Andrew Gaze shocked by the public nature of the bitter feud that engulfed the Adelaide 36ers and former coach Joey Wright
Adelaide is refusing to comment on co-captain Kevin White’s future as basketball legend Andrew Gaze gives his take on the ugly spat that embroiled the 36ers last week. It comes as the club starts interstate recruiting and the search for a new coach.
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Adelaide is refusing to comment on co-captain Kevin White’s future at the club after he broke ranks and launched a public tirade against former coach Joey Wright and 36ers management last week.
White remains contracted for next year and it’s understood he has not offered to stand down as captain and nor has he been told his time is up after launching a series of damning allegations against Wright and the club on Twitter.
Among White’s allegations were that Wright had assaulted a player and the club covered it up. The 36ers have strenuously denied those claims as their three imports Jerome Randle, Eric Griffin and Ramone Moore also took aim at Wright in the wake of the scandal.
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It comes as Australian basketball great Andrew Gaze admitted he was shocked at the ugly spat that embroiled the club and made international headlines last Friday.
“It was a real shock and disappointing, when you’ve got a legend of our sport like Joey Wright and all the amazing things he’s done, his coaching record is the envy of a lot,” Gaze said at the Fox Footy launch in Melbourne on Monday.
“I was really surprised at the way it was so public, and I don’t think the outcome has been good for anyone, no one comes out a winner.
“Hopefully for both the players and Joey that when the dust settles, everyone looks at all the great things that all those individuals have done rather than focusing on this situation that’s unfolded.
“I do know some of the players that are involved and to me they’re all high-quality guys.
“I know Jerome really well, Ramone Moore reasonably well and don’t know Eric at all, all of them have been high quality guys so I’m not aware of all the issues that took place.
“I think always those types of issues are better off being resolved privately than publicly, yes they had a review and I don’t know the outcome of the review, but clearly Kevin was responding as a captain of a team to some criticism levelled against some of his players.
“He felt that was the best way to do it, now in hindsight I think you take emotion out of it and you might say ‘I might have done a few things differently’, but knowing the little bit I do about Kevin I don’t think he would back away from it, but I think he may back away from the forum in which he used to express his views. Or maybe not.
“But given it was so ugly that all concerned would look back and say ‘we probably would have done things a bit differently’.”
Gaze does not believe the roster needs to be completely overhauled given the change of coach will bring its own fresh start next NBL season.
“It’s about finding the right guy and you look at what Sydney did and take a somewhat international approach, the difference with Will (Weaver) was he’d been a part of the Australian team so he’d got to know the culture and players,” Gaze said.
“Although it was his first coaching experience in the NBL he had enough education dealing with Australian players, their personalities and culture, and all those things gave him a bit of an advantage.
“There are a lot of good assistant coaches I think would be great, and we’ll see how it unfolds. I don’t think you should shy away from a first-year head coach, not too many people would be too critical of what Cairns have done with Mike Kelly.
“You’re always going to have some level of turnover with your team, and with a new coach coming in, new players, new imports, if that does happen you’re going to see a significant change regardless of whether you had this situation or not.
“If you’re going to bring in three new imports it’s going to be a different look anyway.”
Adelaide officials have hunkered down the past few days with basketball operations manager Jeff Van Groningen refusing to comment on the fall-out from White’s tweets.
“I have no comment on any player be they contracted or free agents,” he said.
“Last week is last week, there is no further comment on that other than what we’ve said before, we have a social media policy and that was again distributed to the players.
“Those things that were said in the social media sphere are not reflective of the club’s position on any matter.
“The club has shifted into a forward planning mode, there are some very exciting roster moves and decisions to be made about the future direction of coaching that are being worked on.”
Van Groningen has spent the past few days travelling interstate on a recruiting mission while the club has already received applications for its head coaching position.
Randle appears certain to have played his last game for the 36ers after rupturing the ACL in his knee while playing in Spain on Sunday.
The Sixers released a statement in which chief executive Ben Kavenagh said:
“It’s awful to see any player, but (particularly) one of Jerome’s calibre, injured in such a horrific manner,” Kavenagh said.
“Anyone who knows Jerome, knows how determined he is and on behalf of the club, I wish him all the best in his recovery.”
Gaze is returning to Fox Footy this season to co-host popular show The Bounce alongside Jason Dunstall and Cameron Mooney on Sunday nights.