What are you saying Isaac? Do you think this is a good result for someone we are going to pay $100K? Being his first game, its hard to read into the quality of his performance. As a centre, you wouldn't expect him to be a huge scorer but the 10 rebounds are encouraging, 5 turnovers in 32 minutes are not. Without seeing the game it would be hard to tell if it was a good overall performance.

I wasn't offering any judgement, just the stats for those who wanted to follow his off-season progress.

I think a double-double in his first game is fine. Turnovers could be any number of things - not too worrying unless he makes a habit of that each game.

$100k might not be that silly when you consider that the Dragons would've been using him off the bench, we'll probably start him. The figure from the Dragons of $50k doesn't factor in the job they'd offer on the side or any signing bonuses, so we probably had to go higher to secure him. And that the options out there that Smyth wanted in the team were probably few and they may not have wanted to miss another reasonable option.

Isaac, you bring me to another question when you say that the Dragons would also offer a job on the side. From past conversations on this website, I was lead to believe that any other job would contravene salary cap rules. We talked about how the Sixers could get the players they wanted by sponsors offering additional income for services which were outside of the salary cap income. If a club that is privately owned can absorb some of the cost to its players through its business, then it makes a mockery of the salary cap and the reason why it is in place. The NBL has always said that the reason for the salary cap and points system is to give every club an equal playing field. If a private owner can use his business to attract the players he wants, then this is not a level playing field. I would be interested to know exactly what the rules are in this regard.

Some jobs would contravene cap rules, some wouldn't.

It's not a level playing field. Some clubs are getting around the cap and Adelaide is disadvantaged because of their financial situation. But what can be done about it? Not a whole lot. We need to just put a team on the court and go for the wins regardless.

If the Tigers were over the cap last year, I doubt it was by much. Same with the Kings, and those teams were the grand finalists.

Anyone is welcome to join in if you have something to say on this matter.

Considering where most coaches now see the standard of the Big V this is a pretty good comeback for a guy who has been out of the game for well over a year.

The Big V top six is generally now seen to be as good as the SEABL top six (I actually reckon SEABL has gone backward dramatically the last couple of years which is a shame).

Hume City and Sandringham are two of the Big V's better teams so his numbers are ok given the contest. It's not as though he's playing alongside a bunch of duds - Timmons would start ahead of him at any NBL club if Timmons was an Aussie so he is going to dominate their offence.

I think 36ers should be pretty confident, a lot of guys have come out of Sandringham over the last coupe of years and successfully re-instated themselves in the NBL.

As posted in another thread of this forum:

Brett Wheeler's stats this weekend (April 7-9) for Sandringham in Big V league:

1 assist, 12 rebounds and 11 points in 44 minutes. Wow, look out NBL!

Marcus Timmons had 18 pts and 15 rebs in 38 mins in same game, while import Lester Strong had 28 and 14 in 41 minutes.

Then Lester Strong followed that up Sunday with 48 pts and 20 rebounds. Mike Spears had 47 points and 18 rebounds Saturday night.