Basketball On The Internet.

CONSISTENCY. That's the key word missing from the resumes of some of our second-tier NBL stars and is the very reason they have remained entrenched as "second tier".

Every club has one - at least one - the player home fans love to love but who also can frustrate the living bejesus out of them while they wait for him to fulfill his "potential".

Ah potential, the label so many sportsmen and women get to labor and toil under after showing early promise.

Potential unrequited arguably is the greatest malady of sports.

Off the top of my head I could name a dozen men and women who had potential but fell well short of expectations.

You probably can too.

So who are the men in the NBL who need to have a break-out season in 2014-15?

Often they have attended college and/or represented their nation at youth levels.

The foundations are in place.

In my view, this season in the NBL, the following eight, many of whom have repeatedly shown at state league or SEABL levels that they have the tools, are due now to apply them in the tougher cauldron.

 

ADELAIDE - Mitch Creek, 22, 195cm swingman
NBL Games: 80. Career ave: 6.5ppg

At 18, Creek led Victoria to gold at the 2011 Under-20 Australian Championship, winning the Bob Staunton Medal as tournament MVP.

The world was at his athletic feet when he joined the 36ers in 2010, coming in as the MVP award-winner at the international Albert Schweitzer Tournament.

For years now the question about Creek hasn't been about "when" but about "how far", as in, how far can this kid go?

It's starting to become about "when"?

Last season the star national junior made it back from a ruptured Achilles tendon he suffered in December, 2012, with some outstanding games for Joey Wright's revitalised team.

When Jarrid Frye got the flick, the door was wide open for Creek to be a weekly impact player but he settled for fortnightly.

In Adelaide he was often at his finest. On the road, he could have been wearing camouflage gear.

No-one questions Creek, his effort, his ability in the open court or his play above the rim.

His 3-point shot has improved but his jumpshot remains his Achilles heel, defences gambling on leaving him open in the mid and long range, rather than suffer the humiliation of being dunked on.

Creek has all the physical tools and is relatively young for someone with four years of NBL under his belt.

With Olympic aspirations, his time has to be now because other exciting young new faces are coming into that arena.

It's all about the mid and long range.

 

CAIRNS - Stephen Weigh, 27, 198cm forward
NBL Games: 172. Career ave: 9.7ppg

When you leave a club such as Perth where you were not only a starter but the starter on a championship team, it has to have been for one hell of an offer.

As it turned out, that opportunity of being The Man in Adelaide sent Weigh's career into a tailspin.

While his work ethic on the track was second-to-none, the in-game gold pass he had from the coaching hierarchy of the time meant he played a lot of minutes when his game better would have been served by him recharging his batteries on the bench.

As a result, instead of his game blossoming, it stalled.

Apart from a Blitz game for the 36ers against Sydney at Auchenflower a long time ago, Weigh never tore through any opponent for a full game.

Yes, he had good minutes and even some great moments.

But the slashing dunks of his Wildcat days became a memory from the past and many of his shake-and-bake moves had no obvious finishing signature.

Weigh went from the best team to the worst team and wasn't able to be the best player on the worst team.

His best moment as a 3-point shooter came when he won the All Star Game 3-point shoot-out in Adelaide.

Leaving Adelaide for a fresh environment in Cairns was supposed to rejuvenate his career but by mid-season he had lost his starting spot.

With Weigh, it never has been about his talent or his ability.

Having had so many opportunities now, it clearly has to be about his self-belief.

If he can get past his own expectations and just play, he could still be a star.

 

MELBOURNE - Lucas Walker, 29, 202cm forward
NBL Games: 96. Career ave: 6.5ppg

The athletic, high-octane way Walker competes has made him regularly susceptible to injury and played a role in his inability to cement a top-tier position of NBL greatness.

He made a smash with the Tigers in 2010-11, finishing runner-up in Rookie for the Year honors and running around in attention-grabbing apple/lime green playing shoes.

You have to back that kind of thing up.

Walker's best is breath-taking but he also is prone to occasional lapses in decision-making.

Fouls have hindered him as much as injury but you can rehab an injury.

Smarter decision-making is something which is supposed to come with experience.

Bad habits die hard and with them, an illustrious career may also simply end as a "what could have been".

Walker this year made it to the final cut for the Boomers World Cup team, reflecting how his best is perceived among those with opinions which matter.

In the end though, he will be watching it on television like the rest of us.

Sometime during those matches, hopefully the carrot of Rio will give him pause to think that at 29, the opportunities rapidly are diminishing and that there's no time like the present.

Being an Olympian would look good on his career resume.

 

NEW ZEALAND - Corey Webster, 25, 185cm guard
NBL Games: 89. Career ave: 5.4ppg

Webster's career almost went up in smoke a while ago after he broke into the NBL in 2008-09 as a turbo-charged tyro.

A drug violation behind him - he missed a season - it has been a joy to watch him get back to his playing best and focus on what he is best at, ripping games apart.

Deadly from range and a livewire with quick hands capable of coming up with just the right play, he has struggled at times with his decision-making.

His effervescent enthusiasm has run him into trouble and probably the area of his game which needs the most attention.

Though it's hard to dampen enthusiasm.

Channelling it correctly is the task for Webster who now has the opportunity to take a major step forward.

Having CJ Bruton as a playing mentor cannot have hurt him but with the triple-championship winner now gone - and so too Daryl Corletto - the door is very much ajar for Webster to have his break-out season.

For Webster, it's a case of "carpe diem".

PERTH - Jesse Wagstaff, 28, 203cm forward
NBL Games: 142. Career ave: 10.1ppg

It would be easy to look at Wagstaff and say he's been an important component of a championship team, he's averaging double-figure points and that maybe, just maybe, the Wildcats' player spotlight instead should be on Greg Hire.

But Wagstaff is an enigma, a player who can get on a roll and bury an opponent, or just as readily drift along contentedly in Shawn Redhage's shadow.

Redhage is one of the league's greats but by now, Wagstaff should have relegated him to the bench and taken that starting power forward spot.

Think about it.

Redhage is not only 33 but has had to fight back from a diabolical hip injury which would have ended the career of a lesser man.

Yet Wagstaff still has been unable to displace him from the starting position - which says everything you need to know about both players.

Years ago, when Wagstaff and Jacob Holmes were getting heated with each other in a Wildcats-36ers clash, he appeared to be heading down the Dillon Boucher-style path.

But each year Wagstaff has improved his game, even becoming quite the lethal 3-point shooter, especially from Tony Ronaldson's favorite sweet spot.

So when does he take the next, logical step?

It's one thing to be a great complimentary teammate.

It's another to be hungry for minutes and prepared to work your butt off to get your game to where it cannot be ignored.

That time has to be perilously close, surely.

 

SYDNEY - Jason Cadee, 23, 186cm combo guard
NBL Games: 109. Career ave: 7.5ppg

Lighting it up on the world stage amid his peers while wearing the green-and-gold of Australian junior teams has seen Cadee earn the plaudits of fans nationwide.

His burgeoning career injudiciously interrupted by a horrific car accident, he made it back on a strong Gold Coast team, then jumped at the chance to start for Marty Clarke in Adelaide.

He wasn't ready, as several of the NBL's quality import guards proved, though no-one is doubting Cadee's potential.

There's that word again.

Cadee has shown he can be a difference-maker, able to break open a game with his 3-point shooting and drives.

But it usually has taken something special to draw it out of him. For example at Adelaide, Gary Ervin out? Jason Cadee great.

It is as if Cadee will defer to the alpha dog rather than be the alpha dog.

His erratic floater and occasionally poorly-timed decision to choose himself as the #1 option also has hampered him.

His best is elite though, without question.

The question here is whether returning to Sydney now will act as the catalyst to bring that form out on a regular basis.

He is well-regarded as a teammate but at some point has to break from the pack and be prepared to be The Man.

Whether playing alongside Kendrick Perry will inhibit him again or whether being in the same atmosphere as Josh Childress and Ben Madgen will help him blossom remains to be seen.

When/if he blooms, it will have been worth the wait.

 

TOWNSVILLE - Todd Blanchfield, 23, 200cm, small forward
NBL Games: 125. Career ave: 7.0ppg

Todd Blanchfield was sticking triples, slamming dunks and turning heads as never before at the "Elite Classic Basketball - High Stakes Hoops" tournament at Adelaide Arena.

It may have been a half-baked tournament but two young men stood out as stars to keep a close eye on - Blanchfield and Chris Goulding.

We all know what happened with Goulding, now a two-time club MVP at Melbourne, an All Star Game MVP, a 50-point scorer, an NBL MVP runner-up, a World Cup participant with the Boomers, Europe-bound and with a toe in the NBA door.

And Blanchfield?

Well, that tournament was back in April, 2010 ... and we're still waiting.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a fan of Blanchfield in full flight. He reminds me of a lot of the better athletes our league has produced such as Sam Mackinnon and Glen Saville.

He can tear open a game but just as frequently he can be the Invisible Man.

On the plus side for Blanchfield, his graph has been steadily on the up so chances are this WILL be his season in the sun.

On debut in 2009-10, he averaged 1.1 points, that went to 2.6 in 2010-11, jumped to 7.2 in 2011-12, 9.4 in 2012-13 and 11.0 last season.

Blanchfield has been in Boomers' squads and his upward mobility suggests season 2014-15 should be the one in which he has his playing passport stamped as "Level One".

 

WOLLONGONG - Brad Hill, 27, 198cm forward
NBL Games: 215. Career ave: 7.2ppg

Rushed from the AIS mid-season into an injury-depleted 36ers team by Phil Smyth back in 2005, Hill had the makings of a new-found sensation.

But he has had six stops in the NBL so far - the 36ers, South Dragons, back to Adelaide, Cairns, then Sydney and now on to Wollongong for what surely will be his last chance to cement a spot as a regular NBL contributor.

Back after his rushed start, Hill had tongues wagging at a Blitz in Cairns when he put a wicked spin move on Melbourne Tigers legend Darryl McDonald for a basket through traffic.

It's a long time ago.

His slashing ability was never in doubt; just his decision-making when he would force his way to the hoop against two defenders while looking off an open Brett Maher on the perimeter.

There's self-confidence and there's self-delusion.

Hill's game has matured as he has had to as well, coming back from a hideous in-game broken arm from which it took some time to recover, physically and mentally.

His best has been breath-taking as he showed in one memorable quarter for Sydney Kings last season when he turned a game on its ear.

Not everyone has the talent to do that.

What Hill has lacked in the discipline necessary to produce that talent on a regular basis might finally be resolved for him under the tutelage of the league's reigning Coach of the Year, Gordie McLeod.

Let's hope so.