Up-tempo offence and shooting from the outside might be becoming the order of the day in basketball, but make no mistake – the winner of the 2015-16 NBL championship will have a strong inside presence.
Melbourne United and Illawarra Hawks have built teams with some incredible three-point shooters.
Melbourne have Chris Goulding, Daniel Kickert, Todd Blanchfield, Stephen Holt and Brad Hill. Illawarra have Oscar Forman, Kirk Penney, Kevin Lisch, Tim Coenraad, Kevin White, Cody Ellis and Jarrad Weeks.
You can’t question Melbourne’s start with nine straight wins as coach Dean Demopoulos made the best start ever to an NBL coaching career. However, United were making their shots from outside, had a good run of home games and got lucky a couple of times.
They have now lost their last three games and it has clearly shown they rely overly on the outside shot and haven’t got an inside presence without Hakim Warrick.
That now could change with Warrick back from injury and capable of giving them a post presence. But if he doesn’t, no other player in the team can.
Kickert is a good big man, but he’s an outside scorer and Majok Majok is a terrific rebounder and gets second chance points, but he’s not going to post anybody up regularly.
If Melbourne want to retain their place on top of the NBL and as title favourites then they need an inside presence. That in turn can make their shooters all the more dangerous and tough to defend.
For the Hawks, they have AJ Ogilvy inside and he is having a terrific season averaging 20.1 points and 9.1 rebounds. Most of his best work offensively is done when he cleans up the missed shots of his teammates.
He also has no help. The Hawks have been exposed when Ogilvy has been nullified or got into foul trouble with nobody else on the team a strong rebounder or post defender.
If the Hawks start to run more of their offence through Ogilvy and he can stay out of foul trouble, they can still remain in playoff contention. However, the lack of help for him inside might need to be addressed before the season slips away.
Ellis has been largely ineffective in his first season with Illawarra and potentially replacing him for a stronger rebounding power forward who can defend the post strongly could very much help the Hawks.
That could help free up Lisch, Penney, Foreman and Coenraad to light things up too.
Consider the other teams in the NBL.
The Perth Wildcats sit second and while imports Jermaine Beal and Casey Prather are threats, everything they do is based around their big men Nathan Jawai, Matt Knight and Tom Jervis.
Cedric Jackson, Corey Webster and Tom Abercrombie continue to deliver for defending champions the New Zealand Breakers, but their inside presence hasn’t been forgotten.
Charles Jackson is doing nicely, Alex Pledger does his bit and Mika Vukona and Tai Wesley will be powerhouses once fully healthy.
Daniel Johnson and Anthony Petrie’s work inside for the Adelaide 36ers is allowing Jerome Randle to do his thing and the Cairns Taipans are built around a strong centre Matt Burston, and versatile four men Mark Worthington, Cameron Tragardh and Alex Loughton.
The Townsville Crocodiles (Brian Conklin, Nick Kay, Mitch Young and when fit Luke Schenscher) and Sydney Kings (Julian Khazzouh, Angus Brandt) haven’t forgotten the importance of an inside presence either as they try to stay in the playoff hunt.
If Melbourne and Illawarra want to take home the 2015-16 championship, they need to do a better job inside. Otherwise expect Perth, New Zealand, Cairns or Adelaide to take it out because they have that inside presence covered nicely.
Round 8 NBL fixtures (AEDT)
Wednesday
Illawarra Hawks v Sydney Kings (WIN Entertainment Centre) – Fox Sports 3, 7.30pm
Thursday
Townsville Crocodiles v Melbourne United (Townsville Entertainment Centre) – Fox Sports 3, 7.30pm
Friday
Cairns Taipans v Adelaide 36ers (Cairns Convention Centre) – Fox Sports 3, 7.30pm
Perth Wildcats v New Zealand Breakers (Perth Arena) – Fox Sports 3, 9.30pm
Saturday
Illawarra Hawks v Townsville Crocodiles (WIN Entertainment Centre) – Fox Sports 3, 7.30pm
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