Hope he stays - the coaching staff and players have worked out a good way for 2 bigs to be on court together and be a threat. As with any player one would fully understand a NBA outclause. Looking forward to when Martin is fit and what it will look like. First half v Phoenix 36ers looked very composed and structured with plenty of counters for what the opposition ran.

Still a long way to go.

Come to Brisbane Trez. We've got nothing but bums here, you’d be an instant smash hit.

Presents an interesting scenario where Adelaide will only ever be able to play 4 of its top 5 players on court. Is this good enough to compete with the best? Puts a lot of pressure on Mayen, Marshall and Deng to perform

Four of their top five 'offensive' players. You need balance on the court, and Adelaide's problem certainly isn't scoring more points, it's finding a way to defend.

It will be Starling out, Harrell in.

And will be the biggest spending team in the league....again.

Does anyone have anything positive to say about this potential signing?

Realistically when Martin does come back, he will be on limited minutes for quite a while as his fitness returns to game fitness. Martin can also play outside as well as inside so for the limited time all three of Humphries, Martin and Harrell are on the court together, Martin can spread the defence by working in and out.

It certainly looked as if Harrell and Humphries were very tired on Sunday after playing big minutes on Friday so having the three bigs will certainly ease the pressure and risk of injury.

I do agree that 36ers need another good outside shooter though and long term, a three as suggested may be a better solution.

Realistically it is still open to conjecture and with the usual NBA out clause, it may only be a short term situation which will allow Martin to regain match fitness.

I feel like this would have been more or less done for a while. It only felt like he stepped off the plane a few days ago, and if Martin is back this week, then the whole thing probably was never going to benefit either party. Probably just a case of Harrell wanting to stay for certain.

Ushiro, good point about Martin likely to be eased back in anyway. It could be a case of just playing whoever is hot or best suited on game day. If they are reluctant to play the younger bigs even briefly, we really need Martin to come back and take that load of a bit.

From memory, the concensus was that if Adelaide were to sign an import during the season, then it should be another big. Many liklely wanted a 3/4 type also. It turns out this player is Harrell and not someone who is just a solid defender and rebounder behind Humphries and Martin.

Other issue for me is that I really think Rigoni has to be the one to make way but many seem to think Starling? Maybe Starling will stay on the team as an injury nominated player or something?

I would rather Rigoni out before Starling but Alex does himself no favours. As soon as he stepped on the court jacked up a 3 and had his other two shots blocked. Not exactly indearing himself to the coach for more minutes or keeping his spot.

Starling just needs to never ever ever shoot it, otherwise though I appreciate his hustle and effort plays.

Given the team is 3-3, this perhaps could be a blessing in disguise if the playing group can continue to develop chemistry with Martin's inclusion and if they are savvy in utilising the three bigs together. At least they’d have addressed depth issue pretty early on and with a fantastic import.

The trouble they will have is having three bigs that are sort of centre types pace and spacing wise.

With that said, the opportunity to be savvy and make it work has potential because Harrell can be very effective defensively and rebound wise as well as physically and doesn’t require the ball in his hands in offence, whilst Martin is very offensive and can stretch the D with his perimeter shot. Then we have Humphries, he is good both offensively in the key and defensively.

So it has the potential to be a super mix. They should be able to get a best of both worlds.

They have to figure out when to use Dech and Mayen more though because vs Melbourne the D sucked we needed the disruptive length of those two and we didn’t have enough of it on the court. Melbourne scored too easily which meant we had to take the ball out of the basket and they were able to press and have their defence set, so DJV was completely covered and it just made life too hard. Having centre type bigs doesn’t alleviate that, that’s why we need to identify when those guys, plus Marshall are critical for their wingy defensive length.

Yeah I agree with the glass half full comments in the last few posts. After the last 6 seasons, working out how to fit two talented imports like Harrell and Martin into the Sixers team seems like a nice problem to have!

I think being able to rotate three talented bigs all game will keep the pressure on opponents and allow Martin to ease himself back into it.

Seems to be a few over-reacting to a loss and DJV having a quiet game! Melbourne just played a defensive master-class and now the Sixers know they have work to do in both fitness and tactics departments.

Agree with what you are saying about Dech, Mayen and Marshall KET. Harrell in particular I thought struggled with the two intense games in two days and should've played less v Melbourne. We needed to lean into younger, faster legs and more perimeter shooting to spread the floor better in the Melbourne game.

"Martin can also play outside as well as inside so for the limited time all three of Humphries, Martin and Harrell are on the court together, Martin can spread the defence by working in and out."

Can't imagine them playing together. Between the 4-5 spots they can all play 25-30 mins which is the right amount for big men. The challenge is those pairings defending ball-screens, as Melbourne showed mercilessly on Sunday.

If the 36ers run Humphries , Martin and Harrell the issue os the back court defence of DJV and KD

Dech is the teams best defender so needs to be on Adams, Cotton or whoever from the start of the game.

Martin off the bench would be huge advantage for the 36ers IMO.

Definite Crawford , Fisher , Vlahov vibes with the big 3

Spot on.

Dech is crucial.

Mayen the biggest loser of Harrell staying on.

Zodiac, but the fact that Starling is actually playing and someone like Rigoni is not, already means that he is seen as more useful anyway, regardless of what he does or does not do. It is still more productive than someone who cannot even get any minutes in the first place. That was really the only time I can think of Starling putting up an unnecessary shot, but he does seem to struggle with finishing around the rim at NBL level. Probably a symptom of playing in a comfortbale league for so long. I just cannot work out how he is the candidate when he can actually play some useful defence and everyone agrees it is something we need more of. I would give him the year.

This is actually got me thinking about how possible it would be for the NBL to have a trade period? You could imagine how useful it might be for unbalanced rosters. Maybe something similar to the AFL.

As already mentioned, Martin will come back off the bench anyway, but if he returns to a high level, could Humphries be better suited to come off the bench as an impact big man?

I think Harrell has played his best and most productive basketball at the 5 rather than the 4, and then you can play Martin a bit more outside.

Nice problem to have though, rotating Harrell, Humphries and Martin. Martin still looks a fair bit off to me though.

I'd have thought Grscti would make way for Harrell.

Starling, although limited offensively does play some good defense.

Harrell seems to be better at the 5 as he can see everything in front of him and can direct the defense rather than getting lost in it.

I think the big 3 will only play limited mins together but any 2 of them will alternate through the front court.

The only reason people mention Starling because of rumours that Weston doesn't rate him, he was re-signed before Weston became GM, and when we were trialling Patterson as the temp replacement for Martin the speculation was if we kept Patterson all season it would likely be Starling who would make way for him.

Zodiac, it was confirmed on the ESPN podcast the player to make way would be Starling. Probably has something to do with investing in younger locals, although Starling is also a local player.

Are we talking re: the former Patterson situation or the now changed Harrell situation?

It was Olgun on latest episode discussing imminent Harrell extension. Something like:

I'm told the player to make way will be Alex Starling (paraphrase)

Okay that sucks but marries up with the rumours that Weston doesn't rate him.

Griscti got a 3 year deal, so was never a chance to be on the block. Weston will protect his guys too, so that'd mean Rigoni is safe (he'd be who i'd cut) so Starling it is. Had read somewhere he'll get his full salary and they'll keep him around working for the team, so at least financially he won't be any worse off. Probably don't want anymore bad PR given the Ninnis stuff, but that'll be tough cause there's a ton of kids and their parents who love Starling after going to his basketball camps.

He does some good hustle stuff on D, but seems even worse on the other end this year. Jacked up that rushed 3 against Sydney and then missed some easy layups under the basket cause he didnt grab the ball on the first take.

Starling like any local is on a guaranteed contract so of course they will have to keep paying him the rest of the season whilst removing him from the roster. I suspect he will just be kept around as a training player/injury insurance in case Martin or someone else goes down.

Honestly Starling looks a fair bit worse than last season I know he's 35 but he looks like he's aged 2-3 years since last season. I know it happens with players near the end of their careers they can fall off a cliff all of a sudden, he looks so much worse offensively, seems to have no lift and when he gets on the floor seems almost stuffed immediately. One year too many I think.

I would've thought Griscti might be the one demoted given he basically doesn't play and has the security of a 3 year contract so still has 2 more years ahead of him to solidify his spot. Plus I think he was pretty fortunate to get a spot on the roster given where he's at screams DP to me. I would've much preferred some sort of back up veteran big getting that spot on the roster over him. Imagine if Humphries goes down...

Sounds like its a done deal.

The timing of the season works out well for a guy trying to get back to the NBA. Basically could be available once teams lock in their playoff rosters after trade deadline deals etc.

"is on a guaranteed contract so of course they will have to keep paying him the rest of the season"

They should but I doubt they will, and certainly not his full contract, unless Alex commences legal action.

I suspect there are few (if any) lawyers left in Adelaide that don't have a conflict of interest having represented so many former Sixer employees in actions commenced against the club in the past few years.

Harrell doesn't have an NBA out clause either. He is here all season!