Jordan McRae had the the highlight of the season thus far in Melbourne's 88-75 win over the Wollongong Hawks. Mark Worthington made a big block which led to a fast break with a huge 360 dunk by Jordan McRae. The Highlight can be seen below.
Jordan McRae played for the University of Tennessee before being drafted at the 58th spot by the San Antonio Spurs and was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers on draft night. He played in the NBA summer league before signing a contract to play for Melbourne United for the 2014/15 NBL season.
Brock Motum who was recently released from the Utah Jazz was picked up by the Adelaide 36ers. This is a huge signing for the 36ers who now have two world cup boomers team mates in Adam Gibson and now Brock Motum. Brock Motum is a 6 foot 9 inch power forward who shoots at a decent clip from the 3 point range. The 36ers have been looking for a shooting big after losing the teams MVP Daniel Johnson who decided to take his talents overseas.
With this recent acquisition the 36ers had to release a player with a 10 point rating from the squad. This means their import forward Dequon Montreal had to be released from his contract. Montreal the former SEABL star was fully aware of the negotiations.
The Adelaide 36ers today won their game against the New Zealand breakers 93-86 and moved to a 3-2 win record. Adam Gibson had a big game finishing with 34 points, 9 assists, 6 steals and 6 rebounds. Gibsons partner in the back court Brandan Teys also had a good game tallying a personal record of 23 points. A lot of the scoring responsibility was put on their shoulders with injured players Jamar Wilson and Mitch Creek out injured.
Brock Motum will join the team and hopefully suit up with the 36ers in their next game against the Sydney Kings which should also see Josh Childress rejoin the Kings after his suspension.
James Ennis had a big highlight in his first game of the regular season with the Miami Heat. He had many similar plays in the NBL last year with the Perth Wildcats and is now applying his trade in the big league. Here he is seen posterizing Rasual Butler of the Washington Wizards.
The Miami Heat defeated the Wizards 107-95 and Ennis finished with 5
points and 2 rebounds in 15 minutes. Chris Bosh had a big game for the
heat tallying 26 points, 15 rebounds and 4 assists. Hopefully Ennis will continue to see some decent minutes and with some big highlights like this he is certainly exciting to watch.
Joe Ingles has been claimed by the Utah Jazz and will join their team before the start of the season. Ingles was originally recruited by the LA clippers who decided not to keep him going into the start of the season. In his time with the Clippers Ingles averaged only 7.5 minutes per game and didn't really have enough time to gain any significant stats. Ingles joins his Australian National team-mate Dante Exum on the squad but his other Boomers team mate Brock Motum was recently let go the Jazz. This move is what opened up space on the roster for Ingles. A lot of Jazz fans were upset by the news that Motum was let go as he was a versatile big who shot at a decent clip from long range. The forward position with the Jazz is a tough spot to retain and Ingles will likely have to battle for minutes against recent waiver acquisition Jordan Hamilton. Lets hope Ingles does enough to retain a position with the Jazz and earn some meaningfull minutes heading into the season. Ingles is a very versatile player and could be a great pick up for the jazz this late in the offseason.
Australia's most credentialed player in the basketball league Josh Childress was ejected from the game last night for throwing an elbow and knocking a player down. In what was a very physical game the Perth wildcats demolished the Sydney Kings 84-63 but its highlight was the Childress ejection. Steve Carfino even mentioned they may need extra security with how the crowd reacted. It was a very physical game which blatantly showed how amateur the NBL refs are who were greatly influenced by the fans in Perths sold out arena. Sydney managed to get called for every foul committed but the Perth Wildcats played very physical defense and set many illegal screens with no calls from the refs. In the play where Childress was ejected Jesse Wagstaff set a big screen which Childress believed to be illegal which hit him to the ground right in front of the ref with no call coming. Immediately after Wagstaff got the ball and took a shot from the top of the keyway when Childress jumped up, elbows up and took him down. Wagstaff went down hard and the other players stopped any further fighting as Childress walked to the bench and later left the stadium as the refs made a decision. They crowd was in an uproar and booing and yelling filled the stadium as Childress walked out. The frustration was too much for Childress and hell even iv been there myself when the refs just don't call any illegal plays coming your teams way. Wagstaff is known as one of the roughest and "dirtiest" players in the league maybe following his team mate Sean Redhage. Some fans on forums think it was about time a player reacted, over-reacted definitely but maybe the refs will look at this game and try to improve, because his reaction was a directly caused by the poor refereeing.
As Jonny Flynn said they play it rough down in Australia. The NBL organization really has to take a look at the league and how its officiated if they want to keep recruiting top quality players. (Sam Young, Jonny Flynn, Josh Childress, James Ennis, Deandre Danials) Why would a fringe NBA player or former NBA player come to Australia to get beaten up on the court every night. I'm not saying what Josh Childress did was the right thing it was definitely an over reaction and he did deserve to be ejected but lets hope it makes the league take a closer look as to why a player would react the way he did and make some changes in recruiting some more professional referees.
A clip of the play can be seen below, What are your thoughts?
Jonny Flynn's Perth vs Melbourne post game interview in 2012. He said it well back then. Their a hard enough team to beat alone without those "outside influences".
4 Aussies made appearances in day 2 of the Las Vegas Summer league.
Chris Goulding started the day off with another starting role with the Dallas Mavericks. The Mavs managed to get the win over the Minnesota Timberwolves 93-85 after they had a loss in yesterdays game to the Knicks.Goulding played 15 minutes and finished with a total of 6 points, 2 rebounds and 1 assist however his best stat was probably his +15 in the +/- column leading the team. He made some good defensive plays getting an offensive foul and on another play made a block only to be called for the foul. Goulding shot 2/3 from the floor for his 6 points but he will need to touch the ball a lot more for him to really get going like we are all so used to seeing in the NBL.
Cameron Bairstow had his first professional start for the Chicago bulls and he put in a solid effort in their 85-70 win over the LA Clippers. Bairstow had 8 points, 6 rebounds and 1 assist in 32 minutes of game time. He played some good defense, set some strong screens and made it to the hole on several occasions, however he didn't get as many touches as I'm sure he was hoping for. As a post player its hard to get into the offense when your not fed the ball. Tony Snell had a huge game for the Bulls racking up 27 points shooting 10/14 from the floor.
In what was a very anticipated game for the Utah Jazz fans, they finally got a chance to see what their number 5 pick in this years draft Dante Exum could do. In a close game that the Philedelphia 76ers managed to close out in the last minute 74-70 Dante showed how much of a facilitator he could be and got several of his players some open shots and plays around the basket. Exum had 10 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists in 27 minutes of game time. He wasn't shooting the ball great going 4/10 from the floor but his basketball IQ and speed was on display as fans got to see some nice finishes around the rim. Exum's opening basket of the night was a big alley-oop dunk off a pass from Trey Burke which got the fans into the game early. In what may be one of Exums best stat lines was his 1 turnover in a play which he quickly stole the ball back and dunked it in. The Summer league often has a large number of turnovers and often low shooting percentages. Although Exum looked a little out of shape getting tired early its a good start for the young kid from Australia showing some huge potential in the coming years. Brock Motum who is also from Australia got some court time with the Utah Jazz and after a rocky start
finished the game strong with a big dunk off a missed Exum three pointer. Motum finished the game with 4 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists. Full highlights from the game can be seen below which include Exums alley-oop, his steal and dunk as well as Motums dunk off the Exum miss:
Also James Ennis who played last year with the Perth Wildcats in the Australian NBL has been putting on a show in his run of Summer league games and has recently made the top 5 rookie ladder. Ennis who narrowly missed out on the league MVP in Australia had 19 points, 8 rebounds and 1 assist in the Miami heats 92-81 win over the Houston Rockets.
The NBA summer league is well and truly underway but it has finally begun for those of us who are following the young Australians hoping to make an NBA roster.
There are 4 Aussies hoping to play well enough to continue onto the final rosters of an NBA team at this years Las Vegas Summer league and today 2 of them had starting roles.
Mathew Dellavedova was the starting point guard for the Cleveland Cavaliers who took on the Milwaukee Bucks in a highly anticipated bout between the number 1 (Andrew Wiggins) and number 2 (Jabari Parker) draft picks from the this years NBA draft.
Wiggins dominated and lead all scoring for the game with 18 points but last years number one pick Anthony Bennett looks to be in good form and finished with 15. Hopefully Bennett can put his rough start in last season behind him and play the way a number draft pick should. Mathew Dellavedova although not getting much attention behind his star draft pick team mates had a stellar game finishing with 13 points, 6 assists and 9 rebounds. Hopefully he will continue his impressive performances from last season. Delly finished last season with the highest +/- score on the whole cavaliers roster. With the addition of Lebron James in the line up and the removal of Jarret Jack lets hope Delly gets the minutes to run the point as hopefully the back up point guard for Kyrie Irving.
Here's a clip of a Delly assist to a huge dunk from Anthony Bennett
Chris Goulding had a starting role for the Dallas Mavericks when they matched up against the New
York Knicks. Goulding however did not have the stellar start Delly did and didn't make the impact I'm sure he was hoping to make with only 6 points off 2 from 7 from the 3 point line. The Mavericks must see some potential in the young NBL star to give him a starting role. Hopefully in the coming matches he will hit his rhythm and show what a hot shooter he is.
Tomorrow we will again see a few Aussies hit the court with Dante Exum making his summer league debut with the Utah Jazz as they take on the Philadelphia 76ers, Cameron Bairstow should get some decent minutes when the Chicago bulls take on the LA Clippers and hopefully Goulding will hit some shots and show what a streaky scorer he can be when the Dallas Mavericks take on the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Its exciting times when Aussie basketball fans might get to see potentially 7 Australian suiting up for NBA rosters in the coming season. With established players like Andrew Bogut, Aron Baynes and Patty Mills already showing their skills lets hope more teams look down south for potential talent when scouting for bench roles.
