JackJumpers under the radar no more

The Tasmania JackJumpers have largely flown under the radar with their championship pedigree, despite the success they’ve experienced in their first two seasons in the NBL. Until now.

While the JackJumpers may have re-tooled with a handful of offensive weapons at the expense of some of their inaugural side, seven-time NBL MVP Andrew Gaze believes Tasmania will finally earn the pre-season respect of which they are so deserving. 

The JackJumpers famously made it all the way to the Championship Series in their first ever season in the competition – and defeated the ladder-topping Melbourne United on the way there.

They followed that up with a Playoffs appearance in their sophomore season, where they pushed the eventual runners-up in New Zealand all the way to a Game 3.

“The last two years I haven’t had them in the pre-season as being in that top four,” Gaze said on The Marketplace Round Table. “This year, I do.

“They’ve done an outstanding job with the team they’ve been able to put together. They’re not going to go under the radar this year, because of the success they’ve had with a superstar like Milton Doyle.

“I think Marcus Lee is a fantastic pickup for them – we saw what he could do in the latter stages at Melbourne. Jordon Crawford is going to be an interesting one, he’s 5’6” … everything I hear about him, I see the highlights, I’ve watched a bit of vision of him, and he is going to provide excitement and he is going to provide a handful for how you’re going to guard him.

“I think Sean Macdonald is a piece that if he continues to grow form what he's done in the past couple of years at the JackJumpers, he is going to be a very significant impact player with this team, and I think Majok Deng is a good pickup. I really like this team.

“Ultimately, this is Scott Roth. He’s very clear about the way he goes about it, his style of play is clearly identifiable, and provided all these guys buy in, then I think there’s a lot to like about the Tasmania JackJumpers.”

Standing at 168 centimetres tall, Jordon Crawford will take to the NBL floor as the second-shortest player in the history of the competition next season, and his ability as an offensive-first sparkplug represents something of a potential removal from Roth’s traditional modus operandi in the side.

Crawford will almost certainly come in as a like-for-like replacement for club legend and inaugural roster member Josh Magette who, after two seasons at the club, departed as its all-time leader in steals.

Former South East Melbourne head coach Simon Mitchell believes we could be seeing a drastically different style of JackJumpers basketball in NBL24.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Mini-camp Day 1 done ?<br><br>New and familiar faces returned to the practice court to begin the pre season mini camp. <br><br>Welcome back boys! <a href="https://t.co/vKYkuPu2mr">pic.twitter.com/vKYkuPu2mr</a></p>&mdash; Tasmania JackJumpers ? (@JackJumpers) <a href="https://twitter.com/JackJumpers/status/1683397010219765760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 24, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

“I’ve watched Jordon a little bit in the past, his agent a couple of years ago was trying to send him our way, I think I might have been at Melbourne United at the time. He’s only had one winning season as a pro,” Mitchell said.

“Going through his career – I always say as a point guard your job description is to go and win games. He’s significantly under .500 as a pro, and only had one season in college where he even made .500. Looking through his numbers his offensive efficiency has always been superseded by his defensive inefficiency.

“Does he fit the traditional mould of what we think of Tasmania as being that defensive, gut-busting team with physicality? I’m not sure this is the Tasmania we’ve seen in the past, even with a guy like Anthony Drmic coming in, yeah he’s going to bring all the fire and brimstone and they’re going to love him in Tassie, but from a defensive standpoint is he has strong as what they’ve had?

“I really like the signing of Marcus Lee - he’s a guy that can clean up the mistakes in front of him, so I think they’ve got a little bit of a get out of jail free card there which they would have missed with Will Magnay sidelined.

“I’m really excited, you know they’ve got a master coach in Scott Roth, he’s going to figure it out a whole lot better than the four of us do and I think they’ll be on the trajectory for the Playoffs.”

Tasmania will open its NBL24 campaign on Friday, September 29 against the Perth Wildcats.

Prior to Round 1, star forward Jack McVeigh will be looking to retain his Ray Borner Medal as the MVP of the NBL Blitz, when the pre-season tournament travels to the Gold Coast.

For more information on the Blitz, click here.