Remember When... Brisbane won 21 straight games

Defining the best team in NBL history is an almost impossible task. After all, how do you determine the all-time greatest sides? Because titles alone might not necessarily end the debate.

Do you compare the total history of a club? Do you split it into eras? Do the individual accolades players who played or the coaches who coached over the years have any bearing?

While it’s impossible to determine the best team in history, it’s a pretty easy feat to decide what the greatest NBL season in history is. It’s almost simple, in fact. Just look at the wins, losses, and post-season.

The 2006-2007 Brisbane Bullets side rounded out their campaign with the greatest winning run in the history of the NBL, and while records are there to be broken – this one looks like it could definitely stand the test of time.

The Brisbane Bullets celebrate winning the 2007 NBL title.

After opening the season with a largely indifferent 3-3 record, and splitting their first 15 regular season games at a respectable but not at all earth-shattering 10-5, the winds changed.

Brisbane went on to win its final 18 games of the regular season to pip one of the all-time great Tigers teams to top of the ladder. They lost just one game at home all season and threatened to stamp out one of the NBL’s burgeoning dynasty sides.

The winning run extended into the post-season too. In an era where the top two finishers went straight into the semi-finals, a break from play could not halt Brisbane’s momentum.

They swept the Sydney Kings to take on Melbourne in the Grand Final and although the Tigers won Game 2 of the highly anticipated series to halt Brisbane’s winning run at 21, the Bullets got the job done with a 3-1 series win.

To say South East Melbourne assistant Sam Mackinnon played a crucial role in the title-triumph would be an understatement, and the 2007 league MVP reflected on the side’s historic run.

“We didn’t have a great start to the year,” Mackinnon told NBL Media. “There was an expectation with the group we assembled, and we didn’t start well.

“Joey (head coach Joey Wright) game one of his rev up speeches and it went from there I think. I can’t exactly remember the details of how many close games we won, but I definitely know once we won five or six in a row just the confidence in the group just skyrocketed.”

Mackinnon discusses the close games – they won eight games by single figures, including the last five in the streak – but failed to mention seven of the victories were by 30 points or more, including a run of three games against Adelaide, New Zealand and Singapore where they won by 32, 34, and 32 respectively.

“We had that arrogance about us. We knew we could go anywhere, win on the road and at home.

“It was just a bunch of guys that got it at the right time of their careers. Mark Bradke at the end of his career, me in my prime, CJ Bruton, Stephen Black, guys that just wanted to win. It made the basketball a lot of fun, that’s for sure.”

After playing in two titles and winning the 2002 NBL MVP as a member of the Melbourne Tigers, Mark Bradke finished his legendary NBL career with a title as a Bullet.

It wasn’t just the Bullets’ season that was historic, but Mackinnon’s individual campaign as well.

Along with his league MVP and title he was also awarded the Larry Sengstock Medal as the Grand Final MVP, and he was named as the competition’s Defensive Player of the Year.

He became the first player to complete the historic quadruple of awards – which was, in fact, a quintuple if you count his All-NBL First Team nomination – before Melbourne’s Chris Anstey repeated the feat just 12 months later.

It would be unjust to say Mackinnon’s incredible season came out of nowhere. He was, after all, already an NBL champion, two-time All-NBL First Team recipient and three-time Olympian.

He says the career-best season was the combination of a perfect storm of factors aligning at the right time.

“For me, that season was a combination of my body and mind being aligned, and having played against the world’s best competition at the World Championships, and then coming back to the NBL knowing I could do it.

“I had that injury in 2000 and really missed a couple of years, but I had this window where I was feeling pretty good.

“I personally won a few awards but I was just enjoying my basketball and loving competing.

“We had the G-Unit who would push us every day in training and like to think they’d beat us – and they probably did, we as a starting group let them beat us once or twice – but there was that competition not just on the game night, but it was 24/7 but in a really good way.

“For me, it was the perfect alignment of the club, the vision they had, the players and just personally where I was at.”

The ‘G-Unit’ is what the Bullets’ bench group colloquially called themselves, and while the likes of Sam Mackinnon and CJ Bruton may have led the way for the starters, Mackinnon credits the bench for pushing the side to be as good as they could be.

The 2007 title was CJ Bruton's third NBL title in four seasons. He retired in 2014 having won a record-equalling six league championships.

“Depth and talent will get you a long way and is the backbone of winning,” he said.

“You like to think you can win with six or seven high quality players, but that’s tough. If you’ve got ten deep and you all believe in each other that’s huge.

“The Kings have done well in the last few years with that and at the Bullets we had a young Adam Gibson, Mick Hill could start on an NBL team, Brad Williamson, Mark Bradke, Dusty Rychart, Dillon Boucher.

“We just had a bench unit that could have started on most teams.

“The trainings were very intense and got to the stage where the bench unit even got their own t-shirts made up.”

The title-winning Brisbane side of 2006-2007 reads as follows:
Sam Mackinnon, Ebi Ere, Dusty Rychart, CJ Bruton, Stephen Black, Michael Hill, Mark Bradke, Adam Gibson, Brent Williamson, Dillon Boucher, Stephen Broom, Callum Baynes, Nathan Niesler, David Gurney, Chris Goulding, Brad Kelleher.

Cameron Tragardh also appeared in four games as an injury replacement player.