and Goulding for Finals MVP, it’s clearly Goulding at this stage.

I disagree. A good case can be made for either as I briefly mentioned above. CG the only consistent shot maker in a defensive series.

The possession game is always of utmost importance when playing Perth, and Landale has more rebounds than anyone over the first 2 games

Mooney easily Perth's best player (despite Blanchfield being arguably more important structurally without Cotton). And Landale has clearly gotten the better of the ALL NBL big battle.

Goulding hands down, if he didn't play games 1 and 2 we could be looking at a 5 game series.

Yeah, Australians seem to have this thing where we expect humility from everyone and for everyone to pop back into line as soon as they show too much confidence. It's similar to tall poppy syndrome. It's fine to be humble but in a league that desperately needs characters does everyone need to be that same old 'team guy' who says the same policitically correct things and plays with the same somewhat robotic pass-first play style?

I'm glad there are an Aussie or two out there with the balls to say 'just give me the ball'. You look at the Boomers team, and outside of Patty, who are the guys with the balls to close out a game, or to at least take a chance on themselves and throw something up?

We've created some great players and a great basketball culture but we need to stop knocking back players from becoming "too big for their boots". It's why we make way more role players than stars imo.

Goulding has thrown daggers at important moments in both games. Jock hasn't been that impressive offensively, but has played an important role in keeping Perth's front court - the place we haven't been too undermanned - from getting any upper hand. Not a glamorous role, but important for winning games so IMO if you want to talk real value he's still in the Finals MVP picture. The voters are always going to lean towards the scorer, but there's a game left so still time for Jock to get his nose in front.

The voters are always going to lean towards the scorer,

And yeah, humility schmumility.
If he can walk the walk then he can talk it up all he wants.
I agree that some extra attitude would not hurt this league at all.

Great point Luuuc

Mooney is All NBL 1st and many mentioned him in the MVP considerations. Magnay is supposedly this future NBA star who was going to change Perth's season. Obviously hasn't happened. Jervis is aging but still 7 feet tall.

I was worried about the possession game against Perth- through the years they've always been a good rebounding team. Greg Hire, Damian Martin, this year Mooney- they've always had some of the great rebounders (in Hire's case, for a back up swing man he was killer on the O Boards).

Yet Landale has the same number of rebounds in this series as Perth's 3 bigs combined- Mooney, Magnay and Jervis. 24 rebounds. Also United's 2nd top scorer and drawing plenty of fouls which is important too, as Jock himself found out in the semis. He's been very solid defensively too. Huge value for United.

Humility is great but if you think of the best players in the world, humility is rarely synonymous. Let ballers have egos is all I am saying.

Humility is an attractive attribute
Just look at Cotton and Mooney

"Humility is great but if you think of the best players in the world"

Which Jock is not. Something's definitely changed since the world champs, we was very quiet, humble and went about his business getting the job done, I became a huge fan. Now he just seems to be Bogut 2.0.

He needs to flip the bird at the crowd to be considered elite arrogant anyway

Nostraballmus says there's a reason he’s not in the nba