No more changes to Adelaide 36ers roster in lead-up to NBL finals

ADELAIDE will not risk its chemistry by making any line-up changes and needs to continue to grow as a unit to give the NBL championship a shake.

SPORT - NBL - Perth Wildcats v Adelaide 36ers, Perth Arena. Photo by Daniel Wilkins. PICTURED - Adelaide's coach Joey Wright

ADELAIDE will not risk its chemistry by making any line-up changes and needs to continue to grow as a unit to give the NBL championship a shake.

That’s the considered view of 36ers coach Joey Wright whose team was 7-7 at the weekend’s halfway mark of a 28-round season, but now 7-8 after succumbing again to United in Melbourne on Sunday.

Yesterday was the deadline for utilising NBL Rule 10.4 which allows clubs to replace an import within two months of the season’s tip-off without an additional pay-out.

It may have been the motivator for Townsville’s board to axe Brian Conklin last week but the 36ers were unmoved, Wright fully committed to his current team.

At their best and with everyone on the same page, the Sixers definitely are top four contenders.

Their import duo of Jerome Randle (22.2 points per game) and Ebi Ere (10.2) actually is the NBL’s most productive pairing, their 32.4ppg topping Perth pair Casey Prather (16.6) and Jermaine Beal (15.7) who form the next best, averaging 32.3 between them.

“To try and build chemistry with a new player and 13 (regular season) games to go is risky,” Wright said.

“Every time you add a new player, it’s at least a three-to-four week adjustment.”

The usual internet scuttlebutt has Conklin on a plane to Adelaide but if the league’s 2014-15 MVP is headed anywhere, it would be to Wollongong and the Illawarra Hawks.

Illawarra is only using one import slot - for Kevin Lisch - and has the capacity to add a second American.

It would however mean having to release someone from the existing roster and with playmaker Rhys Martin back from injury, coach Rob Beveridge already is on record as saying the team now has “the final piece of the puzzle”.

With its full strength line-up for the first time this season, Illawarra smashed league-leader Melbourne 102-87, taking Adelaide’s spot in the top four when the 36ers lost 86-89 to the same United team on Sunday.

Adelaide’s dynamic and reliable duo of multiple club MVP Daniel Johnson and London Olympian and Boomers regular Adam Gibson are the men the 36ers most need to fire.

Johnson seemingly has lost confidence against the influx of talented “bigs” now back in the league and must find his swagger, while Gibson’s erratic offensive aggression is a weekly mystery.

Originally published as No more changes to Adelaide 36ers roster in lead-up to NBL finals