Im normally a big fan of his - but I reckon after tonight I'll chip in to the fund.

There is a big question mark over his motivation at the moment in my opinion. I watched him pretty much the whole game - and I saw nothing in the way of intensity and heart.

are you loseres serious!! look at the big picture you narrow minded nitwits! He is a clutch player and we will need him down the stretch. Tall poppy syndrome in fine form again, i will remind you idiots about this post in 12 weeks time!!

Ill put $5 in. He may be a clutch performer but imo thats because he only comes to play in the last quarter. Maher and Majstrovic will be out with back injuries next week cos they carried the team all night. Willie's should be sre too but wait he didnt turn upto play as has been the case for a long time now.

I would prefer a player that puts in 100% the whole game and looks like they want to be out there - instead of a player that is supposedly clutch and comes to play only in the last period.

If he put in the whole game we probably wouldnt be in a position where we needed him to be clutch at the end.

While I certainly do not want to send Farley home, I have to agree with Anon and Kwest to some extent. I have never in my life seen the Willie Farley I saw in the first half of tonight's game. He looked like Farley, but played nothing like him and cetainly didn't carry himself like him. It was weird. His body language was 100% negative, he seemed withdrawn, frustrated and looked, for the want of a better word, grumpy.

With that said, he got better as the game went on and semmed back to his normal self in the 4th quarter. Hoepfully it is nothing to worry about because no one played a consistent game for the Sixers tonight.

IMO, you guys have lost sight of what willie has done for us. dont right him off after 2 games this season. i agree that he can go missing but he is a gun and he will perform. I think we need to look at the coach!! i am/was a big fan of smyth but he has made sum terrible coaching decisions lately.

His shot selection is terrible, and I agree totally, he looks like he doesn't care out there, either that or he seriously thinks he is that much better than everyone that he can go out and 'go through the motions'. And I certainly wouldn't rule out the latter.
He's got to realise he ain't the player he was 3 years ago because teams know how to guard him, and the general all around level of the league has improved IMO. If he doesn't want to hustle then he may as well go home

patto...I haven't lost sight of what he has done for us. I'm a huge Farley fan and have never been critical of him before in the past. I might love the player, but lets call a spade a spade. In the first half he just played disinterested basketball that simply reeked of poor attitude. As a big time fan of his, it was horrible to watch.

I also have never been critical of Farley in the past - and have very rarely been critical of Smyth and the Sixers over many years.

I noticed a growing trend last year with Farley lacking effort and having a bad attitude, but I just shrugged it off - and fully expected him to come out and tear things up this season.

I definately hope he can get it together from here on in.

jasmine,

have you taken time to think about the player rotations that the coach made?? all guns have an off nightas a coach you need to manage that. IMO you have no idea if you think he was not interested, i cant believe that! im sure he wants to win a title as much as the rest of them. It is up to phil to get the team to gel inorder to win games and i think thry have the potential to do so. So lets hold off in bagging the players and lets see what what phil can do with them. I am happy to eat humble pie if phil can turn these great players into a great team. I still think he fell asleep tonite

Name me a player who defends worse than him.. Thats probably a better question..

patto...Of course I don't know what is going on someone else's head and I'm certainly not saying Farley should be cut, or that he cost us the game, or anything similar to that. However, doing some quick sums off the top of my head tonight was the 57th time I have seen Willie Farley play, not including road games on Fox. Being one of my all time favorite players, I've happily watched him very closely in each of those 57 games.

In that time I have never seen him play with the BODY LANGUAGE that he did tonight. That's where my speculation comes from. Not from any sub par first half stats, not because he wasn't dunking on fast breaks or hitting three pointers in opponent's faces. Every player has off nights and I've seen Farley have off nights. But I have never seen him carry himself the way he did in the first half. But whatever&believe me, I very much want to be proven wrong by his performances for the rest of the season.

right on 98186. i think we all mite be jumping to conclusions too early. but petitioning to send farley home is the all time most F#@*ing worst post i have ever read. espescially after 3 games.

jasmine,

i respect your point. I also have been critical of the same points you raise bout willie, and you sound to be reasonably intelligent about bball. I just think we need to be patient with the set up and of willie getting used to the set up coz if we want to win a title i believe we need willie in the line up. But i stick to my opinion in that that it is up to phil to make that happen. thanx for the debate jasmine.

patto

Anon...in reality, there isn't many posts in this thread that suggest Farley should be sacked.

Nah Farley is a keeper, he did ok, couldnt hit a shot til the the last quater tho, but id say that will only get better!! I hope to see Farley in a 36ers uniform for a while yet!!

Jonno...Farley in a Sixers uniform next season? I hope so.

I am self employed actually..

name on available import who is better than willie, you guys are crucifying him after a 21pt game, i dont care when he scored his points, when the ball is in his hands often enough he is a scoring machine - and Kwest good luck finding an available import who plays better D aswell. GET OFF HIS BACK AND LET HIM PLAY PEOPLE!

I dont care if he finished with only 5 points for the whole game - if he looked like he wanted to be out there and if he was contributing to the team with enthusiasm, energy and defense.

He wasnt.

I'll be off his back in a second if he decides to play like the Willie of 2 years ago. And thats not just about points production. My whole problem with Willie at the moment is attitude. If you were at the game and couldnt see there was an attitude problem then youre blind.

gotta love bandwagons :) soon as willy plays a bad game send him home (and it wasnt a bad game per-se, just a bad game for farley) soon as Dragons lose people question them, as soon as Ingles scores 29 points hes the rookie of the year as soon as Wortho goes 20 in a quater hes the next Sam Mackinnon.... all these things are great on their own but you cant take everything out of one game in a season.

I agree, decisions on how good you are are being made on one game. It is the beginning of the season. Last night's game says nothing about the rest of the season. Joe Ingles' game the other night says nothing about him being that good for the rest of the season. However in Farley's case, I admit its been a slow deterioration commencing from last season. Farley needs to lift his game. He needs to be part of the game the whole game not just the last quarter. If he played a whole game you could question whether it would have made the difference. In the last 12 seconds we could have been up by 5 or 6 rather than 2. So many "if only" questions to raise. I thought the team looked particularly good last night. To me it is the type of performance that will win games. We have most of the season ahead to prove that.

Is it a competition between Farley and Copeland to see who can jack up the most ridiculous shot?

Farley does all the shaking and baking and spining, to make a simple jumpshot into a near impossible shot.

Copeland just catch and shoot from where-ever as soon as he gets the ball 5 seconds into the offence.

The 4th qtr saw Farley actually lift his game, a few drives to the hoop - I know its been said over and over again and was Charles thomas biggest flaw - why dosnt he drive to the hoop more often?

Whoever said Farley is a good defender, WTF game were you watching? He plays lazy, risky defence, ball-watches, doesn't help, doesn't rebound. He was not effective last night, and to be effective needs to be intense for 4 quarters and hit some shots early.

Good signs were Horvath and Mastro. We would have won if we gave the ball to Horvath more in the second half, and if we didn't sub out Mastro in the last.

I thought Copes was OK, Nash wasn't good but wasn't bad, NG did well when on the court. Maher was OK, but lost his head down the stretch (not when he slipped) arguing with refs, not passing out the double team, not defending Kendall in the last 30 secs.

Just really disappointing to lose that way.

Gee whiz it's one game and some people are ready to put him on the stage coach out of town. Give the guy a break.

By the way has anyone had a off day overt he last year?

I think Willie is in the same mold as Andrew Mcleod in that their "hard ball gets" are not their strengths.

Does this make them lazy?

It's debatable but highly doubtful.

I would much rather have Willie in our team then not.

Sure, if you have a bad day at work you won't get fired. But you can bet your ass that if you rock up to work disinterested, lazy, and hot-headed you will be shown the door pretty damn quickly

I think someone needs to go to Singapore Customs and find Willie's game. I think he left it there.

What do people think Farley would be like playing the point guard role??, like his shot isnt dropping as much at the moment, so maybe using him as more of a distributor and freeing up Maher to shoot a bit more could be a option, plus he would be bigger than alot of point guards, do people think he would be capable of playing that kind of role?? and perhaps averageing more along the lines of 15-20pts 5ass 5 rbds as apposed to his usual 20-25pts 2ass, 3 rbds??? id be interested in seeing if it would work

Kriss, Farley isn't lazy, but he plays lazy D. Look at my posts over the last two seasons on this point. His man gets the ball and he waves his arms around, reaches and looks fired up for 2 seconds. That is not good D. Good D is working your man off the ball, staying in front, boxing out and playing good help. He does none of these.

Good D is actually fighting through a screen and not letting your man get open looks.

Guys, we are only 3 games into the season...WTF?
Give the dude a break, he has performed year in and year out for us and everyone is on his case after one shitter???
Unless you are Willie himself and know what was going on personally (he is a person after all) at least give him a few games to get his groove back..
I agree he was putting up some forced shots, but if he was hitting them, we would have been posting highlights on you tube yet again!
What did he score 22??
That is a 29 point loss without him...

Someone should send the Breakers' last game tape to Willie and tell him to watch Carlos Powell - there's some passion all-game long - diving on the floor for the ball, 9 or more points in each of three quarters, blocks, steals, etc. Whether it will last remains to be seen, but if all imports showed that enthusiasm, the league would be more interesting.

DB5, some decent D on Rowland sees us win the game. Rowland schooled Willie all game, and particularly down the stretch.

Willie could be an MVP type player if:

- played D all game. Proper D, not reaching lazy D.

- just shot a jump shot instead of a fadeaway every time

- actually went at the rim instead of the shake and bake with a tough pull up to finish.

The guy has as much talent and athleticism as anyone, and I think it is an accurate reflection on his game at the moment that so many fans are crtical of him. I'm no "doomsdayer" who thinks the season is over after game 3, but Willie's game was shite last night due to lack of effort on D, and poor shot selection.

TK i think this is more than one day or one game

at Mt Barker recently at a trial game all players were there with an hour or so to play, but Willie turned up with about ten to play.

got lost, got held up, or disinterested?

the way he's playing at the moment its the last

98280
I was just stating that he bought us back from a 12 point deficit and then if he had hit the jumper at the end of regulation it would have been a win.
Get off his case...he had 21 at 43% including 16 in the fourth.

The Doctor,
as usual, I agree with most if not all of your points especially about body language..all I am stating is that everyone seems ready to tar and feather Willie out of town when we should be giving him a chance. Maybe we would have had a better chance in we had shot better than 19/30 from the foul line and had less than 18 turnovers.

I gave him that chance last season. I wasnt quick to hang him - but watched as the effort, defense and 4 quarter efforts dissapeared.

So when I rock up to the first home game this season and bag him, its not a knee jerk reaction or jumping on the bandwagon. Its a culmination of biting my tongue all last season - and hoping that he would come out really strong and prove me wrong for the home opener.

WILLIE AIN'T GOIN NOW WHERE!!! THATZ IT. WE GOTTA SUPPORT OUT BOYS REMEMBER ITS A TEAM GAME.

to continue the last thread... give me a flight to various cities across the Us and I'll find you 50

...sorry I meant the last comment

its one match...

ok so heres my spiel. As a member of the farley Boys, you may see my opinion as biased... but i dont care wat you think. To say that Farley does nothing for us is ridiculous. i think we all know here that when Farley is on his shooting game, he is quite capable of making alot of points. Yes he did not shoot the ball well, but his ability to jack up a shot so quickly is every defenders nightmare. Willie is not just a shooter though, he may also not be the best defender in the team. BUT, name me one other player in the team that has the ability to fire the team up as well as he does.

Wether it be with a electrifying slam dunk or a freakish assist, he knows how to fire up the team and crowd. he is a great asset to the team and i think as soon as he gets his shooting game on he'll kindly remind us all of why he is in the team.

Let me say first I like Willie and I like him in our team. But,

Farley boys Rep said "electrifying slam dunk"
I cant actually remember the last time I saw him do a casual dunk, let alone an electrifying one.

Farley boys rep said "name me one other player in the team that has the ability to fire the team up as well as he does"
Brett Maher

I think Willie is a fantasic player!! WILLIE FARLEY IS A KEEPER! LETS GO 36ERS!

Who is a better perimeter defender?

Maher, Hill, Nash, Majstro

If I were to watch closer on a replay I would see Rowland blowing by Farley on his way to 14 fourth quarter and overtime points from layups.

Id prefer not to watch that thanks.



Anonymous 98438 As they say at the Ye Olde Pissweak Circus: Point and stare at the clown.

#98438, I think you have to expand your idea of what good D is. Kwest has provided a pretty good summary of it, all of which Farley doesn't do bar one, and that is get in someones face.
No help, no boxing out, no talk. In short, IMO he plays D to get the ball back in his hands, by reaching, trying to pick off passes etc. Thats not good D