02:18 remaining - 3rd quarter, Game 2 of the NBL Grand Final series, March 27th, 2026

A moment that loomed large as the Adelaide 36ers nursed a seven point lead midway through the fourth quarter of the NBL’s Grand Final decider, Bryce Cotton and Zylan Cheatham tearing through Sydney’s once vaunted defence, shredding the various traps, doubles and rotations that Brian Goorjian and his staff had concocted over the course of the season for this one particular moment.

Except it didn’t have to be this way.

The Kings, at that particular timestamp referenced above, were holding a 77-63 lead in Game 2 of the Grand Final series when Xavier Cooks missed a wide open dunk that would’ve pushed the lead to 16. Instead what followed was a capitulation from the Kings fitting of their old Violet Crumble nicknames as they allowed the 36ers off the mat to deliver one final haymaker in the form of a Bryce Cotton breakaway game winning layup around the pursuing Torrey Craig, who earlier in that very same game had sent a Cotton layup to the shadow realm.

The late stages of Game 2 echoed a problem that had followed the Kings for most of the season, although it hadn’t really mattered until now. Late in games, the offense slows down to isolation, prioritising killing time over generating a good shot, trusting talent over process. It’s my most hated trend in NBA basketball, how close games devolve into glorified 1v1 pickup basketball. Coaches get scared to be creative late, fearing turnovers by putting the ball in harm’s way, but I digress.

That meltdown, and the subsequent failure to close out Game 4 set up the all or nothing match-up on Easter Sunday, the NBL holding court one final time amidst the chaotic maelstrom that is the Sydney Royal Easter Show, winner takes all the showbags.

The NBL’s in house media empire had been stirred into a frenzy. After all, this series had developed into a promoter’s dream despite the early fears of an uncompetitive walkover when the Kings walloped the 36ers by an NBL Finals record 44 points in Game 1, a paddling so humiliating the Kings were able to trot out their bench warmers and towel wavers to the adulation of a raucous Qudos Bank Arena crowd.

“The biggest choke of all time” was the posited question by the talking heads, the Kings dominance in Game 1 trending more towards mirage than matter of fact considering the three games that followed.

Talk of the biggest choke ever felt, to be frank, disrespectful to both sides, but I actually thought it offended Adelaide more than the Kings. Adelaide finished the regular season in second place, a whole single victory behind Sydney, and led the ladder for the majority of the season before eventually being mowed down by a white hot Kings team like Tayshaun Prince on Reggie Miller in the 2004 NBA Eastern Conference Finals. Adelaide were a contender on merit, and while in a vacuum the Kings were the deeper team with the home court advantage, we’ve seen what Bryce Cotton has dragged over the finish line before.

The NBL has positioned itself as a premier international league over the past 7-8 seasons, but sometimes it feels like the league is growing at a rate faster than what local fans are comfortable with. Growth means eyeballs, and eyeballs means money, and money means stakes, and stakes means emotion, and if I’ve learned one thing over the last few seasons it’s that people can be really bad at being fans of a sport.

The amount of neutral caterwauling and hand wringing over the exchanges over the course of the series was, frankly, embarrassing. If you think the stuff between Kendric Davis and Cotton after Games 2 and 3 was a bit much, then I’d probably suggest you stay away from the NBA playoffs this year. The authenticity in the animosity within the heat of the battle is what made this series one of the best in the league’s history, culminating in the decider going to overtime off the back of an offensive rebound and a missed layup.

This is a rivalry that is burgeoning. Davis made no secret of his disappointment to lose out on the MVP award to Cotton, despite repeated interviews from both men stating the mutual respect when they compete. Was that all lip service? Maybe, and you know what? I do not care one iota. Players can pretend to like each other all they want. If they hate each other, let them hate each other. For people who grew up fans of Michael Jordan, they appear to be conveniently forgetting that he lowkey-but-actually-highkey fucking hated Isiah Thomas and the Pistons because they beat his ass (both figuratively with the 1989 and 1990 playoffs, and literally, with punches and stuff).

Anyway, stepping off my soapbox, this series deserved the ending it got, a Game 5 for all the marbles, where Adelaide threw the first few punches before the Kings responded to lead at the half. It was a contest packed with high emotion and tension in the stands, every Adelaide offensive rebound met with audible groans as the Kings faithful relived the script of Game 4, where the lack of defensive rebounding scuppered any chance at closing out the game. 19 more offensive rebounds to Adelaide in the decider, leading to big shots from the likes of Cotton and John Jenkins, the latter of whom drew particularly loud cries of panic when he caught the ball beyond the arc, and it felt like the Kings were on the precipice of shrinking into the night.

Until the challenger to the mantle stepped up.

A lot has been said and written about Kendric Davis over the last 12-18 months, from his tumultuous season and subsequent exit in Adelaide last season to the reports this week of his early season bust ups (however true they are I have no idea) with Xavier Cooks. Davis has been a polarising (to be polite) figure since he entered the league, not afraid to speak without thinking and bark at anyone standing in his way. When you say that you want to be the face of the league, you better back it up.

35 points and 14 assists in Game 5 feels like backing it up, and the Kings needed every single one of those points created because Cotton finally got off the leash as well. Cotton had been good in the series in ways atypical of his usual dominance, the scoring down but the assists up, thanks to the dogged defensive presence of Matthew Dellavedova, Jaylin Galloway, Torrey Craig and Makuach Maluach, but also thanks to the improved aggressiveness of Zylan Cheatham to make the Kings pay for the double teams on Cotton.

The Kings were happy to play 3v4 and make the other Sixers beat them, and in Games 1 and 2 (before the meltdown anyway), that tactic worked. The Sixers gradually adjusted to higher screens, and more 1-4 flat, let Cotton work, trusted Cheatham to make plays as a secondary creator, and it nearly got the job done. Cotton exploded in Game 5 with 35 points and 9 assists of his own, and the back and forth of shot making and playmaking between the two MVP contenders was as high level a duel between two opponents as I’ve seen in the NBL.

Once the game went to overtime it felt like the Sixers had fired their last bullet. The depth of the Kings became too much to overcome. Adelaide only played seven players in the decider, two of them fouling out in Flynn Cameron and Nick Rakocevic, the legs fading as the athleticism of the bevy of Kings wings swarmed the passing lanes and Makuach Maluach, who had been anonymous in the series, punctuated the comeback with a steal and slam to send the NBL record crowd into raptures. I’m somewhat surprised that Mike Wells couldn’t find spot minutes for Matt Kenyon or Isaac White (who was really good early in the series) in this one to, if nothing else, preserve the legs of guys like Jenkins and DJ Vasiljevic, or save Cameron some foul trouble, and a part of me wonders about Wells’ tenure in Adelaide as a whole beyond this game, but that’s a storyline for another day.

As it turns out, the missed Xavier Cooks dunk in Game 2 only served as kindling for an elongated series of madness and mayhem. A thousand what if scenarios will be played out in the coming days and weeks.

What if Cotton had gotten that layup to go at the end of regulation?

What if Cooks finishes the dunk in Game 2?

What if Mike Wells plays Isaac Humphries more early?

What if Nick Rakocevic doesn’t foul out in Game 5?

What if the Kings have Bul Kuol and Tyler Robertson instead of Torrey Craig?

The Kings raise their sixth championship banner. Xavier Cooks, Shaun Bruce and Jaylin Galloway join a rare group as 3x NBL champions. Tim Soares and Kouat Noi bank their second ring. Matthew Dellavedova finally gets his hands on the hardware after losing the last two finals series with Melbourne, to Tasmania and Illawarra respectively. Brian Goorjian cements his legacy as one of the greatest coaches in NBL history with his seventh NBL title, 17 years after his last one, in 2009 with the South Dragons.

A series of petulance. A series of fire. A series for the ages.

I’ll let Kendric Davis have the last word, for the time being…

“It’s my time now.”

I’m joined once again by Ryan O'Connell (Roar Sports) and Steve Smith (ESPN ANZ) to look back on a topsy turvy Australian Olympic basketball campaign, including the making of Ezi Magbegor and Alanna Smith, the Opals bounceback, a Boomers offense stuck in 2016 and so much more.

Find the Beyond the Fence podcast wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple, Google Podcasts and Soundcloud. Read more content at beyondthefence.com.au and follow the podcast on Twitter @BeyondTFence.

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Let me preface this entire piece with what I think would be the measured and objective analysis of this game.

Serbia are ranked 4th in the world, with the two best players in this matchup in Nikola Jokic and Bogdan Bogdanovic, and I don’t think it’s particularly close. You can argue the ceiling of Josh Giddey and what he can become, but to win one game right now at this point of their respective careers, Bogdanovic is a more polished product.

Serbia were favourites in this game, with their two-pronged star approach and their militia of catch and shoot marksmen. Their style of play is more entrenched and sustainable, their roster more settled and in its prime, led by a three-time NBA MVP.

Ok now the rational thinking is out of the way, this one stings, and I have no issues calling it a choke job.

Objectively, a 24 point lead in a 40 minute FIBA game is a position that you should win from 98% of the time, especially between two teams that aren’t exactly gulfs apart in terms of quality from top to bottom of the overall rosters. Yes Jokic is the best player in the world, or at worst top three, but Australia’s rotation is hardly orders of magnitude worse than Serbia’s (although I will accept arguments this game was lost at the selection table several weeks prior), and certainly not 19 points worse over the course of 35 minutes.

I could have accepted a loss to Serbia pregame. In fact, if you’ve been reading my thoughts this Olympic cycle, you would know I was kind of down on this roster and thought we’d struggle to make it out of the group, even with the promise shown during the exhibition games. This is a roster of role players and ageing veterans led by a kid that could hopefully one day transform into a star of the international game. A team very much in a continued transition phase that has lagged beyond the World Cup last year and into this Olympic year.

I could have accepted if Serbia had blown the Boomers out of the arena early with a juggernaut offense centred around Nikola Jokic picking apart double teams with his patented cross court passing ability. I could have accepted a close fight that was decided in the clutch because the best player in the world decided to make key plays down the stretch that no one else can.

It’s not the result that irks me so much as it is the manner, and the speed, of the collapse.

Yes the offense was more than nuclear in the first half, but there was a general acceptance that the level of shotmaking was somewhat unsustainable, especially considering the manner in which FIBA Patty Mills showed up one last time, with an absurd arsenal of shotmaking not seen since the bronze medal match against Slovenia three years ago.

I’d accepted the shotmaking was going to regress closer to the mean in the second half. 54 points in the first half for the second worst offense in the tournament was always fraught with danger, but the way the team fell apart in the second half was alarming, if not, in hindsight, unsurprising.

It started, as usual, with the turnovers. This Boomers team has been exceptionally turnover prone through the course of the tournament, struggling to deal with overly physical defence and presses at full or three-quarter court, a phenomenon that came to the fore in the second half against Canada and continued right through to the final inbounds turnover in overtime against Serbia.

Through one quarter, the Boomers had committed just two turnovers, as the offense was executed decisively and swiftly, coupled with some strangely passive Serbian defence. By the end of the game, that number had ballooned to 20 as Serbia dialed up the pressure, fuelled in part to an almighty bake delivered by coach Svetislav Pesic (will pay for the full translation of that timeout rant).

The carelessness exhibited with ball in hand in the second half was the magnum opus of a disastrous ball handling campaign for the Boomers. The team committed 70 turnovers over the course of the tournament, against only 79 assists. That’s a 1.13 assists to turnovers ratio which, to be polite, is utterly putrid.

Not only was the volume of turnovers inexcusable, but the manner in which they came about was reflective of the overall offensive struggles of the team when things began to snowball.

Relying on an isolation-heavy style of play that relied on Patty Mills turning back the clock to something closer resembling his form in Rio 2016, with a lack of ball movement contributing in defences packing the paint and sending doubles to both him and Giddey, the two of them combining for half of the team’s total turnover amount.

Outside of the isolation play style, Australia’s ball handlers also looked weak at times. I lost count of the amount of times the lead guard would dribble up the sideline and be meekly forced out of bounds, or pick up their dribble in a bad spot in a panic, before hoisting a prayer pass to hope for the best. Once teams figured out you could apply little more than a tokenistic halfcourt or fullcourt press against the Boomers, the ball handling and offensive structure fell off a cliff.

The other major gripe a lot of people had over the course of the tournament was the rotations and lineups, but I actually think this was one of Brian Goorjian’s better managed games from that perspective.

For one, I’m glad they moved away from the Nick Kay minutes. Kay was inserted into the starting lineup pre-tournament to provide some semblance of size and shooting ability, a nice enough theory that unravelled as it became clear he’d lost a significant step since his contributions in Tokyo.

Considering Kay was maybe the best shooter in theory in the starting group outside of Patty, the fact he did not hit a three the entire tournament, while also only pulling in 12 total rebounds, meant he became unplayable against both smaller, athletic teams, and teams that play inside-out. Serbia fit the latter mould with Jokic’s post ability as a scorer and passer, so Kay getting his minutes slashed right down to 8 was the right call.

The minutes behind Jock Landale also continued to be a problem and that was no different here, although Jock himself didn’t have a banner game, fouling out with only five points and six boards, but it was clear through the Olympics that the coaching staff never settled on their backup big man.

Will Magnay got some run against Jokic and was predictably brutalised, while Duop Reath split time between the four and five, combining some nice offensive touches with baffling defensive deficiency. This team needed another big to step up and be a plus rebounder, and none of Kay, Magnay and Reath were able to do that, and the failures to close out numerous defensive possessions stymied some overall positive defensive growth in this game.

My other main beef from the rotation in this one was Josh Green losing his entire allotment of minutes for Matthew Dellavedova based on Delly’s spark plug contributions against Greece.

I’ll admit, Delly was better than I expected him to be both against Greece and then initially here against Serbia, but it felt like Goorjian went back to the well too often and Delly’s influence became too great on the flow of the game from a negative point of view.

Delly has never been an elite ball handler or shooter, certainly passable in both aspects back in his prime but in his diminished ability nowadays, his lack of burst really came to the fore. I recognise the value he brought in his minutes, but it did feel over-extended at times. As for subbing him in as a specialist defender, that I didn’t understand at all. Even if you don’t want to play Josh Green, Dyson Daniels only had 20 minutes, he felt underplayed.

In the end though, this game came down to an NBA MVP making plays in the clutch, including a key (and legal) basket interference, swiping away a Mills layup that would’ve pushed the lead to five in OT, and maybe the Boomers hold on. Couple that with two key buckets, including a patented Sombor Shuffle and a baby hook, and Australia’s rushed offense in the final stanza, and the Boomers are on the flight home.

It’s the fact that this game shouldn’t have even had a clutch period with some better in game management that will hurt Boomers fans for a while.

BOOMER HIGHLIGHT

Before I get into what I want to talk about in here, a quick shout out again to Dante Exum. His role on this team is immensely important, and he provided another steadying presence with 12 points and five assists in 27 minutes off the bench.

When Giddey and Mills began to struggle, Exum helped keep the team afloat and managed to avoid letting go of the rope completely.

Also shoutout to Jack McVeigh’s big shot ability. He’s a rare unit behind the keyboard, it’s true, but the Boomers would’ve been sunk much sooner without some of his huge threes.

But it’s time to talk about Patty Mills.

That first half is some of the most ridiculous shotmaking I have ever seen in my 20+ years of watching the sport, at any level. Were they mostly what a coach would call bad shots? Yes, undoubtedly, but at this point of the tournament it was clear the team was willing to ride Patty’s aura in the hopes he would tap into that FIBA Patty vein one last time.

This game felt like a perfect sign off from that point of view. Mills’ athleticism may have diminished to the point now where he struggles to create constant separation off the dribble, but he managed to wind the clock back in a vintage first half show that had the entire bag of tricks going, from spinning reverse layups to midrange gambits from behind the backboard and even a three or two from the seat of his pants.

Considering this is likely Mills’ last international tournament in the green and gold (although I wouldn’t completely rule him out just yet given the ages of guys like Rudy Fernandez and Marcelo Huertas in these Olympics), it felt right that we got one last incandescent display of the superhero that is FIBA Patty Mills.

DISLIKE

The ball handling deserves a second mention because it was just so hopelessly brutal throughout the entire tournament, but especially in the second half here. When the team committed one turnover, several more seemed to follow, giving undeserved credence to the old park cricket adage that “one brings two.”

Josh Giddey was perhaps the biggest culprit in all of this, finishing with 20 of the Boomers 70 total turnovers, including 7 in this game alone. Giddey is obviously the great hope of the future Boomers generation, and he dazzled with some of his play at the Olympics, but he also showed his youth and naivety with some of his decision making at times.

Whether it was an ill-advised push ahead in transition without a clear advantage or dribbling into trouble behind the backboard, these are the nuances of point guard play that Giddey will get ample opportunity to iron out in the NBA badlands of the 2024-25 Chicago Bulls (who are projected to majorly suck).

The good news is Giddey will be just 25 when LA 2028 rolls around, so we haven’t seen close to the best of him yet you’d think.

BOX SCORE

A NOTE FROM ME

Thank you for reading The Antisocial Basketballer for these Olympics. I’ll have some more extended thoughts on specific aspects of the roster in the coming days and weeks, especially how the team moves forward and builds around its young core, so stay tuned for that in your inboxes if you’re a subscriber.

Also keep an eye on the Beyond the Fence podcast feed, we’ll have a post-Olympic reaction podcast for the Boomers and Opals coming soon too.

Make sure you’re subscribed to the newsletter and the podcast if you aren’t already, and share this around if you think someone would enjoy it.

Gold vibes only, onwards to Los Angeles.

Well I’m not going to say I told you so, because that would be unbecoming, but as soon as it was announced that Canada would be in the same Olympic pool as the Boomers, the outlines of a potential matchup became clear.

In a way, Canada’s strengths and weaknesses closely align with what the Boomers are carrying into this tournament, with an elite ball handling playmaker surrounded by a rich bevy of available athletic wings, and a cast of serviceable if not uninspiring bigs (although that is underselling Jock Landale, who has been one of Australia’s best, mroeso the depth behind him).

The Boomers key in this game was always going to be how they defended the other guys around Canadian megastar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, guys like RJ Barrett, Luguentz Dort, Dillon Brooks and Jamal Murray (I only include Murray in this list rather than his own star category due to his role right now being that of a backup point guard as he increases his involvement after coming off an injury late in the NBA season).

Turns out, not great!

Shai got his, as we all knew he would, even despite picking up two early fouls in the first quarter that would limit his eventual minutes total to 26, but his 16 points on 8-10 shooting was a display of ultimate effortlessness, even when draped by Australia’s elite perimeter defender in Dyson Daniels, his mastery in the midrange really shining through.

No, RJ Barrett was the Boomers assassin in this one, and it’s something that we probably all should’ve seen coming.

We often talk about NBA level role players turning superhuman when adorned with the colours of their country. FIBA Patty Mills is a well known phenomenon on these shores, while further afield you have guys like Evan Fournier in France, Willy Hernangomez for Spain, or Puerto Rico’s Jose Alvarado.

In that respect, Barrett is probably above that level in the NBA hierarchy. A once decorated prospect coming out of high school basketball powerhouse Montverde Academy before spending a season at Duke, the Toronto native was drafted third overall back in 2019 by the New York Knicks, spending 4.5 seasons in the bright lights of Manhattan before being traded to his hometown Raptors this past December.

*Trivia note, Barrett was the first Knicks-drafted rookie to sign a contract extension with the team since Charlie Ward in 1999

With career NBA averages of 18.4 points and over 5 rebounds per game, he’s probably too accomplished to fall into the “lovable over-extended cult hero” the aforementioned trio occupy, but good lord it did not stop him from absolutely eviscerating the Boomers to the tune of 24 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists.

When he wasn’t torching the Boomers from beyond the arc with his three three-pointers from six attempts, he was attacking the rim with regularity and reckless abandon, and his dominance over the game leads nicely into my main discussion point from a Boomers point of view.

Why the [redacted] did Nick Kay play 26 minutes against the smallest and most athletic team in the group?

Let me preface this by saying I am a fan of Nick Kay and everything he’s done in a Boomers uniform over the years. I’ve also made it clear that I would not have picked him on this roster given the group the Boomers were going to face, but his selection was one I could reconcile more than some others.

It became clear once the squad shook out that Kay was going to see bulk minutes at the power forward spot, and while I think he was a perfectly acceptable matchup against Spain and their size, Canada are about as opposite stylistically from Spain as it’s possible to be.

Kay played the majority of the fourth quarter alongside Jock Landale against a Canada lineup featuring Shai, Lu Dort, Jamal Murray and RJ Barrett along with one of their milquetoast bigs (mainly Dwight Powell, some Khem Birch). That’s four athletic, small guards/wings, three of whom are extremely adept ball handlers. Kay’s primary matchup? RJ Barrett, who, as mentioned above, completely shitmixed the Boomers all night.

I could’ve understood sticking Kay on Lu Dort given Dort’s main offensive role is as a spot up shooter, although I also wouldn’t have loved that, but leaving him on an island against a dynamic offensive player like Barrett was completely unconscionable to me, and the results reflected the process.

To that end, while Kay played bulk minutes, three Boomers I felt were underplayed were Josh Green, Dante Exum and Jack McVeigh, all for different reasons.

The Boomers have this tendency, especially in second halves, to enter periods of complete offensive ineptitude, where even getting the ball over halfcourt can feel like a massive accomplishment (although not to the extent the Opals made it look against Nigeria). Part of this was in the third quarter, when Canada took their four point halftime deficit and turned it into a lead of as much as ten points, before Jack McVeigh came on and immediately hit a couple of really important triples.

McVeigh is a confidence player, and someone you have to give rope to in order to realise his full effectiveness, as evidenced by his closing stretch in the third quarter. But after a couple of misses in the early fourth, he was benched and not sighted again until it was too late.

Josh Green has struggled offensively so far these Olympics, that is true, but he’s also not an offensive suckhole anyway. Green is very much a stand in the corner and hit open threes type of player on offense, but his true value is in his ability to guard multiple positions on the defensive end. In a game where Canada went small, he should’ve played more than 17 minutes, especially in the fourth quarter over Kay.

As for Exum, this one is a little harsher because I recognise he is coming off a pretty gnarly finger injury, but you wouldn’t have known with the way he cut up Canada to the tune of 15 points in 17 minutes, on 6-9 shooting. Exum has carried his form from the World Cup last year straight into his Olympic opener, providing a calming offensive presence in the second unit, with enough scoring threat to provide space for others.

On a night where Mills struggled mightily, I felt like Exum could’ve been given more minutes alongside Josh Giddey late to try and spark something. I understand Patty has earned the licence to shoot his way out of slumps, but this team doesn’t live and die by him anymore like it did in years past, and the lack of flexibility in the rotations was bitterly frustrating.

And that’s the overall theme of this one. Frustration. The Boomers found themselves in an extremely winnable game against the team many think will be the USA’s most likely challenger to the gold medal, and it was a couple of key two minute stretches that ultimately sunk the team. Maybe they don’t win regardless, but as much as Canada made the big plays down the stretch it also felt like the Boomers played with one hand tied behind their back at times.

BOOMER HIGHLIGHT

This publication is fast becoming an uninhibited Dante Exum fanpage but I cannot say enough good things about his role in this team.

My main complaint from the win against Spain was how the team often looked rudderless in the non-Giddey minutes, but replacing Dellavedova’s chaos with the refined offensive versatility of Exum could be exactly what the team needed.

Well, Exum delivered and then some, with his 15 points in 17 minutes. Like the rest of the guards he wasn’t immune to turnovers, but he constantly abused the Canadian second unit by getting two feet in the paint with absolute ease.

DISLIKE

Jock Landale played 31 minutes, was 7-10 from the field for his 16 points and 12 rebounds, also chipped in with 4 assists, and was a constant bullying presence inside.

Sometimes, having a center you can just throw the ball to in the post can be the best offense, and with Landale’s patented right handed baby hook, he can use that against most FIBA level big men, especially Canada’s.

The dislike though, is the nine minutes he wasn’t on the court.

Australia’s backup center play has been, to be polite, ROUGH over the first two games. Will Magnay had some nice moments against Spain while Duop Reath didn’t play at all, but was still lost a lot of the time on both ends.

Against Canada, both men got a handful of minutes and both managed to look equally bad.

Magnay is a net zero on offense outside of offensive rebounding, and his energy inside on the defensive end isn’t really enough to break even, while Reath is a sophisticated offensive player, but cannot secure a defensive rebound to save his life.

It’s a real problem going forward for the Boomers how they attack the Jock-less minutes. Nick Kay could also conceivably slide down to the five slot but he doesn’t really solve any of the issues Reath or Magnay create anyway.

BOX SCORE

NEXT GAME

Australia vs. Greece, Friday August 2nd, 9:30PM AEST

KEY MATCHUP: Giannis Antetokounmpo vs. the Boomers “box and one”

Giannis Antetokounmpo, as I’m sure you’re aware if you’re reading this newsletter because you are so clearly a very sharp basketball mind, is a physical force of nature the likes of which haven’t been seen in basketball since the days of Wilt Chamberlain playing against pharmacy workers.

Ok a small degree of creativity went into that analogy, but the point remains that Giannis plays with a degree of physicality that not only is hard to stop given his size at 6-foot-11 and 243 pounds, but his passing ability means that even if you magically stonewall him (good luck), he’s adept at finding one of Greece’s shooters, whether that be Walkup, Larentzakis, or Toliopoulos.

Spain exhibited a defensive strategy not too uncommon in modern basketball when there is one dominant offensive force on the opposition team, a variant of the zone defence called the “box and one.”

In simple terms, a standard (or 2-3) zone is where the center defends under the basket, then you have your two forwards defending the blocks, and your two guards at the elbows, and the defence moves on a string and adjusts accordingly.

The “box and one” variation takes out the middle man defender (or places them at the split line, the imaginary line running down the centre of the court, when the ball swings side to side), and plays a box zone with defenders on each block and elbow, while the fifth defender plays man to man defence on the opposition star and has no zone defence responsibilities.

The benefit of this defensive strategy is it can allow quick double teams to get the ball out of the hands of the star while the other three defenders can cover space on the weak side and recover if necessary.

The failures of this strategy often stem from a great passer able to find the weak side shooters before the defence can recover (LeBron faces a lot of looks at this defence, for instance), or a physical specimen able to attack before the double team chances can present (see, Giannis).

The Boomers don’t have anyone capable of guarding Giannis straight up. Barely anyone in the NBA does, let alone a nation that produces a handful of NBA players. Sticking any one player on Giannis is asking them to get fouled out. The box is, in my mind, the best chance to mitigate. Who becomes the “one” that is Giannis’ primary remains to be seen. I’d assume it’s Nick Kay by virtue of being the only true power forward on the roster, unless Goorjian goes with size and sticks Jock Landale on him.

Either way, the four help defenders will have an important role in helping shut down the secondary actions.

Well, if you were one of those NAYSAYERS who were all doom and gloom as the Boomers headed into these Olympic games, don’t you look silly right now*, as the men in green and gold cruised to a 92-80 win over the source of many nightmares for Australian basketball fans, Spain.

*Do not look at my Twitter feed or listen to the most recent Beyond the Fence podcast please

It was a super fast start for the Australians, racing out to a 21-9 lead off the back of some gorgeous movement offense with Josh Giddey predictably acting as the fulcrum for all of Australia’s ball movement, and his initial chemistry with Jock Landale allowed the rest of the team to play off that action.

The shots were falling early for the Boomers, with Giddey hitting a pair of three pointers in the first quarter while Landale did a lot of his work inside, and the Boomers were able to take a ten point lead into the first break.

The first quarter ultimately culminated in an inevitable flashpoint with just over two minutes to go, when Josh Green was felled by a moving screen by big man Usman Garuba. The two exchanged words before Will Magnay’s “violent act” (aka lightly brushing the small of Garuba’s back with a pinky finger) meant both Magnay and Garuba were slapped with technical fouls. Honestly, it’s the Olympics, and to hit two guys with technicals for something akin to a kindergarten sandpit scrap is just hilarious, especially considering technical fouls go against your limit of five in FIBA play. Anyway, whatever.

Spain though, kept firing from the outside. While the Boomers played a very deliberate and considered style of basketball, operating very much in motion out of the elbow with Josh Giddey and Jock Landale, with the rest of the team in constant movement with cuts and dives, Spain constantly used the pick and roll to their advantage, and began to work an avenue back into the game by using Australia’s blitzing defence against them.

Sergio Llull, he of many tormentions (not sure if this is a word but we’re rolling with it) of Australia in years past, and Santi Aldama, the Memphis Grizzlies forward, were the main drivers of the Spanish resistance. Llull and Aldama would constantly fire from the hip from outside with little care for what the Australian defence were doing, finishing with a combined 11 three pointers made from 23 attempts (Llull was 5-15, Aldama 6-8).

It was the difference in the three point shooting (and indeed mainly the sheer volume) that kept Spain in this one and ultimately saw them taking their only brief lead of the game at 56-54 with 5:58 left in the third quarter. Australia, as mentioned above, play rather deliberately on offense, but that means they attack inside more and don’t get up as many threes, whereas Spain’s intent was noticeable right from the start.

The Spaniards would end up with 37 attempts from behind the arc, compared to just 24 from the Aussies, with both sides making 12 apiece, although three of Australia’s makes were in the final four minutes.

It’s this lack of volume that will need to be addressed going forward, as the team probably won’t shoot 50% every game and getting five threes combined from Dyson Daniels and Josh Giddey, neither of whom are known for their proficiency from deep, isn’t exactly overly sustainable by raw percentages.

There were some things to work on too for the Boomers, most notably on the defensive glass. Spain came up with 12 offensive rebounds (funnily enough the Boomers had 14), and of all the teams the Boomers will face in the group, I’d hardly put Spain’s rebounding above Greece or Canada. The Boomers made the conscious choice to leave two of the better rebounders in the country off this team in Xavier Cooks and Jack White, so they’ll have to rebound as a unit to compensate for the deficiencies in the big men’s rebounding (I know Landale had 9 boards and Nick Kay 5, but it was a battle). To that end, both Josh Giddey and Dyson Daniels are elite rebounding guards, so that helps.

The Boomers had to really fight and scratch for every single defensive rebound, and that could come back to bite them against bigger, more athletic teams. The Boomers have the potential to be an elite defensive team, even without Matisse Thybulle, but rebounding is half the equation on defence, so it’s of little value to constantly force the opposition into tough shots only to fail to close the possession.

To that end, the calls for Duop Reath to get minutes didn’t really make sense to me, only because he wouldn’t have solved any of the problems that presented themselves during the game. Granted, Magnay had nice moments sure, but was largely overmatched on his Olympic debut, and yet I could kind of see the vision.

Duop’s skillset is closer to Landale’s than it is Magnay’s, as a stretch big man who can crash the offensive glass, but he offers little to no value on the defensive end as a rim protector or rebounder. Would I have liked to see Reath play? Yes, especially during the stretches in the second half where Australia’s offense lagged, as I didn’t love the lineups with no Giddey and with Magnay instead of a more offensive minded big man.

Overall though, a solid first up hitout for the Boomers. I did flag before the tournament that Spain was probably the best matchup on paper from an athleticism standpoint, so it was good to see them get out and run. The performance of the team in the warm up games also helped ease some concerns about no Thybulle or Cooks, with some strong wins over Serbia and France, and a close game against the USA.

The Dante Exum injury was unfortunate timing, especially because I thought he was Australia’s best player (or one of their best anyway) during last year’s World Cup, but hopefully he’s right to play in the last group game against Greece, if not against Canada.

The offense really fell apart in the minutes Josh Giddey wasn’t out there, and the jump from Matthew Dellavedova to Dante Exum as the reserve point guard should allay some of those concerns about a threat from the point guard position.

BOOMER HIGHLIGHT

I didn’t talk about him at all in the spiel above because I wanted to save it for in here, but Josh Green was absolutely awesome without scoring a single point, but it was one sequence in particular I wanted to highlight.

With 4:26 left in the third quarter, Australia were up 60-56, holding off the furious Spain rally. Patty Mills launches a mid range jumper that clanks high off back iron, and Josh Green soars in for an offensive rebound. The new possession finds its way to Jack McVeigh, who also misses, a three this time, and Green yet again flies in with reckless abandon for a second offensive rebound and kick out to Jock Landale, who eventually scores.

In a time when Australia’s offense was stagnating, any extra possession is worth its weight in gold, and Josh Green created two with outstanding hustle.

BOOMER HIGHLIGHT TWO

OK I usually only do one, but I couldn’t not go into more depth about Dyson Daniels’ game.

13 points (3-4 3PT), 7 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal

Josh Giddey will rightfully get a lot of plaudits for his performance, but Josh Giddey is also kind of a known quantity at this point.

Dyson Daniels, twelve months ago, was the 12th man on the World Cup roster that got bundled out unceremoniously after the second group stage. A year on, he’s playing in a role so expanded that it made Matisse Thybulle expendable (I don’t actually believe this for what it’s worth but that’s clearly how the team was picked anyway).

When Thybulle was left off the squad, the expectation was that it would create a pathway for a more important role for Daniels, as the closest facsimile to Thybulle’s length and athleticism on the defensive end, but with more offensive potential.

Well we got the full package in this one, with the newest member of the Atlanta Hawks putting Lorenzo Brown in jail for all 94 feet, all 40 minutes, while staying ready and available to hit open shots when called upon.

Dyson’s role on offense won’t be much more than to catch and shoot off the looks created by Josh Giddey, Patty Mills and hopefully Dante Exum. His big value though, is on defense, and he’ll have tougher tests coming up against the likes of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jamal Murray of Canada, and Greece’s Thomas Walkup, but his ability to play full court was a huge part of why Spain were often rushed in the halfcourt, because they had less time to work with, because Dyson put Lorenzo Brown IN JAIL.

Brown shot 3-10 and had 7 turnovers, mostly with Daniels as his primary defender. Brown, who has Euroleague averages of 13 points and 5 assists over the last five seasons for big clubs like Red Star Belgrade, Fenerbahce, Kazan and Maccabi Tel Aviv, was made to look thoroughly second rate by Bendigo’s finest. A huge sign moving forward for what Daniels can be for this team.

DISLIKE

Touched on it briefly above but the non-Giddey minutes were a rough watch offensively. Hopefully, swapping in Exum back for Dellavedova helps the second unit flow more, but it was largely isolation heavy and stagnant for the most part. I also thought the usage of Joe Ingles given that struggle was curious, as Ingles only played 3 minutes. Thought he would’ve been a useful lever to pull to provide some extra playmaking.

The other big concern, again, as mentioned above, but the struggle on the defensive glass. The Hernangomez brothers and Garuba are hardly elite interior presences and yet they made Australia work overtime to secure defensive boards. Another trend to monitor.

BOX SCORE

NEXT GAME

Australia vs. Canada, Tuesday July 30th, 9PM AEST

KEY MATCHUP: Dyson Daniels vs. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

In the other Group A match from the first matchday, Canada handled Greece 86-79, a game the Canadians largely had under control save for some late Giannis Antetokounmpo heroics to nearly pull the Greeks over the top.

Curiously, Canada started Jamal Murray on the bench and only played him 18 minutes, preferring to start the game with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, RJ Barrett, Luguentz Dort and Dillon Brooks flanking big man Dwight Powell.

The defensive matchups here will be interesting, and if Canada starts that lineup again, I could see the Boomers dropping Nick Kay to the bench to bring in some more defensive mobility in the starting lineup, but Goorjian will probably stay inflexible.

Anyway, Canada’s head of the snake is Shai, the MVP contender from the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA. He had a relatively quiet night offensively by his lofty standards against Greece, scoring 21 points, while RJ Barrett led the team with 23.

Barrett himself also poses a key matchup problem given his ability to attack the basket and score at all three levels, so I will be interested to see how the Boomers stack up defensively, whether they maybe even play some zone to combat the defensive deficiencies of Mills and Giddey, because I doubt either of them will be benched.

Still, I’d expect Daniels to take the brunt of the matchup against SGA, to pick him up full court, fight around screens, and funnel him towards the help. Shai is an expert operator in the midrange specifically, and even though the other Canadians in that starting unit are threats (Dillon Brooks hung 39 on the USA in their World Cup win last year), not to mention Jamal Murray off the bench, I expect Shai to be priority numbers one, two and even three.

Force the ball out of Shai’s hands, scramble and recover, and rebound as a group.

#GoldVibesOnly

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**

Right, my Friday has been well and truly ruined.

In case you missed it or are blissfully unaware, Olgun Uluc of ESPN has dropped the reported final Boomers squad for the Paris Olympics, and it contains some, let’s say quizzical, final choices.

When I saw this roll across my timeline, I briefly scanned the list just assuming to read all your old favourites.

“Ok Green and Exum are in, yep Giddey too, ah I see Dyson made the cut that’s nice…wait something’s missing?”

It took me a few read throughs before coming to that harkening realisation that Matisse Thybulle has been sensationally left off this list, and now my day, week and probably month, is completely ruined.

Looks like in the sphere of French post-impressionistic painters, Brian Goorjian is more of an Henri Rousseau connoisseur. Can’t say I agree with him, but at least he’s not in bed with Paul Cezanne.

Anyway…

Before we move on, just a reminder what I wrote about the other day, including the squad I would’ve picked.

Following the World Cup, a disastrous campaign where Australia finished 10th after losses against Germany and Slovenia, featuring a squad largely billed as transitional with the 2024 Olympics on the horizon, the Boomers dropped off that defensive intensity that carried them all the way to rose gold in Tokyo two years prior.

Several factors can be pointed at to explain the Boomers’ catatonic World Cup. The introduction of Josh Giddey at point guard, the nation’s great hope for the future but still a drastic stylistic change from the way the team played in Tokyo, Giddey’s natural floor game sacrificed spacing with his inconsistent outside shot, and the team’s style shifted to accommodate him.

Expanded roles for Josh Green and Duop Reath, two bit part contributors in Tokyo that were thrust into the limelight, the former at the expense of Matthew Dellavedova, the latter due to injuries to Jock Landale and Aron Baynes.

Speaking of Landale, his injury mere weeks out from the World Cup submarined the team, taking a facsimile of big men in Xavier Cooks and Jack White to help Nick Kay cover the five spot in a pairing with Duop Reath.

In summary, introducing so many new key role players in Giddey, Green, Cooks and Reath for the World Cup was always going to provide a bit of transition for the Boomers, but with a settled squad heading into this Olympics, I was reasonably confident of the team to gel together prior to the Games.

And then Goorjian just threw a Molotov into the equation.

No Matisse Thybulle.

No Xavier Cooks.

Let me start with the inclusion of FOUR big men in Landale, Reath, Nick Kay and Will Magnay in the squad. I can’t help but think Goorjian is so spooked by what happened at the World Cup that he’s prioritised having as much big man cover as possible.

I can understand his reticence, but I think it’s a really short sighted move. In the World Cup, Australia were relying on guys like Cooks and Jack White to provide bulk cover at the centre spot in lieu of Jock Landale, while Goorjian refused to stagger the minutes of Nick Kay and Duop Reath, often playing them in a frontcourt pairing, leading to the team’s defence to get utterly exposed.

With Landale back, you have your top two centre options healthy and available, and I would be dead against playing them together for that defensive reasoning. Offensively they’re fine, but neither of them can guard in space, they’re both centres in FIBA ball, you have enough cover with Xavier Cooks providing any additional insurance.

To me, this squad (and again, this is reported, there is a chance Olgun Uluc has something wrong but his track record has me pretty convinced) is a real mis-reading of the situation that the Boomers find themselves in.

By including four centres, as well as Jack McVeigh AND Matthew Dellavedova, Goorjian appears to be insuring himself against a scenario that might happen, rather than loading his team up to play to its strengths.

Australia, in this generation, is never going to be a fluid offensive team. They have guys that can make shots, sure, but the majority of the elite guys in this rotation are streaky shooters.

Therefore, I would’ve prioritised the defence and transition game. Australia’s point of difference is having a bunch of hyper-athletic (for FIBA level anyway), switchable wing defenders that can cause havoc and get out and run.

Australia’s bronze medal campaign was characterised by being able to string together several key stops in a row and pushing the ball in transition, and a huge part of that was Matisse Thybulle. In the bronze medal game against Slovenia, Thybulle took on the responsibility of guarding Luka Doncic. Luka got his that night, but he had to work incredibly hard for it, and eventually Australia were able to pull away after wearing Slovenia down.

By dropping Matisse, and Xavier Cooks for that matter (preseason training will be interesting for the Sydney Kings), the Boomers have sacrificed two of their bigger, more athletic defensive and transition presences, and for what? To carry Delly’s experience on the bench for no reason?

This squad feels like it’s carrying a few too many passengers. I appreciate what Dellavedova and Nick Kay have done for Australian basketball, but if you’re truly picking on form and not legacy, as I was led to believe, neither would be near the squad.

Kay was bad at the World Cup, his numbers way down, and Delly is coming off a season where he shot under 30% from three for Melbourne United. I can appreciate people like the comeback story of perseverance, but this is the Olympics, you only have 12 spots, this isn’t carrying a beloved veteran on a club side for vibes, there should be no charity here.

The Goulding omission is also one I would not have seen coming, especially given how he lit it up in the two warm up games vs. China, but Goorjian also refused to play him anyway, even when Australia couldn’t hit water if they fell off a boat, so I’m not wasting any energy getting mad over that one.

Where there’s losers though, there will also be winners, and this squad is a huge vote of confidence in Dyson Daniels and Jack McVeigh, in particular. With the omissions of Thybulle and Cooks, Daniels and McVeigh will look to have expanded roles, Daniels as that bigger wing defender, and McVeigh as the four man.

Daniels especially needs a big tournament with this vote of confidence. He was a non factor in the World Cup, playing sparingly, but had a reasonably solid season over in the NBA with New Orleans. Still, he has the same shooting concerns Thybulle did, and isn’t the defender Matisse is either, so the logic applying to one and not the other does bemuse me.

All that being said, of course I’ll hope these calls are right, but it’s tough to not feel a little underwhelmed and down on this squad.

#GoldVibesOnly

**

Tonight, the Boomers begin their final preparations en route to hopefully going one (or, dare to dream, two) better from their performances at Tokyo 2020, with a duo of warm up games in Melbourne against China this week followed by the cull of the preliminary 17 man roster down to a final 12.

The chosen few will then head to Abu Dhabi for the USA Basketball Showcase, with games against the USA and Serbia, before the Paris Olympics begins proper.

To recap, a look at the 17 man preliminary roster:

1. Xavier Cooks - Sydney Kings (NBL)

2. Dyson Daniels - Atlanta Hawks (NBA)

3. Matthew Dellavedova - Melbourne United (NBL)

4. Dante Exum - Dallas Mavericks (NBA)

5. Josh Giddey - Chicago Bulls (NBA)

6. Chris Goulding - Melbourne United (NBL)

7. Josh Green - Charlotte Hornets (NBA)

8. Joe Ingles - Orlando Magic (NBA)

9. Nick Kay - Shimane Susanoo Magic (Japan)

10. Jock Landale - Houston Rockets (NBA)

11. Will Magnay - Tasmania JackJumpers (NBL)

12. Jack McVeigh - Tasmania JackJumpers (NBL)

13. Patty Mills - Miami Heat (NBA)

14. Duop Reath - Portland Trailblazers (NBA)

15. Matisse Thybulle - Portland Trailblazers (NBA)

16. Dejan Vasiljevic - Adelaide 36ers (NBL)

17. Jack White - Melbourne United (NBL)

For those of you playing along at home, that’s nine players currently contracted or last playing for an NBA team. In fact, the only two players in this squad without NBA experience are Chris Goulding, Nick Kay, Jack McVeigh and Dejan Vasiljevic (although you’d be forgiven for not remembering Will Magnay’s one game stint with the New Orleans Pelicans in 2021).

However, quality throughout the squad doesn’t mean much if it isn’t cohesive, as we saw at the World Cup last year, with the same roster sans Jock Landale, who suffered an ankle injury in a warm up game win against South Sudan. That roster, loaded with NBA talent, scratched and clawed their way to a second round exit, with losses against Slovenia and eventual world champions Germany marring their tournament.

It can’t be overstated how big a loss Landale was pre-tournament, with his ability to stretch the floor and play as both a four and a five in FIBA play replaced by Jack White in the squad. White, who is a fine player in his own right, was stylistically too similar to Xavier Cooks as an energetic hybrid four who can play some five, with a lack of consistent outside game often clogging the lane for Josh Giddey, among others, to operate.

To that end, it will be interesting to see how Brian Goorjian approaches these final two audition games, as the squad will be cut to the final 12 following the second game against China, with an emphasis on shooting surely placed given the squad’s struggles at the World Cup 12 months ago. The team shot 37% from three, a respectable mark, but not at the volume they would’ve liked, as their 25.4 attempts per game were only good for 23rd in the tournament, out of 32 teams.

Therefore, I’m expecting a real chance for the perceived fringe members of the squad like Dejan Vasiljevic and Jack McVeigh to make a real impression and push for selection given their strengths as marksmen from behind the arc. The return of Jock Landale and the confidence of Duop Reath following his debut season with the Trailblazers will help fill some of the void, but the lack of consistent shooting in the wing group will open opportunities for one of these guys to stake a claim.

Let’s start with Vasiljevic. After leaving the Kings to try and shake out an NBA career in Washington, the Canadian-born sniper returned to the NBL with Adelaide for the final 23 games of season 2023-24, averaging a career high 19.7 points per game. His 3 point percentage suffered, slipping down to 32.2% after being above 37% in each of his previous three seasons in Sydney, but I put that down to an expanded role as a more primary on-ball creator on a weakened roster, compared to the off ball role on championship calibre sides in Sydney.

A return to a more off ball role in a Boomers set up should see his splits revert back to his Sydney days, and if there’s one thing we know about Vasiljevic from his time in the NBL it’s that he’s never shy to get a shot up, something this Boomers side lacked last year.

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And then there’s newly-minted NBL champion Jack McVeigh, coming off a season where he shone as the main man in a championship run, averaging 16.4 points per game while hitting 36.4% of his threes. Much like Vasiljevic, McVeigh has a diverse offensive game, but while Vasiljevic is more adept at breaking down defenders in isolation, McVeigh attacks reckless closeouts well, while still being able to punish defenders that dare him to shoot the three.

McVeigh isn’t the volume three point threat Vasiljevic is, but there’s no doubt in my mind both men will have a chance to impress Goorjian with their offensive repertoires given the lack of real offensive consistency from more established NBA names like Josh Green and Dyson Daniels, who are more known on the other end of the floor.

That all being said, I do think the majority of this squad is close to locked in even before we see them run out. I think Daniels, Exum, Giddey, Green, Ingles, Landale, Mills, Reath and Thybulle are pretty much certainties to be on the plane to Paris. I know there was some chatter pre-World Cup about Daniels’ spot in the squad last year, but I’d say another year of NBA minutes under his belt and his defensive versatility and athleticism move him closer to lock than likely cut.

For mine, the return of Landale puts the status of both Cooks and White up in the air. Both thrive on the inside, being elite rebounders and transition threats, but lack refinement in their offensive games. I do think Cooks probably makes it but I’m not willing to lock him in, but I do think White has an uphill battle to make the squad, given he was only added once Landale got ruled out last year.

Also affected by Landale’s return is Nick Kay. Kay, much like the two men I’ll discuss next, has been a Boomers staple for the better part of a decade, and was a huge part of the squad that won bronze in Tokyo after Aron Baynes went down with his freak injury.

After averaging 11 points and 6.3 rebounds in the Olympics, those numbers slipped to 6.4 points and 4.6 rebounds in the World Cup, with his lack of athleticism on the defensive end being found out in partnership with Duop Reath, as teams would target both in a pick and roll before attacking the switch. Was that entirely Kay’s fault? No, the defensive scheme was terrible in auto-switching every soft screen sent their way, as well as the continuing decision to keep Reath and Kay on the floor as a pairing for long stretches of the game, but I do think, given Reath’s season in the NBA, Kay is now more likely to be on the roster bubble.

He remains a fantastic playmaker out of the high post, and a capable shooter and rebounder, but the question will be how in demand his skillset will be given the deficits in the squad elsewhere, and whether Kay’s profile can me made up in the aggregate.

Finally, there’s the question of Matthew Dellavedova (and to a lesser extent Chris Goulding). After a season as a victory cigar in Sacramento, following a tough Olympic campaign, Dellavedova was left off the World Cup squad, his shooting having fallen off a cliff, and his second-to-none defensive competitiveness and floor vision not enough to carry him in the squad in lieu of younger, more intriguing options. It was assumed his national team career was dead in the water.

And yet, he rebounded to average 11.8 points and 6 assists per game in his return season for Melbourne United, although his distance shooting again abandoned him (sub 30% after being over 37% his prior season in Melbourne). He’s still on the outside looking in for me, but I’m not willing to discount his floor presence if Goorjian wants to take some load off Josh Giddey.

As for Goulding, I think at this stage of his career, it’s worth going in a different direction, especially since he’s been picked for the last two major tournaments only to ride the bench for the most part. He had a strong season in the NBL, averaging 16.9 points per game and hitting 39.8% of his threes on just under 10 attempts per game, but if he’s not going to play, I’d pick someone else, especially as I think both Vasiljevic and McVeigh offer more diverse offensive games and better defence at this stage in all their respective careers, even if they aren’t the pure shooters that Goulding is.

THE ANTISOCIAL BASKETBALLER’S OLYMPIC SQUAD PREDICTION

*Pre China warm up games

1. Xavier Cooks

2. Dyson Daniels

3. Dante Exum

4. Josh Giddey

5. Josh Green

6. Joe Ingles

7. Jock Landale

8. Jack McVeigh

9. Patty Mills

10. Duop Reath

11. Matisse Thybulle

12. Dejan Vasiljevic

CUTS: Matthew Dellavedova, Chris Goulding, Nick Kay, Will Magnay, Jack White

People will point out how the lack of frontcourt depth hurt the Boomers at the World Cup and how I’ve still only got two centres here, but Landale’s inclusion is huge here and Cooks can play the five as well in FIBA play against most sides so I’m not concerned there.

Basically, I’ve loaded up on offense given the team’s struggles to score consistently at the World Cup (and for periods in the Olympics too), and I think there’s a nice mix of defensive presence on the wings (Green, Thybulle, Daniels, Exum) with offensive creativity (Giddey, Mills, Vasiljevic, McVeigh), which should also help alleviate some of the struggles that faced Giddey at the World Cup given the lack of spacing on the court at key moments.

**

If you disagree for any reason, I’d love to hear why, comment below.

**

First off, let me start with a sincere apology for trying to force a “HAWK TUAH” reference into the title of this newsletter. I should know better, I will be better, let’s move forward together.

Anyway, when the news was broken the other day that Dejounte Murray was being traded to the Pelicans, my immediate thought was Dyson Daniels heading the other way. By trading for Murray, the Pelicans signalled an intention to win now, by pairing Murray with CJ McCollum and Zion Williamson, as well as Brandon Ingram, if he hangs around.

By moving into this next phase of contention, the Pelicans had no real need to carry a developmental prospect like Daniels anymore. By following the model set by other Western Conference teams that arose into contention off the back of young and exciting cores supplemented by a big trade (see: Minnesota and Dallas), New Orleans had to make some decisions.

Dyson, being raw and developmental enough, was deemed the most expendable of the Pelicans assortment of wing talent, as his skillset is more theoretical at this stage of his career, compared to Trey Murphy or Herb Jones.

In his two years in New Orleans, Daniels has fluctuated from an important role player, to not seeing playing time at all, a symptom of New Orleans’ depth as coach Willie Green fluctuated his lineups, especially at the stacked wing position, with Daniels, as well as the aforementioned Murphy and Jones, plus Naji Marshall and even Jordan Hawkins all behind Brandon Ingram.

Daniels averaged 5.8 points, 3.9 rebounds and 2.7 assists in just over 22 minutes per game for the Pelicans this past season, starting 16 of the 61 games he appeared in. Mixing in 1.4 steals per game, his immediate NBA contributions are largely on the defensive end, with his long frame and size at 6’8” allowing him to guard most guards and wings, with the Pelicans often subbing him in for defensive possessions late in games.

Where Daniels will need to improve is as a shooter, as a 31% career mark from three is hardly terrible, but still on the lower end of passable, especially for someone who projects to play predominantly off the ball in Atlanta next to Trae Young.

In New Orleans, Daniels played what I’d term a defacto point guard role at times, largely tasked with bringing the ball up the floor and running occasional pick and rolls, but largely spending offensive possessions spaced on the weakside waiting a kick out.

I do think there’s more refinement to Daniels’ offensive game than we saw in New Orleans, the Pelicans lack of a true point guard really diluting ball handling duties throughout the roster. Daniels works pretty well in the intermediate range with floaters and runners, and can penetrate and kick at a somewhat repeatable level, but his shooting concerns will limit his effectiveness on offense if not rectified.

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It’s a smart gamble from Atlanta to bet on another wing with upside, as the NBA trends towards being a wing-dominant league. The title winning Celtics were led by their twin dragon of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, while Minnesota charged all the way to the Conference Finals off the back of Anthony Edwards supported by Jaden McDaniels and Nickeil Alexander-Walker.

Daniels joins an interesting wing rotation in Atlanta with 2023-24 breakout star Jalen Johnson and number one overall pick Zaccharie Risacher, as well as steady veterans in DeAndre Hunter and Bogdan Bogdanovic.

I’m not sure what direction Atlanta is heading in at the moment, given trading away Dejounte Murray for Daniels and Larry Nance is obviously a talent deficit, with San Antonio being owed Atlanta’s 2025 first round pick as part of the original Dejounte Murray trade.

Daniels should settle into the rotation immediately, likely in a similar slot as he was in New Orleans but with more consistent playing time. There’s a chance Atlanta deals some of the older wings in Hunter and Bogdanovic to try and recoup some draft capital and allow Johnson, Risacher and Daniels more room to grow.

He’ll help shore up Atlanta’s point of attack defence, which was disappointingly lacklustre given Dejounte Murray’s reputation as an All-Defense calibre guard, and I’m hopeful another summer in the Boomers program playing at the Olympics will springboard him into a productive offensive season for the Hawks.

Daniels doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel offensively. If he can get his distance shooting up around 35-36%, he’ll turn into a very valuable three and D piece at a base level, with enough on ball promise to provide in other areas.

He obviously won’t be on ball for anything more than the odd possession in Atlanta, but Daniels flashed some potential as a secondary playmaker in New Orleans, and it’s that wrinkle that could prove to be his point of difference from the dime a dozen wing defenders that occupy today’s NBA, if it develops.

However it shakes out, and whatever you think of the price they recouped after selling for Dejounte Murray two seasons ago, there are worse gambles to take than on a guy like Dyson Daniels.

**

Entering his freshman season at the University of Kansas, expectations were mild for Melbourne-born wing Johnny Furphy. With a name that sounds like it’s been AI generated to star as the main character in a mid 2000s beer ad, the young Victorian was joining one of the richest college basketball programs in history in the 4-time NCAA champion Kansas Jayhawks.

Furphy was expected to slot into a bit-part rotational role for the Jayhawks, as the team returned big name forwards in Kevin McCullar Jr and KJ Adams Jr, as well as Michigan transfer big man Hunter Dickinson, but Furphy eventually forced his way into Kansas’ starting lineup permanently on January 13th against Oklahoma.

Having only started one of the first 14 games of the season, Furphy would start all but one game the rest of the season (the one exception being Kansas’ Senior Night showdown against Kansas State), and finish his season with averages of 9.0 points, 4.9 rebounds and 0.9 steals per game, while shooting 46.6% from the field and 35.2% from three (on 3.8 attempts per game).

Furphy wasn’t really on mock drafts at all before the college season, before steadily climbing his way up as he developed into a solid contributor on a Kansas squad with bigger names. As the Jayhawks starting small forward, Furphy excelled in a low-maintenance role on offense, reduced mainly to corner threes and off ball slashes and cuts, being an effective transition threat, and playing passable defence.

It was this simple yet effective skillset that saw Furphy eventually finish the season as a first round NBA prospect, being mocked anywhere from the end of the lottery to the end of the first round, but most slotting him in to that 20-25 range.

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Still, it was no guarantee Furphy would even enter the draft, as a 19 year old with one reasonably productive season of college basketball under his belt, there was some hesitancy around his projection with some stating he could do with another year of honing at Kansas, especially as other big names like Kevin McCullar Jr were leaving the program.

For those unfamiliar with the process, players have 10 days or so to withdraw from the draft (assuming they haven’t hired an agent) after the NBA Draft Combine, allowing them to test their standing before making an informed decision.

Furphy, for what it’s worth, didn’t blow anyone away with his athletic testing at the combine. NBA executives froth players with large wingspans and elite burst, and Furphy, who measured 6’7.5” in shoes, only had a 6’8” wingspan and a 32 inch max vertical leap, leading some to question how his defensive ability and transition game would translate at the next level.

Nonetheless, Furphy stayed in the draft, convinced that with his production and first round grade, there was no way he’d slide too far. Plus, he got invited to the draft green room, a guarantee of going first round, right?

If I may deviate for a second, but the two day draft process sucked. I hated it unashamedly, for a myriad of reasons.

Firstly, I understand there’s a commercial benefit to spacing the draft out to sell more advertising space, but that doesn’t matter if you have Adrian Wojnarowski live on the broadcast spoiling picks (thanks for letting me know the Pistons drafted Ron Holland 5 mins before they announced it pal), and don’t even get me started on the sanitary second round broadcast, with a B-tier green room for second round draft prospects that looked more like a hospital waiting room for a flu vaccine.

Then there’s the scenario that played out in the draft, with both Johnny Furphy and Kyle Filipowski being invited to the green room, sitting there for the entire three hours or whatever it dragged out to be, not hearing their name called, and just going home dejectedly. Inviting as many prospects to the green room as the NBA did was always a dangerous game to begin with, especially given the added risk of guys sliding, but on a personal level I felt for them.

Anyway, after missing the first round entirely, Furphy fell all the way to pick 35, drafted by San Antonio before being traded on draft night to Indiana, and although it’s disappointing for him to fall so far on an international stage, I actually really like the fit for him in Indiana.

The Pacers are coming off an NBA Conference Finals appearance (and In-Season Tournament Final appearance if you care about that), and have a very settled rotation. Specific to Furphy as a wing, he won’t be expected to contribute right away, and can sit behind guys like Aaron Nesmith, Ben Sheppard, Bennedict Mathurin and Andrew Nembhard, plus whatever they end up doing with free agent Obi Toppin.

Furphy’s style as a low maintenance catch and shoot half court offensive player who can also get out and run will also slot in seamlessly to Indiana’s high tempo style. The Pacers were at or near the top of the league in several offensive categories last season, most notably being the pace they play at. Rick Carlisle’s men love to push the ball, after a make or miss, in lieu of actually playing defence, so while Furphy’s raw athletic testing numbers were a little underwhelming, his play style is a marriage to what Indiana established last year.

Did Furphy get some bad advice and come out too early when he should’ve stayed an extra year in Kansas? Maybe. Will he be a key contributor this year in Indiana? Almost certainly not, and in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s stashed in the G-League for a long portion of the season and allowed to make mistakes and learn on the job.

Nevertheless, while the initial draft experience may have stung for the young Victorian, as far as team fits go in the long run, it’s hard to envisage much better than the speedy Pacers.

NBL Next Stars

A banner night at the draft for the NBL Next Star program, with four players hearing their name called, with Alex Sarr (2nd to Washington), AJ Johnson (23rd to Milwaukee), Bobi Klintman (37th to Detroit) and Ariel Hukporti (58th to New York) all drafted, plus Trentyn Flowers signing an undrafted deal with the LA Clippers.

I’ll have something more detailed on the Next Stars and their draft fits and scouting reports in the coming days and weeks, but for now it’s good to see the program continues to put players in the league.

Also shout out to Western Australia product Alex Ducas for signing a two way deal with the Oklahoma City Thunder. Ducas just wrapped up a stellar career at St Mary’s, averaging 9 points and 4 rebounds over 150 appearances (123 starts). His main value will be as a shooter, as a career 40.6% three point shooter in college, including 43.8% in his senior year.

Programming Notes

It has been a while since one of these, and I didn’t want to overload this with a bunch of small features, so to commit myself to more content I thought I’d spell out what future programming in the coming months looks like for the newsletter.

As mentioned above, I’ll have scouting reports on the NBL Next Stars that are now in the league, I haven’t decided on features for each or one big report, so we’ll see. I’ll also have larger analysis coming up on the Josh Giddey and Dyson Daniels trades, and am trying to organise some Boomers podcasts with the Olympic cycle coming up.

Mailbag

To round out, a small mailbag, because why not.

(I was hopeful in the time I’d been away that Twitter/X embed would work on Substack again…I was foolish).

I can’t believe I hopped online merely an hour after the second round of the draft had concluded and I was greeted with a 2025 “far too early” mock draft. Far too early is the understatement of the century, let me digest this class for at least 24 hours, but anyway.

For those who aren’t wedded to the draft cycle, the 2024 class was considered one of the weaker ones in recent memory (even though it had LeBron’s son in it for crying out loud), but maybe that’s because we’ve been spoiled with so much top end talent in drafts in the last five years, with guys like Victor Wembanyama, Zion Williamson and Cade Cunningham being crowned the number 1 pick a year in advance (laugh at me for including Cade in there, the fact is he was the consensus #1 pick for a year and a blue chip prospect, bite me).

Anyway, while this 2024 draft might not age well in terms of can’t miss star talent, I still think it will produce plenty of great players, but the 2025 draft is about to rival 2023 in terms of hype at the presumed heir apparent as Cooper Flagg begins his journey with Duke.

To that end, I think #WavingTheFlagg is probably the best we’re gonna see from a self-deprecating hashtag perspective. It’s simple yet elegant, and doesn’t involve clumsy forcing in of words to make the point.

Some other examples I quite like include:

• #SwoopForCoop

• #StayCoopedUp

• #NoHooperForCooper

• #LagForFlagg

• #FlaggForHelp

There’s admittedly not a lot of creativity here, but that’s what happens when the lead prospect is a white bread forward from New England with a plain name.

For starters, I do appreciate the Pistons drafting one of like, five players on the board in the second round that I had actually seen play, so that was nice. I don’t pretend to be a draft expert, and outside of the Australians and the guys that go from the NBL, I’m largely beholden to what I see in brief snippets on ESPN and online.

That being said, I do like the swing that new Pistons basketball boss Trajan Langdon took in this draft with Klintman (and Ron Holland too). Yeah Holland’s shooting is a concern, but the Pistons are in no position to be fussy with talent fits after a season where you set an NBA record for longest losing streak. You get the talent in and figure it out later.

On Klintman, and I will have more on him later this week over on Detroit Bad Boys, but I’m really excited about him as a prospect. Good size and shooting ability, his defence is a bit messy but a wing with some offensive refinement has been a rare commodity for the Pistons recently.

As for the NBL, as someone who has been going to games since pretty much the day I was born, it’s awesome to see how far the league has come perception wise to where there’s no level of competition pushback from the close-minded pro-NCAA crowd. There’s enough positive NBL to NBA stories already (Jae’Sean Tate, LaMelo Ball, Josh Giddey, Jock Landale) that Klintman isn’t going to majorly shift any perceptions more, but of course I’ll use any success he has for some very loud agendas.

**

The NBA trade deadline came and went on Thursday afternoon (Friday morning Australian time) without a bang so much as it was a series of slightly erratic fireworks, like your dodgy uncle bringing sparklers to a family New Years Eve celebration.

As usual, here at The Antisocial Basketballer, we like to break down the big storylines from the NBA trade deadline, and figure out what’s next. This won’t be a trade by trade breakdown as such, because really who needs to hear detailed analysis about the minutiae of the Blazers acquiring Dalano Banton for a future second? No one, exactly.

Bing Bong

I don’t know how comfortable I am living in a world where the New York Knicks are competently run, but that’s the reality of the situation at the moment as they took maybe the biggest swing on a relatively star-free deadline day, adding Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks from the Detroit Pistons.

Bogdanovic and Burks are names that have been in the trade winds for over a year now, as the Pistons held onto both veterans at last year’s deadline amidst reports of…far more generous offers than what the Knicks swung here, but more on the Pistons asset management later.

For the Knicks, they add proven scoring talent to a deep roster that won’t ask either man to over-extend themselves to the point they were in Detroit. Bogdanovic is a classy scorer, a three level operator capable of putting up 20 a night. A high volume shooter, Bogdanovic is hitting over 41% of his threes this year on over seven attempts a night, giving opposing defences another headache to cover for off Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle when the latter returns from a shoulder injury.

In Detroit, Bogdanovic was often asked to be a steady metronome in a swirling sea of chaos around him as a bevy of young promising guards all took their lumps trying to figure out NBA basketball. Too often, possessions would end with a grenade in Bogdanovic’s hands, a hopeful crowd waiting eagerly for the resident magician to pull another rabbit out of the hat.

More often than not, a rabbit appeared.

Burks, meanwhile, has endured a rather rocky season thus far. A rare member of the exclusive club where their 3P% is higher than their FG%, Burks is hitting 40% of his threes, but only shooting 39% from the field as a whole, not that it matters much given 5.7 of his 9.4 field goals attempted per game are from behind the line.

Between November 1st and December 31st, Burks was borderline unplayable. Through a 21 game sample, he shot a miserable 31% from the field and 29% from three in 16 minutes a game on over 7 field goals attempted. However, since Jan 1st, Burks has caught fire, hitting 45% of his threes and just under 45% from the field, rediscovering his form as one of the most coveted pure sixth men scorers in the league.

In Bogdanovic and Burks the Knicks have acquired two polished offensive players capable of exploding on any given night (Burks two 30 point games, Bogdanovic four this season) for the low price of Quentin Grimes, an assortment of end of the bench veterans, and a second round pick.

The next month will be a period of assimilation and transition for the Knicks, and it’s likely we won’t see the full version of this team until the playoffs. Julius Randle is out for another few weeks at least with a dislocated shoulder, while OG Anunoby has just had elbow surgery. Both should be back sometime in March you’d think, giving the Knicks enough time to incorporate these new pieces before a playoff run.

The Perfect Fit

Dallas are currently sitting at 29-23, good enough for eighth in a loaded Western Conference battle for the final guaranteed playoff spots. With a generational talent like Luka Doncic at the helm, it takes some serious misfortune to not fire, and with Dallas it’s been injuries, with Doncic, Kyrie Irving, Josh Green, Dante Exum, Dereck Lively II and Derrick Jones Jr all missing time at various points in the season.

Enter PJ Washington, a modern day prototypical stretch power forward acquired from Charlotte for Grant Williams, Seth Curry and a future first round pick. The Grant Williams experiment in Dallas was short-lived and disappointing, but that’s a tale for another day, this is about Washington.

Washington isn’t exactly having an eye popping season numbers wise. His scoring is slightly down, his rebounding slightly up, all of which to say any growth or regression is statistically insignificant. Averaging 13 points and 5 rebounds on a terrible Charlotte squad will dull anyone’s lustre.

When I say Washington is a perfect fit on Dallas there is a certain level of projection and assumption to be made. In theory, Washington, as mentioned above, is that prototypical new age four, a bigger wing hybrid that can hit threes, defend at a league average level at least and be a positive rebounder.

The issue is Washington shot 35% from three last year, not bad but not anything special, and that number is down to 32% this year. I do put a portion of that on the loss of LaMelo Ball, who has missed huge segments of the last two years with injury, and as good as Terry Rozier was for Charlotte, he wasn’t exactly a known creator for others.

Washington is a really interesting fit in this Dallas isocentric offense, an upgrade in theory over someone like Maxi Kleber or Markieff Morris in that power forward/small ball centre role. I’m not sure whether he starts because I do think the Mavericks have found a nice balance between their All-World offensive backcourt in Luka and Kyrie and their role playing 3 and D guys in Josh Green and Derrick Jones Jr.

Washington’s ability to hit open threes will be his ticket to playing time and a key to unlocking another level of this Dallas offense. Teams can have a tendency to cheat off Williams/Jones Jr in the fourth quarter. If Washington can get back to his 2021 shooting levels, that becomes a more dangerous proposition.

I do also think the acquisition of Daniel Gafford has gone under the radar. In an ideal world he isn’t starting over Dereck Lively II, but as far as backup centres go, he’s an upgrade in my mind over Dwight Powell and Richaun Holmes. A good rim protector and active rebounder, he’s also another roll man for Luka to help his pick and roll game.

All up, I think Dallas are a big winner this deadline.

The Emails You Didn’t Send

…and other quick hits.

For ages, the smoke around Atlanta was which contender would swoop in and present the highest big for Dejounte Murray, an All-Star guard seemingly frustrated at being the second banana to Trae Young. Clearly, Atlanta never received an offer they felt worthy of parting with Murray despite the questions around the long term viability of the Young-Murray partnership, and the emergence of Jalen Johnson.

Atlanta are in no rush here, as Murray is under control for at least three more seasons after this one, having previously agreed to an extension with the Hawks at an average annual value of over $28M which kicks in this coming offseason. It is worth noting that because Murray has an extension kicking in, he is subject to the poison pill provision, meaning he counts for the average of this year’s salary and next year’s salary for trade purposes (around $21M or so averaged out). This offseason, Murray will count for $24M, and can fetch bigger trade pieces.

**

I’m going to need someone to sit me down and explain gently what the plan was for the Philadelphia 76ers this deadline.

Trading Patrick Beverley to the Bucks for Cam Payne is a move that’s lateral at best, and a pretty clear downgrade on the face of it. Then they turn around and effectively hand Jaden Springer, a really useful rotational guard with good defensive instincts, over to Boston for free like a champagne on arrival.

Getting Buddy Hield in from Indiana for a collection of end of the bench fodder helps the Sixers offense stay afloat while Joel Embiid is out, but unless there’s some misdirection about how serious Embiid’s injury is, it seems like a desperate sequence of moves with differing connotations.

**

Meanwhile in the north east, Boston just quietly padded out their bench rather nicely with the aforementioned Springer and Xavier Tillman from Memphis. While I do think there’s been some overreaction to how much these guys will actually contribute when it matters just because it’s Boston, there’s no denying they both fill needs.

For the last year, my biggest question for Boston has been their depth. As far as a top 5-6 rotation they might be the best in the league but it fell away. Not only does this give Joe Mazzulla options in the playoffs, it also allows more regular season rest for Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Kristaps Porzingis.

Tillman specifically fills a nice role for them, assumedly usurping Luke Kornet and Neemias Queta as the replacement five. A good positional defender without spectacular athleticism and the ability to hit an occasional pick and pop three are valuable traits for any bench big.

**

Milwaukee, sure.

Patrick Beverley fills a desperate need as a guard that actually knows how to play defence. That’s about it.

The Bucks needed some functional wing help, and I get they’re asset-poor but I’m surprised they couldn’t turn at least one of Pat Connaughton, Bobby Portis or Marjon Beauchamp into something like a Royce O’Neale or Dorian Finney-Smith.

**

Phoenix made move that grew with every report. What started with Royce O’Neale and David Roddy for Chimezie Metu, Yuta Watanabe and an assortment of rubbish picks I don’t care to sift through eventually evolved into including Keita Bates-Diop and Jordan Goodwin as well. While I really like Goodwin and I think the other three have some merit, none of these guys are exactly earthmovers. You can question the necessity of dumping almost every minimum contract role player you have for Royce O’Neale but that’s moneyball I guess.

O’Neale has had a weird year in Brooklyn basically being given free reign to do whatever he wants, and Roddy is another warm body to throw out in situations in the playoffs, giving the Suns more options next to other guys like Josh Okogie and Nassir Little.

**

The Thunder’s only move at the deadline was to add Gordon Hayward, which took me by surprise but I don’t hate it. Sure, I think the Thunder had more pressing needs elsewhere (see: frontcourt role players) but I do think Hayward allows more flexibility with regards to Josh Giddey or Lu Dort.

The bigger move here might have been packaging one of Dort or Giddey (or both) for a swing at a wing but that isn’t really OKC’s modus operandi, and Hayward gives them a veteran shot creator for those sticky playoff moments when the court tightens, for the low price of Vasilije Micic, Tre Mann, Davis Bertans and second round picks.

**

I have no analysis of the Dinwiddie-Schroder trade other than why, for everyone involved.

**

Likewise, why are the Raptors giving a first round pick up, protected or not, for Kelly Olynyk and Ochai Agbaji?

**

Finally, and I’ve restrained myself to here, but the Pistons asset management has continued to burn the team. After needing to attach two second round picks to get off the contract the team signed Marvin Bagley to, Troy Weaver has again sold low by holding on to the ticking time bomb of Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks.

Reports are the team had offers including first round picks this time last year. Now, the grand prize is Quentin Grimes.

Don’t get me wrong, Grimes is a great fit for this team as an actual wing that can play defense, and I’m happy with his acquisition, but the road to get here has been convoluted and terrible.

In actuality, I was actually fine with the moves the Pistons made at the deadline. I was fearful the team would sell off one of the young guys (see: Jaden Ivey) for a job-saving swing at a Dejounte Murray, but instead, they operated around the margins, adding useful NBA players that can hit shots and play defense in Simone Fontecchio, Troy Brown Jr and Grimes (as well as Shake Milton, Malachi Flynn, Evan Fournier, Danuel House and Ryan Arcidiacono, the latter two of whom will be waived).

The gutting ended with farewells to Danilo Gallinari, Joe Harris, Killian Hayes (all waived), Monte Morris, Kevin Knox and the aforementioned Bogdanovic and Burks. A lot of effort to undo the mistake of sitting on your hands in the summer, but at least now Monty Williams is forced to sink or swim with Cade Cunningham, Jaden Ivey, Jalen Duren, Ausar Thompson and Marcus Sasser.

Somehow James Wiseman is still on the roster though.

**

It’s a new NBA season, and with that comes a new season of NBA podcasts. Every week I’ll be joined by various writers and fans from across the Association to dig into the hot topics of the week.

For episode one, regular listeners of the Beyond the Fence podcast will recognise Tim Wray, who has appeared on the show to talk about the NBA and NBA trading cards, as well as Formula 1.

Tim, a Bucks fan, joins me to break down the big offseason moves, including Damian Lillard to Milwaukee, Jrue Holiday flowing on to Boston with Kristaps Porzingis, Chris Paul to Golden State and Marcus Smart to Memphis.

We also take a look at how the Nuggets stability compares to the overhaul of their title challengers, as well as projecting Memphis without Ja Morant and Houston with Dillon Brooks.

Plus, we can’t not talk about the expectations for Victor Wembanyama and how much the Spurs improve this year, as well as also talking about the new look Blazers led by Scoot Henderson and Anfernee Simons, as well as Brandon Miller and the Thompson twins.

To wrap up, a check in on the offseason movements of some of the Australians in the NBA, including Jack White and Duop Reath getting cut, Patty Mills to Atlanta, Jock Landale to Houston, Dante Exum to Dallas and a new year of Ben Simmons (note this was recorded prior to Duop Reath re-signing on a two way deal and Xavier Cooks being released by Washington).

Make sure you subscribe to Beyond the Fence wherever you get your podcasts. This initial episode is a long one to get through the minutiae of a long offseason, future episodes will be shorter I promise.

Otherwise, check it out, subscribe and leave a rating and review.

If you’re a real one, you sat through the Boomers final World Cup game, a dead rubber against Georgia, a team they barely beat in a behind-closed-doors friendly days before the tournament proper.

After yet another jittery third quarter, the theme of this campaign for the Boomers, the Aussies settled the ship and eventually ran away as comfortable 100-84 winners over the Eastern European nation missing their captain, Tornike Shengelia, through injury.

I guess when I flicked this one on I was hoping for a bit of fluidity, flexibility and experimentation when it came to the lineups and rotations. With nothing to play for, I wanted Brian Goorjian to hand more expanded roles to some of the guys on this team lingering in the shadows this tournament, but who figure to grow into more prominent roles as the future of this program.

I speak of course of guys like Dyson Daniels, Xavier Cooks and Duop Reath mainly.

I was therefore disappointed to see the same tired lineup that had struggled to defend all tournament. I like Nick Kay, and I like Duop Reath, but functionally as a pairing they’re very old school, twin-towers like, especially on the defensive end, where better teams exploit their inability to defend in space through screens and forcing switches.

While both of them can hit the outside shot well enough to command some form of gravity and respect on the offensive end, the tradeoff defensively is too great to make that unit workable, and while I know the injury to Jock Landale likely is what forced that odd couple in the first place, this game was the perfect chance to throw tradition out the window and try a new combination.

As I was expressing this sentiment online some people pointed out that there was no way Goorjian would do that because it might prove him wrong. I understand that might be a possibility, but genuinely, if that’s the way the coach is thinking, with hubris and pride over long term development, then I’m not sure how much longer the path is.

No, I think the more likely explanation is continuity throughout the tournament and a certain degree of rigidity.

As for the game itself, as usual, the trends were not kind to the Boomers, losing the rebounding battle 39-33 while giving up a heinous 15 offensive rebounds to a Georgian frontline that is admittedly big, but not one you’d term as mobile.

On the plus side, and in a bit of a cathartic victory for the Boomers, they finally found their range from the three point line, and on good volume too, launching 31 threes and making 14 of them. If only that shooting was discovered maybe one game earlier.

This team continues to live and die by Josh Giddey, and the point guard put together maybe his most controlled performance of the World Cup, even if the numbers don’t pop. 15 points and 4 assists is pedestrian for Giddey, but he shot 7-9 from the field and generally looked in control as he attacked Georgia’s smaller guards

.

Other than that, there isn’t really much to analyse from this game. Duop Reath showed his pick and pop game again, frustrating me as to why he didn’t get more minutes in games that mattered.

Joe Ingles and Patty Mills both had nice bounce back games shooting the ball, and Joe in particular ended the tournament on a good note with a 10 point, 5 rebound and 6 assist performance after effectively blanking on the box score against Slovenia.

Once again, Dante Exum was the pick of the second unit guys, the offense just runs so smoothly when the newly minted Dallas Maverick is out there. 18 points on 6-12 shooting while also dishing 4 assists and not committing a single turnover in just over 18 minutes of play, he’s almost certainly a lock for Paris 2024.

Speaking of Paris, the nature of the tournament ending and with the reasonably quick turnaround to the Olympics being less than a year away, the discussions have already started about who comes in and who drops out.

It’s far too early for me to have any strong opinions either way, but I did want to touch on the case of Matisse Thybulle.

Matisse won Aussie hearts with his effortless assimilation into the Boomers culture for the Tokyo Olympics, earning a place in history as a crucial cog in a team that broke the program’s medal duck. His role on the team was easily discernible, lock down defender. As one of the NBA’s best on that end, he made an immediate impact.

That honeymoon period appears to be over now with calls from some sections for Thybulle to be a tough cut for Paris, with Bryce Cotton coming in.

If you’re not aware, FIBA only allows a maximum of one naturalised player on a roster for a major tournament. Thybulle lived in Sydney for several years as a child before returning to the USA, while Cotton has been playing for the Perth Wildcats since 2017. Cotton, it should be noted, is not a citizen yet, the process notably dragging for the multiple-time NBL MVP and champion.

Both offer different skillsets. Thybulle with his defence and Cotton with his instant offense. Cotton will be nearly 32 by the time the Olympics roll around, and while his offense would be a welcome boost for the program, is it worth the sacrifice of Thybulle’s defence.

The criticism of Thybulle appears to be centered around his lack of offensive production. Well, newsflash, that isn’t his role, and you know that. He may have had an off tournament at the defensive end, but frankly so did the entire team, singling out Tisse for that seems rather short-sighted. For what it’s worth, I thought he played his role fairly well, and his minutes were limited anyway.

Either way, it will be undoubtedly a tough decision for Brian Goorjian or whoever comes into the hot seat moving forward (Adam Caporn maybe?).

BOOMER HIGHLIGHT

Oh yeah back to this game. Well I touched on him above but Dante Exum yet again played his role to absolute perfection as the first guard off the bench. His tidiness on the ball, his efficiency, his spot up shooting, his defensive ability and his slashing to the basket all crucial elements of the Boomers second unit.

This game was a nice little cherry on top of what was ultimately for Exum a very good tournament, and I know there’s some Dallas fans excited as to his role for the Mavericks next season.

Just quietly, I might almost have Exum as my player of the tournament for the Boomers due to his overall consistency. Sure guys like Giddey, Mills and even Cooks had higher highs, but they also has periods of total non-value.

Exum remained a constant, reliable presence throughout.

DISLIKE

I feel like a broken record here so I won’t rattle on too much but the rotations again, or more accurately, the lack of innovation in a game that meant little.

Cooks only got 14 minutes, Duop Reath 17, while Chris Goulding and Dyson Daniels only featured again in garbage time. The point has been made with Goulding, what use was it carrying the best shooter in the country if you aren’t going to play him when you’re in desperate need of a bucket (in games that matter anyway)?

As for Dyson, I would’ve loved to see him get some confidence and repetitions in the Boomers uniform with the guys he’s going to be part of the future with. Just feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.

Goorjian has said he’ll be in the chair for Paris, so I’ll take that at face value. It feels kind of fair for him to finish out this cycle with the Olympics so soon, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a changing of the guard following that. Adam Caporn was a loud voice during huddles in timeouts, often drawing up plays. He seems next in line by my distant observation.

BOX SCORE

NEXT GAME

See you in Paris.

#GoldVibesOnly

***

I’ll likely record a review podcast on the World Cup where we go in further depth about what went right and wrong this tournament with a guest (I don’t know who yet), so subscribe to Beyond the Fence on your podcast platform of choice and keep an eye out for that one in the coming weeks.

Like a fiery lamp at tribal council on a remote island in the Pacific, the Boomers hopes of medalling at the FIBA World Cup were snuffed out in a brutal and quick execution, 91-80 at the hands of their vanquished foes at the Tokyo Olympics, Luka Doncic and Slovenia.

Early signs weren’t great as Slovenia stole the opening tip and scored within four seconds, and then hit a wide open three to race to a 5-0 lead before Australia’s bench had barely sat down, but hey, early game, you can come back.

Narrator: The Boomers did not come back

Every issue the Boomers exhibited in the warm up tournament and first group stage came rushing to the fore against a relentless and crisp Slovenia side. They were physically outmatched inside, failing to establish any control of the defensive glass, while they couldn’t hit water if they fell off a boat on offense, a barrage of bricks enough to build a three bedroom house in Bondi.

When you come up against a star as bright as Luka Doncic, widely considered the best player at the World Cup, it’s always interesting to see how the team defends him. When a team has such an obvious focal point, there’s a wide variety of strategies you can employ to slow him down. As I wrote after the Japan game, I expected Australia to throw a ton of different looks at Doncic, including doubles, switches, traps, hard hedges and blitzes, and different primary defenders.

Sometimes it just doesn’t matter.

As expected, Josh Green took the first crack at his Dallas Mavericks teammate, but with a healthy mix of trapping involved. Every time the Slovenians would run a pick and roll, the roll man’s defender (more often than not Nick Kay) would blitz, meaning an aggressive double designed to get the ball out of Luka’s hands, and the defence would then rotate and fill the gaps.

The problem with that is when Doncic recognises that’s Plan A, it’s somewhat easy to combat, especially when you possess rare size for a point guard as he does at 6-foot-9.

All Doncic had to do was maintain poise in possession and string the Australian double team along, further and further away from the basket, to stretch the defence. Once the defence was sufficiently discombobulated, Luka would simply release and Slovenia would play a quick 4v3.

Sometimes it would be Mike Tobey open at the top of the key, other times it would be a quick swing to the weakside corner, but Slovenia were generating open shot after open shot. I mentioned briefly in the quick wrap after the Japan game that Slovenia love the pick and roll outside-in offense, and will shoot a lot of threes. Well, I was right, for once. Slovenia took 42 threes, making 13, as the Australian defence was in a state of permanent scramble.

For me, the key point in this game was the second quarter. Australia had played a disaster first quarter and were down 10, but a Luka technical foul early in the second quarter saw him sit with 3 fouls (techs count to the personal tally in FIBA play). Luka wouldn’t play for the rest of the first half, a prime opportunity to cut into the lead while the Slovenian talisman sat with foul trouble.

The Slovenian lead stretched to as much as 14 in the second quarter, but with Luka on the bench the Boomers managed to cut it to…9. After facing a Luka-less lineup for a solid 6-7 minutes, the Boomers made minimal headway on the quarter time lead. A real mental blow to not make bigger inroads against the Slovenian role players, one from which they never really recovered.

Josh Giddey has had an odd World Cup. He’s had rough starts to games, playing too fast, taking some mucky, tough shots inside and committing turnovers. He’s also largely bounced back in the second half, and this game was no different. Where the Boomers were failing to generate any real coherent and consistent offense, Giddey remembered he’s a huge point guard with elite ball handling, using his 6-foot-8 frame to get to the bucket at will.

He personally keyed the Boomers run in the third and early fourth quarter, getting the Boomers to within 2 points early in the final stanza.

Unfortunately, that’s as close as it would be, as Slovenia immediately peeled off a 15-2 run in response, killing the game and the Boomers hopes, consigning them to a tough post mortem as they pick up the pieces of a failed tournament and wonder wherre it all went wrong.

It was a night to forget for the Boomers. Nick Kay was victimised in pick and roll coverage when asked to defend in space, Xavier Cooks was hampered with foul trouble and struggled to impact like he did against Japan, and Joe Ingles only positive stat in 26 minutes was 2 assists, both of which came extremely late in his stint, and Patty Mills struggled to free himself all night, working extremely hard for a modicum of space to force a tough midrange shot.

BOOMER HIGHLIGHT

Josh Giddey continues to show those flashes of why this tournament wasn’t a total waste by getting him into the program.

25 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals (but 6 turnovers) is a line we can expect a lot more of moving forward for Giddey. His third quarter in particular was a glimpse into how dominant he can be, forcing his way to wherever he wanted to go and scoring at will to keep Australia in the game.

The next challenge will be surrounding Giddey with a roster that allows him to flourish. It’s clear this team is stuck in between two styles and two eras, and Giddey struggled at times with the lack of spacing around him, so internal development on that front is critical moving forward.

DISLIKE

Where do I begin? The fact that this game was at 10PM AEST was a bad start. The lackadasical defence, the stagnant offense, the pitiful rebounding, all bad.

But I thought it was a pretty poor coaching job from Brian Goorjian in this one and I think some fair questions will be asked. Whether Cooks or Reath would’ve made a material difference is probably a moot point, but I thought Goorjian was rigid in his rotations, sticking with Kay and Ingles too long when it became clear the game wasn’t suited to them, especially defensively.

The inclusion of Chris Goulding in the squad too for the sole purpose of making shots, only to never play him when in desperate need of some instant offense (which was more often than ideal) is also baffling.

The defence, this team’s calling card, looked a step off. Some of that is personnel and chemistry, to be sure, but some of the soft switches pre-programmed into this team felt avoidable and this team has the capability to play straight up a lot more than it did.

All in all, a disappointing tournament on the sidelines as much as on the court.

BOX SCORE

NEXT GAME

Honestly who cares, but if you are a sicko who wants to put yourself through one more game of this pain…

Australia vs. Georgia, Sunday 3rd September, 5:30PM AEST

I mean, I’ll watch this game, but more out of obligation to see this tournament through at this point.

Georgia have a few NBA players like Alexander Mamukelashvili and Goga Bitadze, and gave the Boomers a close run in their final warmup game behind closed doors before the tournament, but on paper the Boomers should at least close out their World Cup with a win.

Either way, mercifully, the tournament is over after this game, just hope no one gets injured, regroup and try again in Paris at the Olympics.

#GoldVibesOnly

***

If you missed it, I recorded a FIBA World Cup preview podcast for Beyond The Fence, focusing primarily on the Boomers and Group E, with Michael Houben from The Pick and Roll. It’s on all podcast platforms, go check it out.

After a disappointing outing against Germany that consigned Australia to a second place finish at best in Group E, the Boomers were looking to exert some domination and flex their muscle as the third ranked team in the world over the lowest ranked team in their initial pool, 36th ranked Japan.

The Boomers are no stranger to Japan, having played them multiple times over the course of qualification, not really being troubled even with a ragtag cast of mostly NBL players filling in on duty while the NBA guys were otherwise tied up.

Japan of course are missing their talisman Rui Hachimura, the Lakers forward choosing to skip the World Cup to focus on his upcoming NBA season and his pending free agency (he released this statement before NBA free agency opened). Still, the Japanese team aren’t without talent, namely Yuta Watanabe, who spent last season in Brooklyn as a teammate of Patty Mills and who will be in Phoenix this upcoming season.

Maybe Japan’s best player at this World Cup though has been naturalised center Josh Hawkinson, his inside out game and sheer size providing a desperately needed point of difference for a Japanese team measuring in at one of the smaller in the entire competition.

On the actual game, the Boomers entered this one with a rare size advantage across the board with the exception of Hawkinson vs. the likes of Duop Reath and Xavier Cooks.

After calls to tinker, Brian Goorjian made one change to his starters, bringing in Josh Green at the expense of Matisse Thybulle to provide some much needed outside shooting threat.

Truth be told, this game was over as a contest by halftime, Australia racing to a 57-35 lead at the main change. The sluggish starts that had plagued the team in the prior two games were gone as Josh Green hit an early four point play while Josh Giddey used his comical size mismatch over Yuki Kawamura to have the game on strings.

The first half was some of the best basketball the Boomers have played in the tournament, using their length and athleticism on defence to create numerous transition opportunities, and the lineups with Xavier Cooks at the small ball center position proved invaluable in allowing Goorjian’s switching scheme to flourish.

Cooks was a real circuit breaker in this game, and while his 16 rebounds are somewhat inflated by the few cheapies he missed and regathered at the rim, his energy and relentlessness on the offensive glass was a real energiser and helped keep the team up and about during period of offensive ineptitude. 10 offensive rebounds in any game against any opponent is no mean feat, especially seeing as a lot of his minutes were against Hawkinson, who played 36 minutes out of the 40.

I wouldn’t be surprised if that trend continues going forward. Cooks I don’t think works in the starting lineup because he’d likely be playing the four, but his value as a small five against bench units will be a real reason why Australia can sustain pressure against bigger lineups, by outrunning them. Besides, Cooks isn’t a bad rebounder by any measure anyway.

Cooks finished with 23 minutes played, slightly more than Nick Kay (21) and considerably more than Duop Reath (14). Expect that trend to hold.

The second half exhibited some bad habits creeping in. Whether or not it was just the game situation and a safe lead or something more sinister remains to be seen, but the defensive intensity that keyed the first half lead was largely non-existent, and the rebounding struggles came to the fore again.

Japan actually won the second half by 2 points, largely through some hot shooting, to be sure, but also through some poor defensive reads by the Boomers, inconsistent ball pressure and miscommunication on cuts and screens. Also, despite Japan being a small team in totality, the size issue still reared with Hawkinson, who finished with a domineering 33 points and 7 rebounds on 13-16 shooting from the field, most of them at the rim.

In the end though, the Boomers earned the right to lay off the gas pedal with their first half, but while the lead dwindled to as little as 13 in the fourth quarter, the result was never truly in doubt. Like the Germany game, Josh Giddey stood up in the fourth quarter, taking matters into his own hands and using his 6’8” frame to bully Japan’s smaller guards and kill them with an array of floaters, hooks and even one dagger three.

Winning a game by 20 when Patty Mills only shoots 4-13 from the field is only a positive moving forward for the options this team will need to call upon in the later stages of the tournament, and while you won’t get 50 points combined from Giddey and Cooks every night, the manner of their offense being largely inside-based is a more repeatable and sustainable offense than we’ve seen so far, one that should help mitigate those well-publicised shooting woes (8-27 3PT)

.

BOOMER HIGHLIGHT

I’m not a huge fan of taking victory laps when predicting good players to become good, but I’m going to make an exception for my opinions on Xavier Cooks over the last year or so.

I wrote this in October last year, it’s nice to be right.

Cooks’ development has been one of the more heartwarming and maybe left-field stories of Australian basketball the last few years. After toiling away at little-known Winthrop University for four years, he played a season in Germany before landing at the Sydney Kings, where his first two seasons would be beleaguered by injuries.

His rise though, resulting in two NBL titles, a league MVP and finals MVP, and an NBA deal in Washington, has been built off the back of a unique skillset that the Boomers don’t really have in high supply.

A running 4-5 man in the FIBA game, Cooks is a terrible shooter. Like no threat whatsoever outside of 10 feet. But that doesn’t make him unusable at that end, because of his high motor, touch and energy.

A keen screener who rolls with purpose, Cooks is most comfortable operating as a point centre off the short roll in the middle of the paint, just below the free throw line. He’s a capable interior passer, and possesses a range of floaters and deft touches that bely his size and brute force. And don’t forget his rebounding ability at both ends, as he can grab and go off the defensive glass as a one man fast break while also being a siphon on the offensive glass.

Cooks was a training body before the Tokyo Olympics, but two years later he might be one of the Boomers most pivotal players, especially with the injury to Jock Landale.

His 24 points, 16 rebounds and 2 blocks against Japan are a worthy reward.

DISLIKE

I touched on it above, but the second half drop in intensity was disappointing to see, especially the end to the third quarter and early part of the fourth.

I get playing Japan with a big lead can be tough to get up for, but that sort of lull can’t happen moving forward.

BOX SCORE

NEXT GAME

I believe the next game is on Friday night but time and opponent are yet to be finalised, but let’s assume it’ll be Slovenia, as current leaders of Group F.

KEY MATCHUP: Luka Doncic vs. whoever.

Slovenia are a really interesting team, and one the Boomers will be familiar with having bested them for a bronze medal in Tokyo two years ago. However, the Boomers had Jock Landale then, and now they don’t.

Slovenia play an unusual style, isolation heavy, as is the case when you have an incandescent star like Doncic, but it’s a largely outside-based style. Everything goes through Doncic pick and rolls, usually with Mike Tobey, but Slovenia are usually looking to kick out and shoot threes rather than feed the post.

Whether that tact changes with the Boomers height issues remains to be seen, but it’ll be interesting to see how Australia defend Luka. Expect Matisse Thybulle and Luka’s Dallas teammate Josh Green to get the majority of the matchup, but the key to defending someone like Luka is to show him different looks, so expect some Dante Exum and maybe even Xavier Cooks too.

#GoldVibesOnly

***

If you missed it, I recorded a FIBA World Cup preview podcast for Beyond The Fence, focusing primarily on the Boomers and Group E, with Michael Houben from The Pick and Roll. It’s on all podcast platforms, go check it out.

Soft. Pathetic. Embarrassing. Disrespectful. Whatever adjective you can think of to describe one of the most truly worrying Boomers performances of the last few years surely applies.

Australia were dealt a huge advantage pre-game with Franz Wagner, Germany’s star young forward, being ruled out thanks to an ankle injury suffered in their opener against Japan. It’s almost as if that news made the Boomers relax. Like they could just show up and win.

We saw warning signs of what would happen when a coherent opposition came with a game plan and shotmaking ability when Brazil loped into Melbourne and pantsed the Boomers in the pre-tournament warmups.

Well if the Boomers didn’t heed that warning, they surely re-learnt it when the Germans raced out to an 8-0 start, leading by as much as 11 in the first quarter before the Boomers got a foothold in the match, led entirely by FIBA Patrick Mills, whose incandescence knows no bounds when he pulls on the green and gold.

The Germans fired their shot across the bow but Australia still ended the first quarter with the slenderest of margins, a one point lead.

However, unlike the game against Finland, where Australia eventually worked into their flow and smothered the Scandinavians out of the game with relentless defensive pressure, the Boomers sat back and played passive, allowing the Germans to run an endless array of pick and rolls with their star man Dennis Schroder, who burned Australia to the tune of 30 points and 8 assists.

As we’ve spoken about ad nauseum coming into the tournament, the Boomers advantage lies in their defence, being aggressive and swarming, playing passing lanes and creating offense via their defensive pressure by getting out in transition and using their athleticism.

That didn’t happen against Germany.

The Boomers employed a largely switching scheme against Germany, and while mindless switching isn’t my favourite defensive scheme because a savvy point guard can time attacks when the defence is still off kilter and imbalanced, I understand having defensive principles and switching when your lineup is athletic and balanced.

What I did not like, however, was how easily Germany recognised this scheme, and the little time it took for Dennis Schroder to call up the man being guarded by Nick Kay, and run a basic pick and roll that the Boomers obviously switched.

I love Nick Kay, but he was a sitting duck out there tonight, constantly flambeed in isolation actions as Dennis Schroder and Maodo Lo took their turn to victimise the former Perth Wildcat, offering an array of shimmies, jab steps and crossovers to work for stepback threes or to attack an open lane, one devoid of a real shot blocking presence.

Despite trailing at half time by 5, there was a sense Australia would eventually click into gear. After all, they’d put in one of their more shocking halves of basketball and still only trailed by a couple of scores.

And their third quarter confirmed that theory. A ratcheting up of the defensive intensity saw Australia relentlessly double team and trap ball handlers, forcing Germany into rushed decisions and bad shots. Dante Exum and Duop Reath in particular found increased impact on the offensive end too, Duop showing his value with a couple of threes and a putback dunk as Australia turned a five point halftime deficit into a four point lead at the final change.

However, it appeared Australia didn’t learn from their sluggish start to the game, as the final quarter began with yet another Germany spurt keyed by some passive defence, as they went on an immediate 8-0 run to wrestle control of the game back from the Boomers, a lead they would never relinquish as Australia could only claw back to tie the score a couple of times before costly turnovers and late Maodo Lo heroics consigned the Boomers to a crushing loss, 85-82.

This loss will irk Boomers fans because the reality is despite how poor the team was for large swathes of the game, they still had their chances to run away with it, which shows just how much quality this team possesses. Germany are a legit medal contender too, and are coming off a very strong Eurobasket performance last year.

The Germans made a heap of tough threes, yes, but the Boomers still lost the key moments, committed costly turnovers late, shot terribly from the free throw line and still had multiple chances to win.

Also, for those asking, the top two teams from every group go into the “second group” stage. The stats roll over, so Australia will likely start the next stage (assuming they advance of course) in third position, assuming a group with Germany, Slovenia and Georgia. They would then play the other two teams and need to jump up a spot, as the top two then advance to the quarters.

In short, the Boomers can win out and still be eliminated before the quarters. Fun stuff.

BOOMER HIGHLIGHT

Honestly it’s tough to pick anything positive out of that game.

Patty Mills, as he always does, got the Boomers back on the right track, but was quiet after an explosive first quarter, finishing with 21 points, 5 rebounds and 6 assists.

Xavier Cooks gave nice impact as a small ball centre with his sharp rolls to the rim and ability to switch onto guards, but he also missed some costly free throws.

I did also like Josh Giddey’s fourth quarter. Giddey had a rough night to me, playing at speeds he isn’t comfortable with, forced into some rushed decisions and not attacking the paint with certainty. In the first three quarters he was harried and rushed, but he came alive late to drag the Boomers back with some clutch buckets (missed free throw aside). That shows a level of maturity and poise.

Still though, I’m reaching a bit here. The reality is there was more bad than good.

DISLIKE

The persistence with the switching defensive scheme.

Nick Kay provides a lot of value to Australia and has been a loyal servant of the program for a number of years but this was just not a game for him, given how Germany identified the mismatch and attacked him over and over.

Tying into that, some of the rotation was questionable too. Giddey came alive late, but he got an awful lot of rope early when I thought he should’ve been spelled for Exum, while Nick Kay also got 25 minutes with minimal impact.

Meanwhile, Duop Reath and Matisse Thybulle were nowhere to be seen after midway through the third quarter, while I also thought both Josh Green and Dante Exum (16 minutes each) were criminally underused.

BOX SCORE

NEXT GAME

Australia vs. Japan, Tuesday 29th August, 9:10pm AEST

KEY MATCHUP: Honestly if the Boomers are serious this is a game they need to absolutely come out and dominate in. Japan are one of the few teams the Boomers will have a size advantage against, so a strong showing and a for/against booster is the order here.

On Japan’s side, they’re missing Rui Hachimura, so Yuta Watanabe is their only NBA representative, and he’s going to be getting the majority of the attention on the offensive end as Japan will live and die by his threes.

One player NBL fans would be familiar with is Yudai Baba, who won a championship with Melbourne United a few seasons ago. Baba had a great first game against Germany, and is a transition menace who has elite finishing skills around the basket while also being capable of hitting a standstill three.

#GoldVibesOnly

***

If you missed it, I recorded a FIBA World Cup preview podcast for Beyond The Fence, focusing primarily on the Boomers and Group E, with Michael Houben from The Pick and Roll. It’s on all podcast platforms, go check it out.

There’s been a lot of unbridled optimism and hope surrounding this Boomers World Cup campaign, and honestly it isn’t unfounded either.

A bronze medal in Tokyo 2020 while also adding your star point guard of the future to the roster in Josh Giddey, as well as other NBA level talents in Jack White, Xavier Cooks and Dyson Daniels? The scope for improvement is only as limited as the team’s own ambition and desire.

Motivational quote nonsense aside, you’d be forgiven for feeling a bit deflated with how the first quarter played out against Lauri Markkanen and Finland.

Smart judges would tell you that the Boomers wouldn’t be a typical offensive juggernaut with a bevy of lethal shooters. Sure, the wings the team possess are more than capable catch and shoot guys, but of a streakier variety, and coupled with the pre-tournament struggles of Patty Mills and Joe Ingles from behind the arc, the offense is going to suffer patches of barren wastefulness.

That much was evident in the first quarter against Finland, a frantic and frazzled start not helped by inexperience at the head of the snake, Josh Giddey particularly guilty of some rushed thought processing as the Boomers struggled and panicked their way to a miserable 17 point first quarter, Ingles the only one to make a three.

Where the team is elite though, is on the defensive end, with plus defenders up and down the roster in Josh Green, Matisse Thybulle, Jack White, Xavier Cooks, Dante Exum and Dyson Daniels.

The defence is meant to be the thing that drives the Boomers and helps them sustain their periods of offensive ineptitude, and yet it was an uncharacteristic opening stanza on that end too, beaten too often by simple actions like back screens and off ball cuts, hardly making Finland work for their points despite having the athletic advantage.

Things didn’t really start to turn until midway through the second quarter, after Finland had raced out to a 36-28 lead and left the Boomers gasping for air. Josh Green, who didn’t play a minute in the first quarter, leading some to wonder if he was indeed fit and available to play after tweaking his ankle in the penultimate warmup vs. France, and Jack White, came on to provide a much needed defensive boost.

Those two along with Xavier Cooks gave the Boomers a dynamic, switchable trio that was able to navigate and cope with Finland’s screen attack, and Jack White in particular did a tremendous job as the primary defender on Lauri Markkanen, harrying him into forced turnovers and tough shots as the game progressed.

After wrestling back enough control to take a five point lead into the main break, the second half was all Boomers, Josh Giddey in particular taking a controlling hand over the game after what I’d term a frantic and rushed start to his senior international career at a major tournament.

More importantly though, the Boomers swarmed and lifted on the defensive end, restricting Finland to a measly 32 points in the second half, of which a fair portion came in garbage time once the starters had been pulled.

Late in the third and into the fourth, the Boomers killed off any chance of a Finland comeback, surging on a 22-7 run to take a commanding lead early in the fourth, and would lead by as many as 29 points before eventually settling for their 26 point finish.

The second half showed the strengths of this team, and while there’ll be tougher tests than what Finland provided today, scoring 98 points largely keyed by a ratcheting up of defensive pressure after a lacklustre first quarter is only a positive for the team moving forward.

Next up is a Sunday evening matchup against Germany, an old foe from the Olympics, ranked 11th in the world, 8 spots below Australia (Finland are 24th for reference). Dennis Schroder is their key player in FIBA play but Franz Wagner may present the toughest cover in a similar vein to Lauri Markkanen tonight.

I’d expect Jack White, who earned minutes with his play in the later warmups and who did a sterling job on Markkanen, to get plenty of burn on Franz as a primary assignment.

BOOMER HIGHLIGHT

I could go on about Josh Giddey’s near triple double or yet another 25 point performance from Patty Mills but let’s talk about Dante Exum.

The change in Exum’s game since he burst into the NBA as a fresh faced 19 year old with the Utah Jazz has been utterly remarkable, going from an athletic freak with little in the way of actual polished skill and craft, to one of the best pure point guards in Europe, earning his way back to the NBA after solid spells at Barcelona and Partizan.

When the Boomers needed a calming head on offense, it was Exum as the first guard off the bench who answered the call. His athleticism, despite several injuries, is still on display as he’s able to weave in transition and attack off kilter defenders, but it’s his craft as a playmaker that’s really shone.

Using his athleticism, he’s able to beat his primary defender more often than not and draw help, and his court vision as improved to the point where he will find open shooters and rollers with regularity.

He also has developed into a very reliable standstill shooter, and his two threes tonight were very important to help keep the Finland defence stretched.

DISLIKE

One thing I didn’t like and it was a worry I noticed after the warmups was the propensity to foul, which is going to be a major issue as the team is operating somewhat shorthanded in the frontcourt, using Xavier Cooks, Jack White and Nick Kay as pseudo-big men.

When you’re operating at a size deficit, you have to minimise fouls committed on the perimeter and in transition, something that the Boomers did a poor job of doing in the first half, coupled with Nick Kay getting into foul trouble down low too.

BOX SCORE

PATTY MILLS - 25 points, 8 rebounds, 11/22 FG, 2/8 3PT, 4 steals

JOSH GIDDEY - 14 points, 9 rebounds, 8 assists

JOE INGLES - 13 points, 4 rebounds, 3/7 3PT

DANTE EXUM - 10 points, 3 assists, 2/2 3PT

XAVIER COOKS - 9 points, 2 steals

DUOP REATH - 8 points, 5 rebounds, 2 blocks

NEXT GAME

Australia vs. Germany, Sunday August 27th, 6:30PM AEST

KEY MATCHUP: Franz Wagner vs. whoever the Boomers throw at him. Wagner is a 6’10” forward for the Orlando Magic in the NBA, a lottery pick back in 2021, and a potential superstar both for club and country.

At his size, he’s part of the next wave of playmaking wings, often combining with Paolo Banchero for Orlando to run the majority of their offense while their guards play off the ball more.

Wagner isn’t quite as big as Lauri Markkanen but presents a similar matchup problem with his handling ability at his size, and his penchant for getting to the rim. His jumpshot is also a threat, but not as consistent as Markkanen, and maybe the lesser of the two evils, but not by much.

The Boomers have plenty of people to put on him, but I expect a combination of Xavier Cooks, Matisse Thybulle and Jack White to get the majority of the minutes. While still big, Wagner doesn’t possess Lauri’s size, so we might see more of Thybulle here as a primary defender initially, before switching to his preferred “free safety” role when Cooks or White sub in to the game.

#GoldVibesOnly

***

If you missed it, I recorded a FIBA World Cup preview podcast for Beyond The Fence, focusing primarily on the Boomers and Group E, with Michael Houben from The Pick and Roll. It’s on all podcast platforms, go check it out.

Going into the 2023 NBA Draft, there was a lot of intrigue at the top of the class. Everyone with a passing familiarity with what basketball is knew the San Antonio Spurs were taking Victor Wembanyama, aka “the best prospect since LeBron James” with the first overall pick.

Directly after that though, the dice rolls began.

Would the Hornets really pass on Scoot Henderson for Brandon Miller? Yes.

How would the Thompson twins and Overtime Elite be evaluated? As it turns out, very highly (Amen fourth to Houston, Ausar fifth to Detroit, making them the first set of brothers to ever be drafted in the top five of the same draft).

Would teams really be scared off by Cam Whitmore’s pre-draft process and rumoured medical reports? Well he fell to 20th after being universally considered a top five talent, so you tell me.

Later on in the evening though, some more interesting dominoes fell, as it specifically pertains to Australian basketball and the National Basketball League’s Next Stars program, with both Rayan Rupert (43rd to Portland) and Mojave King (47th to Indiana via the LA Lakers) hearing their name called by NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum.

Both men, of course, are graduates of the NBL’s Next Stars program, a league initiative started in 2018 to entice potential NBA draftees into the league by offering an alternative pathway to the NBA, incentivising the move with something the NCAA couldn’t offer at the time…pay.

That’s obviously changed since with the advent of NIL (name, image and likeness) payments for college athletes, but the strength of the Next Stars program hasn’t.

And before we move on, you may have noticed that the Next Stars program has shifted into a more international flavour the last few years. Why? Well, according to Sydney Kings guard Dejan Vasiljevic, foreigners don’t get paid NIL money while in the USA, so that could explain the attractiveness of Next Stars to the European market.

You can hear my full interview with Vasiljevic here.

Back to the Next Stars, Rupert and King become the fifth and sixth Next Stars to be drafted into the NBA following their stint in the NBL, joining LaMelo Ball, RJ Hampton, Josh Giddey and Ousmane Dieng in this club, while other Next Star alumni like Justinian Jessup and Didi Louzada joined the program after being drafted.

Brian Bowen II, the first Next Star in 2018-19 with the Sydney Kings, was undrafted following his season before signing with the Indiana Pacers.

The rise of the NBL and the Next Stars program has not only given credence and validity to the NBL, but it has also helped raise the reputation of strong performers in the league by elevating their NBA stocks.

The strength of the NBL is such now that the reputation of the league itself is a major contributing factor in the heights some of its exports have gotten noticed by.

Ousmane Dieng probably got himself drafted as high as he did (11th in 2022 to Oklahoma City) thanks to a strong second half of the season with the New Zealand Breakers.

Xavier Cooks, following two years of MVP-level play for the Sydney Kings, signed a multi year deal with Washington following a second consecutive NBL championship.

Hugo Besson, not considered as much of an NBA prospect during his season with the Breakers alongside countryman Dieng, found himself drafted at the back end of 2022 (58th to Milwaukee) following a strong season as an import in New Zealand.

Even further back, Jae’Sean Tate, an undersized four even by the NBL’s standards, parlayed his strong form in the 2019-20 season for the Kings into a deal with the Houston Rockets, following a career at Ohio State that saw him go undrafted and traverse the basketball world via Belgium and the NBL before hitting the NBA scene.

It’s true of coaches too, with Will Weaver accepting a job as a Rockets assistant following a 2019-20 season where he led the Kings to the NBL Finals before ultimately pulling out of the championship series with Perth amidst the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, while a similar path looks to be on the cards for Chase Buford.

What the NBL Next Stars program has ultimately taught us, though, is that talent and potential isn’t enough anymore, and a lack of production in a league like the NBL can also harm your stock.

I think that’s the case for both Rupert and King.

RAYAN RUPERT

Look at Rupert. Coming into the last NBL season, he was widely touted as a top 20 NBA prospect in the class of 2023. A defensive menace with tantalising athleticism and length to cause havoc on that end of the floor, his impediment to rising up the boards was ultimately going to be his offensive production and mainly, his shooting.

The shooting never quite materialised though, culminating in an NBL Finals series where he saw his minutes reduced as the Kings flat out refused to guard him.

Rupert was drafted 43rd after entering the NBL as a top 20 prospect. What happened? Part of that is surely the offensive limitations exhibited during his lone season with the Breakers. Defensively, he remained elite, showcasing his switchability and versatility, as well as his athleticism on the perimeter.

Rupert’s mechanics aren’t broken by any means, but his release on his shot is a little slow and spring-loaded. He needs clean looks to get it off, and there’s only so much upside in a defensive specialist who needs acres to shoot.

Fortunately, he’ll probably be wide open as teams ignore him on the scouting reports until he proves he can hit shots at any reasonable clip.

Still though, Rupert is, in my mind, a steal at 43 for the Blazers, forming a strong draft class in Portland with third overall pick Scoot Henderson (a teammate of Mojave King at G-League Ignite) and 23rd overall pick Kris Murray (twin brother of Sacramento forward Keegan).

Rupert fell, yes, but it wasn’t totally unexpected to me. I did still think he’d go in the late first round, early second at worst, because of concerns about his offense, but the fall maybe isn’t as catastrophic as some may think. Also, while scrolling Twitter I came across this useful tidbit as to why Rupert maybe went a bit lower than expected.

If it’s true that Portland were so high on Rupert they made him a multi-year promise, then that’s only a good thing for his development and future.

In fact, before I saw that tweet, I would’ve placed the odds of Rayan Rupert returning to the Breakers for the second year of his Next Star deal at non-zero (Next Star contracts are usually two years by default with an NBA out after one). Now, considering the apparent promises, it appears Rupert will likely be a fully-rostered Trailblazer.

MOJAVE KING

Mojave King’s character arc is a little more defined, given we have three years of professional data to go off. King, you may recall, was part of the same Next Star intake as Josh Giddey, in 2020-21, with the pair often compared as the next two great hopes of Australian basketball.

While Giddey flourished, King found minutes hard to come by at times in Cairns during his first season as a Next Star. As such, he decided to leave for Adelaide in the hopes of landing a more consistent role. That didn’t happen either.

If anything, he went backwards.

King averaged just over six points a game for the Cairns Taipans, shooting under 39% from the field, and 33% from three in 16 minutes a game. The minutes might not have been what King anticipated, especially given his classmate’s volume, but what transpired in Adelaide would’ve surely had him thinking Cairns wasn’t so bad.

His scoring dipped to 3.7 per game, on similar shooting percentages, but his minutes got slashed down to barely 10 per game.

The one thing in King’s favour is his three point shot looked workable during his two years in the NBL, breaking even at just over 33% over his two seasons, and his athletic profile allows him to attack closeouts. A better offensive player than Rupert, for instance, teams will be forced to at least close out short on King, allowing him time to get clean looks off.

And if they close out too hard, he has the athleticism to put the ball on the floor and attack in straight lines.

For what it’s worth, King’s production improved in his lone season with the G-League Ignite, upping his scoring to just under 10 points per game while shooting over 40% from the field for the first time in his pro career. His three point percentage did fall to 31%, but he showed improved rebounding chops and some small flashes of playmaking off the bounce.

Importantly, though, King played minutes. Lots of them. 27 minutes per game over 44 contests. Whether you think the G-League level of competition is comparable to the NBL or not, sometimes it’s important for guys to just get run to work out deficiencies in their game.

I’m not sure what the next step is for King. He’ll play Summer League for the Pacers, after which the likelier options look to be a two way deal, allowing him to split time between the Pacers and the G-League, or a stash somewhere in Europe or the NBL, much like other Next Star alumni in Justinian Jessup and Didi Louzada.

I’d wager Rupert as the likelier of the two to be able to contribute in the NBA this season, but the reality is both are still a way off meaningful NBA action.

NBL24

As for the future of the Next Stars program, NBL24 brings with it a new crop of NBA hopefuls and a further strengthening of the NBL to NBA pipeline.

Bobi Klintman is one for the length enthusiasts out there. The Swede spent last season at Wake Forest and was a projected second round pick in this NBA Draft before deciding to come to the NBL with the hopes of improving his stock with Cairns.

Illawarra guard AJ Johnson might be the blue chip recruit of this year’s class. A projected first rounder in 2024, Johnson decommitted from powerhouse program the University of Texas to join the Hawks.

Much like Klintman, Mantas Rubstavicius was also a chance of being selected in the second round this year. The Lithuanian is a bit older at 21, having already played professionally for five seasons, but joins the New Zealand Breakers to improve his stocks.

The most intriguing Next Star prospect might be French forward Alexandre Sarr. Born in 2005 (feel old yet?), Sarr has played for the Real Madrid cadet teams before spending the last two seasons as part of the Overtime Elite program, the same program that produced lottery picks Amen and Ausar Thompson. Sarr has good basketball pedigree, with his father playing professionally in france, while older brother Olivier is currently contracted to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Finally there’s the returning Ariel Hukporti. The German big man is entering his third year as a Next Star with Melbourne United after tearing his Achilles during the NBL Blitz last year, causing him to miss the season.

The NBL pipeline continues to go from strength to strength, I cannot wait to see how these next crop of Next Stars go in their journey.

In case you were unaware, besides this (admittedly infrequent) newsletter, I also run a podcast, on which I had the pleasure of interviewing Sydney Kings guard Dejan Vasiljevic.

On the show we cover the following topics:

• The NBA Finals and his offseason training program

• His junior career with the Werribee Devils, Melbourne Tigers and the Australian Institute of Sport

• Being recruited by Miami and Stanford

• Deciding to sign with the Sydney Kings

• Relationships with Adam Forde and playing in a pandemic

• Recovering from a major injury

• Chase Buford in everyday life

• Playing with Xavier Cooks and the moment he made the NBA

• Hitting the big shots in the NBL Finals vs. Tasmania

• Defending a championship

• Justin Simon and the NBL Awards system

• Playing for Australia in World Cup Qualifying

• NBA Summer League experiences

• Listener questions

Check it out below.

Spotify

Apple Podcasts (no idea why the podcast art is the old one but anyway)

The podcast is also available on Google Podcasts, Stitcher and Soundcloud.

Remember, if you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave a rating and review.

I’ll have more content coming soon on here with the NBA draft, free agency and the FIBA World Cup all filling the basketball-less months.

It’s fair to say Bruce Brown has had a strange career arc to date. Drafted by the Pistons in the second round in 2018 out of the University of Miami, Brown came into the league as a pure defensive specialist with little discernible skill on the ball as a shooter or playmaker.

A ball of energy, Brown would earn minutes on a Pistons team battling for the playoffs through his energy and athleticism, a defensive presence on a team sorely lacking any grit on that end of the floor, as evidenced by the Pistons eventual spectacular demise in the first round of the playoffs to the Milwaukee Bucks.

Brown would end up starting 56 games in his rookie season, playing a hair under 20 minutes a game, averaging 4.3 points and 2.5 rebounds while shooting under 40% from the field, and just over 25% from three.

Bruce played an important role on the Pistons, it’s just no one was quite sure what that role should be.

Athletic, sure, but an anachronistic skill set for his size. Too small to be a true wing, shooting percentages that wouldn’t even make it onto an opposing scouting report, and a lack of nuance as a playmaker outside of straight line drives that made his place as a primary ball handler tenable only in short bursts.

Despite all that, those in league circles knew there was a place for Bruce Brown. While his raw statistical output in Detroit was unimpressive, he was an advanced stats darling, contributing positively in win shares, defensive box plus minus and value over replacement player, especially in his second season on a Pistons squad devoid of any talent whose best player was…Christian Wood?

Brown was traded following the 19-20 season to Brooklyn, as part of a team-wide fire sale by incoming general manager Troy Weaver. The fact Detroit felt the need to attach four second round picks to sell off Brown (and Luke Kennard) in a three team deal with Brooklyn and the LA Clippers where the grand jewel in the return was Saddiq Bey divided the fanbase.

It’s a move that hasn’t aged well with hindsight.

Brown’s second season with the Pistons saw significant statistical and developmental growth, on a team that had been gutted, pivoting from misguided playoff hopes to a hardcore rebuild, not only improving his points and assists per game, to 8.9 and 4.0 respectively, but dragging his three point percentage into the mid 30s (albeit on low volume). All this despite ranking 17th (!!!) on the team in usage rate.

Brown’s sophomore season showed how effective he could be in a “less is more” hybrid role, using his athleticism and driving ability to make plays on the bounce while maintaining enough of a three point threat to remain semi-dangerous should he be left alone behind the arc.

It’s a shame the Pistons went through such a transition after Brown’s second season that they dumped him for peanuts, but I’m not bitter.

Upon arriving in Brooklyn, the expectations changed for Brown, joining a team with far greater depth and more serious title aspirations. With that though, came more uncertainty in his role again. Despite proving his effectiveness as an ancilliary playmaker on a struggling team, that skillset became redundant on a Brooklyn team possessing Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant and later, James Harden.

Brown was too good to sit nailed to the bench, but with such a crowded guard/wing rotation in Brooklyn, a new development emerged.

Big man Bruce.

According to Basketball Reference, the most common five man lineup with Bruce Brown that Brooklyn ran that season also featured Kyrie Irving, James Harden, Joe Harris and Deandre Jordan, at 191 minutes together.

Basketball Reference is somewhat unsophisticated when it comes to positional breakdowns, but we can infer from that data that Bruce was the nominal power forward in this lineup, which was +2.3 points per 100 possessions. Hardly elite, but getting positive minutes in what is effectively a four guard lineup without KD is only positive news.

For that lineup to work, gang rebounding is obviously one pillar, and that lineup had a positive net total rebounding percentage (4.2%), helped in no small part by Bruce averaging a career high 5.4 rebounds.

More importantly though, is how that small man defends, and Bruce’s ability to guard up 1-2 positions, even spending pockets of time in the mixer as a super small backup centre. Despite spending the majority of the season outmatched against larger forwards, Brown was still a positive contributor in defensive metrics.

After spending two seasons in Detroit as a de facto point guard due to injuries to Reggie Jackson, and two seasons in Brooklyn as a faux big man due to a glut of guards and wings, Brown entered free agency this past offseason as a prototypical jack of all trades, master of none.

In a vacuum, each of Brown’s personalities were a dime a dozen.

There are plenty of athletic guards in the league who can make the occasional play off the dribble.

There are plenty of defensive minded wing stoppers that can hit an open three when ignored.

There are some, not many, but some wings that can provide respectable spot minutes as emergency reserve big men.

There’s not many, if any players, that can do all three of those things.

Versatility is often the enemy of consistency. There are cautionary tales littered throughout a multitude of sports of players being burned by their own ability to do lots of things well but nothing great. It can lead to a lack of comfort, an inability to settle into a defined routine and role, shifting from night to night.

In the 2022 free agency period, Brown sat patiently by the phone. Brooklyn’s cap situation meant a return to the Big Apple was unlikely, but his body of work over four years meant he should’ve expected calls.

For a week, the phone remained silent.

Finally, Brown agreed a deal with Denver, joining a team possessing the reigning back to back MVP in Nikola Jokic, the returning star guard Jamal Murray, and a swathe of athletic big wings in Aaron Gordon, Michael Porter Jr, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and the ageless Jeff Green.

Brown was walking into a team with a defined role for him for the first time in his career. That role? Just do whatever you need to win.

His role in Denver more closely mirrors his time in Detroit, as an athletic guard capable of making plays and acting as a connector in the offense, taking the open shots and moving the ball, running the occasional pick and roll and as always, playing elite defence.

Brown averaged a career high 11.5 points per game, to go along with 4.1 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 1.1 steals during the regular season, while shooting nearly 36% from three, all in a career high 28.5 minutes per game.

His contributions in the playoffs have been invaluable, often the first man off the bench, and regularly closing out games instead of either Michael Porter Jr or Aaron Gordon.

Brown is coming off a stellar Game 4 performance that sees the Nuggets one win off their first NBA title in franchise history. In 30 minutes, Brown poured in 21 points (8-11 FG, 3-5 3PT), with 4 rebounds and 2 assists. Along with Aaron Gordon (27 points), he helped bridge the gap from subpar shooting games for both Porter Jr and Jamal Murray.

Along with Christian Braun, Bruce Brown has become a vital cog in the Denver playoff machine, helping maintain offensive fluidity and defensive intensity in the rare yet ultra-important Jokic-less minutes. Denver’s ability to stay afloat while their MVP sits is a big reason they’re one win away.

It’s been reported ad nauseum, but when Michael Malone asked Bruce Brown why no one had signed him back in July, here was Bruce’s answer.

“No one knows how to use me.”

I think it’s fair to say that the team on the precipice of a championship has solved that formula.