It remains to be seen whether he is ready for the Olympic stage later this year. Training camp will provide the platform to show his lessons from a year in the G League, but he is too far down the pecking order for Tokyo. Isaac Humphries: Humphries has made a triumphant return to Australian basketball after his time in North America. His career is on a steep upward rise and he figures to be a central player in future Olympic cycles. There are better and more experienced options this year.
Xavier Cooks: Cooks was on the plane to China in , before a last-minute injury cruelly ended his campaign. He has the game to contribute, but a stronger squad has seen his place in the pecking order lowered. Brock Motum: Motum was surprisingly left off the World Cup squad in He remains capable of contributing, but with the likes of Landale, Kay and Cooks stepping up, his time in the green and gold is winding down.
Duop Reath : Reath has been forging his path in Europe and his growth over the past few years has been duly rewarded with a place in the squad. His size and length is intriguing, but on a team hoping to win gold, he will be making up the numbers this time around.
Mitch McCarron: The 28 year old is fully worthy of his place in the squad and has been a reliable replacement when first choice Boomers have previously been unavailable. He will provide great cover, albeit not when the team arrives in Japan. Ryan Broekhoff is someone who has been away from the limelight since the Olympics. He has made an NBA debut in the five years since Rio, but a quick stop in Dallas notwithstanding, Broekhoff taken a backseat to the bounty of Australians boosting their professional careers overseas.
He largely earned his NBA chance in Dallas because of his outside game. Like most Boomers, the Frankston native has received more minutes and more responsibilities in the national team, relative to his club career.
Broekhoff is a capable defender at the FIBA level, and his complementary offensive skills round out his attacking game. If Simmons goes to Tokyo, surrounding him with Ingles, Mills and Broekhoff will further boost one of the best offences in international basketball. Even playing without their full strength team in China, the Boomers offence fuelled a performance that should have seen them medal. Throwing Simmons and Broekhoff into the mix will further balance out the attack.
Simmons would be afforded space he has never seen in Philadelphia, while also allowing Mills and Ingles the chance to attack as secondary and tertiary options — a luxury they have never before had in a Boomers singlet. A full-strength roster will also boost depth, and this could prove invaluable over a long tournament. The Boomers have relied on a handful of players to log large minutes and carry the team over the past two major tournaments.
The difference between the actual results and a transformative medal have been razor thin. Relying on depth and finding more rest over the two weeks in Japan will help ensure the team is fully functioning when medals are on the line. The Boomers are insanely talented and relative to the majority of global basketball, their weaknesses are minor.
It's well-deserved, too; the combo guard is among the NBL's leading scorers and doing it relatively efficiently. Making the final 12 is more of a long shot, but just getting to this point after not making the initial man squad is a wildly impressive feat of resilience and should absolutely be commended.
Exum suffered what was called a calf injury at the start of the NBA season, and hasn't seen the floor since. He has his body to sort out before being considered for this Boomers squad. Cooks didn't make our final squad because he just hasn't played much basketball lately, but he's definitely a dark horse to end up in LA.
He recently returned from his long-term foot injury and has looked like the Boomers-level, multi-positional energy guy for the Sydney Kings. If he ends up making Goorjian's squad, I wouldn't see it as a huge surprise. It's very difficult to consider someone like Maker for this squad when he hasn't played a game of basketball since the middle of January.
He was waived by the Cavaliers at the start of and hasn't been signed to a team since; there are too many guys out there performing at a high level for Maker to get in over them. Magnay is another big-man who just misses the cut; in part because he hasn't played much high-level basketball of late, and also because there are better options ahead of him.
He's turning 23 this year, so he has time on his side. Reath has a ton of potential to be an effective, versatile four-man for the Boomers going forward, but there are just too many guys in this position ahead of him right now. Mitch McCarron.
McCarron is another player who is in the midst of a really impressive season with his club team, but an abundance of guards in the squad hurts him. Depending on what you value most, there's an argument to be made that he'd make more of an impact at a camp than Sobey, but he probably just misses the cut.
Like I said, Goorjian can only bring so many guards, and, despite a season with the Perth Wildcats where he'd be in the running to win the NBL's Best Defensive Player award, Norton hasn't done enough to see him leapfrog some of the guys above him. We've seen some really impressive flashes from McDowell-White, but he's a point guard who needs the ball in his hands to be effective, and this squad already has multiple players with that skillset.
This one is quite obvious. Adel was released from his contract with the Goorjian-coached Illawarra Hawks - the team called the parting of ways "mutual" - because he wasn't performing close to the standard of a marquee player. Adel needs to show that he's a starting-level player in the NBL before he expects to be considered in Boomers teams moving forward.
There were two key ideas to zone in on when Goorjian was brought back as head coach of these Boomers. The first was understanding the unique nature of the Boomers' leadership group, which has been the program's driving force for the better part of a decade. The team has effectively been autonomous over the last few major tournaments, so there will be a natural concern about how a larger-than-life figure like Goorjian might collide with that chemistry.
Any consternation, Bogut says, should be alleviated by Goorjian's long-term relationships with most of those key members of the Boomers core. The other thing to look closely at is how Goorjian makes an impact from an Xs and Os standpoint.
The Boomers may have to incorporate Simmons, who is offensively most effective when the ball is in his hands. What does that mean for Dellavedova, who's coming off a World Cup where he was the team's primary creator? With Simmons comes the potential desire for opposition teams to load up on him, so how does an inconsistent three-point threat in Thybulle fit on a court one would be trying to make as wide as possible? On the flip side, Goorjian will also have the opportunity to play around with a heap of versatile defensive lineups, which is the side of the floor he excels at leading.
What happens when we've got him in the lineup with another non-shooter and teams just muck the paint? Do we have to move Ben to the four - a point forward role - which I understand he hates, he hates playing the four-spot and the five-spot? That's the buy-in we're gonna have to get from Ben. So, there's gonna have to be some quirky things that Goorj pens up on that board from time to time, but I think he's up for the job. Skip to main content Skip to navigation.
Selecting a Boomers squad that can win a medal in Tokyo. Best moments of the NYC Marathon. The NBA champion and Boomers captain beat out a hot field to claim the honour at today's ceremony at the National Gallery of Australia, recognised for using his platform as an Indigenous rights advocate and creating pathways for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youths.
Mills, 33, was honoured for his work with the Team Mills Foundation, which champions culture, diversity and underprivileged families. Fanning, who has known Mills since he about seven, accepted the award on his behalf with Mills in America for the NBA season.
And the ACT Local Hero is Woden School youth worker Luke Ferguson, having through his work helped empower people with disabilities to engage with the community and achieve goals, particularly via music. The four winners will now head to the national awards which will be announced on January
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