Where's Your Team At? Part 1

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It’s been six rounds of NBL23 action and it’s safe to say that no one can predict how this crazy season is likely to end. There will likely be a lot of teams thankful for the new play-in finals system, due to their slow starts. However, across the first six rounds we have seen some teams surprise, some disappoint and some doing exactly as we all expected.

Check out Part 1 of our two-part series below.

>> PART TWO

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

It’s been a mixed bag of performances so far for Adelaide to begin the season. It’s safe to say that so far, they haven’t lived up to their lofty expectations. They looked at their best when they beat the title favourites in the Sydney Kings, then at their worst a couple of times on their home floor. They made the tough decision to part ways with their leading scorer to find a more balanced outfit going forward, so it will be interesting to see how the team responds. 

Offensively, they’ll likely have no issue putting points on the board even without Craig Randall. They’re one of the deepest teams in the league in terms of talent and the one game they played without Randall, they still managed to score 96 points. Their biggest concern is on the other end. At this point in the season the 36ers are the worst defensive team in the league, allowing 91.6 points per game. A lot of that can be contributed to poor first quarter starts, where they also rank a league worst and points allowed with 24.3. 

Recent NBL history tells us that no matter how good you are offensively, if you can’t defend at a high level, you won’t be competing for a title. Can Adelaide bring it all together? 

Robert Franks and CJ Bruton. 

Rating: 2 out of 5

An 0-5 start to the season for Brisbane was something that no one saw coming. Even if you expected things to be slow early for the Bullets, it would have been tough to envision such a poor start to NBL23, with all the talent on the roster. Since that, they’ve seemingly began to turn things slowly in the right direction. Two wins over an Illawarra outfit to boost their confidence and then a great escape in Tasmania to make it three in a row.

Defensively, the Bullets rank the best in first quarters in the league, holding teams to just 17.3 points. They also comfortably lead the league in three-point percentage at an absurd 39.7 per cebt. When you combine that with the fact that they’re the third best first quarter scoring team themselves, you might ask where all the trouble is coming from? No real surprise, but the Bullets are the worst second half scoring team across the league at 38.4 points per game. A lot of that was early in the season, as their rotations and line-ups have seemed to tighten up more in recent weeks.

They are on the hunt for a big name import replacement to catapult them back into contention. Will it be enough?

Aron Baynes. 

Rating: 4 out of 5

What a start to the season for Adam Forde and the snakes. They might sit third on the ladder with five wins and three losses, but you’d be hard pressed to find a more exciting team to watch play at this point in the season. They play incredibly fast with high energy, they shoot the three at a ridiculous volume and they defend at a high level. What more could a fan want?

The Taipans are averaging 34.9 3FGA per game and hitting 33.7 per cent of those attempts, which only ranks sixth best in the league. If they start to knock down a few more consistently, just how hard will this team be to beat? They’ve had two showdowns with the Kings in Sydney and perhaps provided us with a glimpse of how fun a finals series between the two would be. With all the talk about how good they are offensively, it’s the other end that they’re really thriving. They average a league best 9.1 steals per game, whilst also forcing a leading 16.5 turnovers per game.

Adam Forde has his young group firing, and with their self-belief following suit, can the Taipans win it all?

Adam Forde.

Rating: 1 out of 5 

It was a brutal offseason for the Hawks as has been often highlighted, losing four of their five leading scorers from NBL22, which meant some growing pains were expected. However, there’s no sugar coating the disappointing start for the Hawks so far, who sit bottom of the table at one win and eight losses. For a team that had such a major roster turnover, the fact they lost their start import signing Justin Robinson early to injury, certainly didn’t help the cause.

It's no surprise to anyone that the Hawks sit bottom of the league in terms of points per game, at just 76.9. They’ve struggled to find regular contributors offensively and it’s meant they’ve been on the wrong end of some big blowouts already. If there’s two positives that the Hawks can build on going forward, it’s that it seems Tyler Harvey has found his groove again, scoring 20+ in his last two games before the break. That coincides with the play of Peyton Siva having back-to-back games with 10+ assists to be the first Hawk ever to achieve that.

Their last win was in round two against the Phoenix and with the way the rest of the league is playing, the Hawks know they’ll need to play 40 minutes of their best basketball to get back on the winners list.  

Peyton Siva.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Round six probably epitomised the entire season to this point for Melbourne United. They showcased their struggles in Cairns, when they lost by 25. They then turned that around with their best performance of the season 36 hours later, when they dismantled the Phoenix by 25 in the Throwdown. What did Forest Gump say? United is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get? It was something like that.

United have had two wins by 15+ and three losses by 15+ in their 10 games played so far. Dean Vickerman has mixed up his lineups and rotations numerous times in an effort to find some winning formula’s. Xavier Rathan-Mayes has been the most consistent performer to date for United, as his full repertoire has been on display. He averages 17.5ppg, 7.4 rebounds and 4.3 assists to date. He is shooting 47.6 per cent from the field, 40.6 per cent from three and yet just 59 per cent from the free-throw line. 

Defensively, this United team has been nowhere near what Vickerman would be hoping for. If they can lock in on that end, can United start to put it all together?

Xavier Rathan-Mayes.