Breakers getting screwed, Sixers just screwed
NEW Zealand Breakers fans believing your team is getting screwed by the officials on a regular basis, take heart. You're right. Not sure the refs even recognise how much they do it. And Adelaide 36ers fans? Sadly, your team is close to its lowest ever ebb in its once proud NBL history. Those are the takeaways from yesterday's NBL matches.
Brad&Boti: Oops. Better late than never!
YES, better late than never is our motto and due to a technical difficulty - our usually magnficent, dependable and ever-professional producer (yes, its Christmas parties time!) has been asleep since Tuesday - now you can still get our Brad&Boti podcast for this week's NBL and WNBL before the New Year.
Panic station and Cotton pickin' on Kings
CAIRNS and Sydney had Brisbane and Perth respectively on the ropes last night but failed to deliver the knock-out blows as a couple of Bullets "kids" and some Bryce Brilliance changed the complexion of the entire NBL round, the Wildcats now legit but Brizzy? Hmm, still a tad shakey.
Breakers' barrage bludgeons bewildered battlers
NOT even the halftime ejection of coach Mody Maor last night could stall the recovery of the New Zealand Breakers as a playoff threat, dispensing with the directionless and erratic Adelaide 36ers 96-83 behind an Izayah Le'afa 3-point barrage in Christchurch. And bear in mind the Sixers scored twice in the last 10 seconds.
NBL Rd9 Rankings, Tips: Time to stand up
ARE either Perth or Sydney genuine challengers for the crown which seems headed for the collective head of Melbourne? Or are they simply masquerading as contenders, in much the same way South East and Brisbane have recently been exposed? Good questions and NBL Round 9 will answer some of them.
Positionless? All NBL 5 and MVPs are not the same
NIKOLA Jokic is a once-in-a-lifetime generational talent. So was Michael Jordan. And Arvydas Sabonis. And Wilt Chamberlain. They didn't play "positionless basketball" because there was no such thing. The NBL's decision today to turn its annual All-NBL Teams into "positionless" is a typically ill-conceived retrograde step for the game, reinforcing league boffins do not care about the fact basketball is a team sport and will bow to whatever is populist at the time.
Great Aussie Basketball Quiz Answers
HERE we go, your moment of truth if you yesterday had a crack at our first annual "Great Australian Basketball Quiz" WITHOUT consulting any search engines or other sources beyond your own knowledge and memory. It wasn't an easy quiz, although some of the questions should have been relatively manageable. One of them was a stumper though.
The Great Aussie Basketball Quiz
SO, you think you know all there is about Australian basketball. You know our connections to the NBA and WNBA, the histories of the Boomers and Opals, and, naturally, anything worth knowing of the NBL and WNBL, right? OK then, here it is! The first annual "Great Aussie Basketball Quiz" for fans of the game who think they know it all.
NBL TotW8: Fightback fiesta features fully
OH MY. The NBL's Round 8 was chock full of great performances, magnificent fightback victories and some outstanding individual efforts. It has made our Team of the Week a truly difficult call, especially with Illawarra as well breaking out of its funk to score a road success across the Tasman.
Brad&Boti: Who needs guests when we're rolling?
SADLY, as much as fellow Brad&Boti podcaster Brad Rosen and I tried, not a soul wanted to appear on our show this week, such is the fear spreading about our insightful and fearless interview skills. Either that, or we forgot to contact anyone. Never mind, we had plenty to say anyway!