Basketball On The Internet.

WHY now? That's the question most WNBL followers were asking tonight as news of Adelaide Lightning sacking coach Peter Buckle today filtered through the sport's community.

The sad thing there is not many are asking "why"? Just "why now"? But I'll get back to that.

In case you missed the breaking news, Adelaide, 4-4 and in fourth place, today pulled the trigger on Buckle, with the rest of the third year of his three-year deal still left to run.

He was guaranteed a full pay-out and left the 2pm meeting with team owner Vince Marino and club general manager Dean Parker in shock and a fair degree of bewilderment.

Bucks clearly didn't see it coming and, in truth, why should he have?

When he signed on for three years, having established himself at Townsville after an apprenticeship with Carrie Graf at Canberra, he was a highly-motivated, focused and strident breath of fresh air in an Adelaide program which steadily had stagnated under his predecessors.

Marino dug deep into his pockets to give Bucks a championship-calibre team.

So when it clinched the regular season championship in Year One, the plan was well on course.

But even with homecourt advantages, Lightning's heavy reliance on Suzy Batkovic came unstruck, first against Bulleen, then Dandenong. When Plan A failed, even Plan B still seemed to be Plan Batkovic.

Abby Bishop bailed, which in itself was not so much of a surprise - Europe lures many of our finest. But when she returned to Australia but chose not to come back to Adelaide, an alarm bell must have sounded somewhere in the Lightning offices.

Laura Hodges returned though and despite struggling through most of Bucks' Year Two, Adelaide made it back to the playoffs.

The Lightning showed some sizzling form late in the season too but once again, at home and with Townsville in town, it ran out of options and was run out of the playoffs.

If Adelaide had misgivings about Buckle's ability to take the team the next step, then that, you would think, might have been the time to sit down and reach an agreement to part ways.

Batkovic won her second straight league MVP award from two seasons in Adelaide. And then, as a free agent, Batgirl flew the coup too.

Another alarm bell somewhere?

But the biggest behind-the-scenes signal all was not well between Bucks and the club had to be his decision to apply for the vacant Melbourne Boomers job.

My strong belief is he did it with Adelaide's knowledge.

Now I don't know about your work circumstances but if I was to, say, apply to fill a vacancy at The Age in Melbourne - not that I would, Roy Ward is killing - and News Corp got wind of that, I am fairly confident I'd be collecting my severance pay.

Clearly, this should have been the point at which Bucks and the Lightning went their separate ways because it's obvious something was not right.

Whether Bucks' strident manner had reached its use-by date, there had been a mini player revolt, or the Lightning, under "new management" now as part of a "shared-resources" combine with the NBL's Adelaide 36ers, fell out of love with him becomes irrelevant.

The speed with which Adelaide had his replacement - Richard Dickel - in place, left no doubt this was never a knee-jerk reaction to the 22-point loss to Melbourne on national television last Saturday.

This was a while in the brewing.

When I spoke with Bucks today, he could see the signs in hindsight. But, as they say, that's always 20-20.

The fact it caught him off guard strongly indicates he had taken on board many of the post 2012-13 season criticisms of his brusque manner and genuinely tried to soften his approach.

But at 4-4 and with championship-winner Jess Foley back and Great Britain Olympian Azania Stewart into the team for Batkovic, probably only 6-2 may have kept Bucks in the seat.

The opening round home loss to West Coast Waves was not the start anyone could have wanted.

Today, it all came home to roost.

How the story broke: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/basketball/adelaide-lightning-sacks-peter-buckle-appoints-richard-dickel-as-new-coach-for-rest-of-wnbl-season/story-fnii09gt-1226759212494