Basketball On The Internet.

IT is no great surprise two of the Adelaide 36ers’ prime off-season NBL signings are players with points to prove.

Look back through the teams coach Joey Wright has helped assemble at Brisbane Bullets and Gold Coast Blaze and you will find no shortage of players being given a career lifeline or a second shot at glory.

As recently as last season, Wright took a punt on brash New York guard Gary Ervin and, considering the coach and his import were the only substantial changes to a ball-club which was dead last a year earlier, it was a gamble which paid well.

Again, factor in Ervin was Townsville’s MVP the previous season but went unsigned by the Crocodiles.

Reckon he had a point to make in 2013-14?

Brendan Teys, BJ Anthony, Rhys Carter ... did they want a shot at the NBL again?

Fast forward to now and the 36ers officially have confirmed the signings of London Olympian Peter Crawford and former Cairns Taipans import Jamar Wilson.

PC was the story of the London Games’ Boomers team, getting his chance to be an Olympian at the tender age of 32 – persistence and consistency finally rewarded with selection.

Many – most – would have given up on that aspiration long before but instead Crawford was there, wearing green-and-gold as the living embodiment of every talk any parent has given a wavering child about the merit of hard work, persistence and never giving up on your dreams.

Crawford got to an Olympics and though both his subsequent 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons were injury-hampered, the NBL All Star swingman and member of the Crocodiles 20th Anniversary Team is fit and healthy.

At 34, his shot with Adelaide may be his last at an NBL Championship.

Do you think he may have some great reasons to dig deep one more time?

“Joey loves giving players a second chance, especially ones with a chip on their shoulder,” a Sixers’ insider confided.

History shows that to be true and rarely has it backfired for Wright.

Wilson, 30, is another New Yorker but brings a different set of strengths to Ervin who, unfortunately seems to have a one-and-done NBL shelf-life.

While Ervin’s first half of the 2013-14 season could not be faulted in terms of his attitude and team orientation – it really did appear he had found his basketball home in Adelaide - his decision to have elective knee surgery near Christmas and subsequent injury issues, MIAs in Grand Final Games 1 and 3, not to mention the Chris Goulding incident, left him out of favour.

Enter Wilson, someone he grew up playing with and against and who entered the NBL in 2011-12 and made an immediate impact with the Taipans.

Wilson finished second to Perth shooting guard Kevin Lisch in the league MVP award in his debut season and last year was “the good soldier,” not complaining about coming off the bench in a Cairns team which won 12 games and finished sixth.

My personal admiration – I have always been a fan of his game - for Wilson grew when I interviewed him late last season ahead of a Taipans-36ers fixture at Adelaide Arena.

As you do in most interviews, we spoke a fair bit “off the record” because I, for one, never quite understood the logic in Cairns recruiting Demetri McCamey, a point guard who duplicated much of what Wilson brought, though with less penetration but greater long-range ability.

Still, even with the opportunity to sound off at his coach and/or organisation, Wilson stayed humble and explained his role now with the Taipans was to provide a spark off the bench.

As a pro, I guess he had no option but to embrace it, even if he disagreed with it.

But as a pro, he also wasn’t about to break ranks and have a quiet bitch about the injustices of life as an import.

He would have been justified to do that, but even so, he did not.

A great many others I could name have swept on the “off the record” option to vent but my respect for Wilson only grew with his commitment to fulfill – to the best of his ability – the role the coach had assigned him.

And to not complain about it.

But again, do you think Jamar – who at one stage was so relegated in his role that in the Cairns press he even briefly became “Jamal” – has a point to prove in 2014-15?

The 185cm playmaker averaged 15.5ppg, 3.1 assists and 4.7 rebounds in three years at the Taipans and was Cairns club MVP in 2012 and 2013 before being reduced to sixth man for 2014.

“I can’t wait to get to Adelaide and be part of one of the NBL’s great clubs,” he said.

“Joey is obviously one of the leading coaches in the NBL and is putting together a roster that will push for a play-offs spot.”

After being crushed in Game 3 of the Grand Final by the Wildcats, expect there to be a few 36ers with “chips on their shoulders”.

REALLY enjoyed the NBL website’s “Tweets of the Week, Volume IIII” today.

{Yet all this time I thought it would be Volume IV.

Those Roman numerals can be a nightmare but roll on next week's Volume IIIII ...!}

TOMORROW: Come for a visit to Cairns a decade ago as the Taipans host the 36ers in a controversial thriller.