Basketball On The Internet.

*FLASHBACKS, my weekly "lucky dip" where I just reach into my drawers of old Australian basketball stuff and transcribe whatever I find for you. 

IN 1992, "Basketball '92" came out in the pre-season, edited by Michael Lovett and with quality writers such as Andrew Johnstone among contributors. I was assigned to investigate whether Perth's 1991 champion was the league's all-time best team.

 

IN FOCUS - Grand Final Greats

THE platitudes were flowing faster than the champagne at the Perth Entertainment Centre even before the Wildcats last year wrapped up their second successive NBL championship.

“The greatest team of all time” and “the best NBL combination ever” were just two of the understandably common accolades mentioned in connection with Murray Arnold’s  devastating 10-deep championship unit.

And why shouldn’t people have been making those claims?

Perth had just completed a 22-4 regular season, lost only once at home, swept Adelaide in a memorable semi-final series before putting away Eastside Melbourne 2-1 for the championship.

The line-up boasted a superlative point guard in Ricky Grace, veteran leadership in Mike Ellis, superstar front-courters  in James Crawford and Tiny Pinder, with quality all-round service from Peter Hansen.

An Olympic starter in Andrew Vlahov came off the bench where Eric Watterson, David Close, Steve Davis and Trevor Torrance all resided to varying degrees.

Sure, that was some team. And you could probably count on one hand the amount of bona fide basketball supporters who would dispute that in two years the Wildcats franchise has become the pick of the NBL. There’s no doubt about that.

But was that 1991 team truly the best ever?

After all, you can dismiss as cynically self-serving many of the “greatest” claims being made at random late last year. Let’s face it, when your side is beaten by a club which goes on to become champion, your own loss to it then takes on less significance.

And hell, if you can call that club “the best ever,” your win over it during the regular season, or narrow loss, or ability to force a three-game series … any of those situations make your own performance appear so much better.

As in: “Our season wasn’t so bad ... at least we managed a win over the best team of all time.”

That’s not to suggest that many of the more memorable tributes to an indisputably worthy, efficient and disciplined champion were anything other than heartfelt.

For example, those from Eastside coach Brian Goorjian after his Spectres had fought the gutsy fight for the crown most certainly were.

But when it’s all said and done, how many observers can actually rate Perth of 1991 against St Kilda of 1979 for example? Let’s go a step further. How many people can actually name the St Kilda combination of 1979?

The NBL may still be positively an adolescent at 13 years old, but already the multitudes have forgotten how many excellent clubs the league has spawned.

That’s the natural order of things but when the mantle of “greatest” is being bandied around as often as it was last year, it’s time to take serious stock.

Few would dispute that comparing teams and individuals from different eras is one of life’s more futile exercises. But the fact is, it’s also one of the most frequent and entertaining causes of debate.

The NBL has 14 teams which can be considered for the ultimate accolade … its 13 champions and St Kilda’s 1981 side which would have won the club’s third successive title had it not instead withdrawn from the playoffs to represent Australia at what was to be the first World Club Championship.

The Saints won the regular season crown with a three-win cushion from second place but forfeited their finals berth. Nonetheless, the team boasted Rocky Smith, a 1981 All Star Five selection, 1980 league MVP and one of the all-time great Americans. He was averaging 33 points a night in the pre-three-point line days.

His backcourt partner was 1976 Olympian and 1978 world championship Boomers captain Andris Blicavs, another of the game’s genuine superstars. Providing backcourt relief were national players Steve Breheny and Kenny Burbridge.

That’s some guard rotation, even by today’s vastly improved standards and coach Brian Kerle had at his disposal a frontcourt that boasted Larry Sengstock and Danny Morseu at their exuberant, youthful best, American big men Mike Slusher and budding superstar Dean Templeton.

Sengstock and Morseu were really something special at that time, while Templeton had the world at his feet. He remains embedded in my memory as the most exciting newcomer I’ve seen in my 18 years of covering the sport for the impact he made just three years earlier when his aggressive nature, high-leaping and athletic antics stood him out as Nunawading won the Australian Club Championship – the NBL’s forerunner.

Thank goodness knee surgery has made such strides since then and champions such as Templeton and Blicavs no longer have to have their prime cut short.

The St Kilda of 1981 was only marginally stronger than its 1980 predecessor which had sweet-shooting Olympian Tony Barnett active while Blicavs was sidelined with knee problems.

West Adelaide’s 1982 championship outfit had Ray Wood at the point, league MVP Al Green at off guard, Leroy Loggins as the three-man, Moscow Olympian Peter Ali at power forward and dual-Olympian Brad Dalton in the pivot. The league’s original MVP in 1979, Ken Richardson was playing-coach, coming off the bench and initiating an inspiring fast break style, modelled largely on the successful Saints.

The NBL’s golden early period produced some magnificent teams but their depth of talent pales against teams of the more recent era.

North Melbourne’s 1989 champion has to be among the first teams discussed when the talk turns to “the greatest”.

Its opening frontline of Scott Fisher, Tim Dillon and Ray Borner would have given it a decide edge over Perth’s 1991 starters, while Cecil Exum coming off the bench was solid, if not as impactful as Vlahov for the Wildcats.

The Giants’ backcourt of David Graham, Wayne Carroll, Marty Clarke  and Mark Wright could have lived comfortably with Ellis, Close and Watterson. But North Melbourne coach Bruce Palmer said Ricky Grace would have caused the Giants nightmares.

“We couldn’t have contained him,” Palmer said.

Then again though, the Giants also had a very handy swingman up their sleeve in Mark Leader. A North Melbourne 1989 v Perth 1991 would be some series and before you give the Wildcats an edge because of their “depth”, bear in mind Steve Davis and Trevor Torrance were rarely used extensively while David Close sought greener pastures when the season concluded.

Depth is only a valid factor if that depth sees action. Otherwise, no matter how solid a player Torrance may have been two years ago, late in 1991 he may well have been Johnny Dolittle.

So really, was Perth’s team last year “the greatest”?

Back in 1986, the Adelaide 36ers went through the regular season compiling the all-time high mark of 24-2. And, unlike the Wildcats last year who were clobbered by 26 points in one regular season outing, both of the Sixers’ losses were on last shot buzzer beating baskets.

The 36ers played with an arrogance and an air of invincibility which Perth rarely, if ever, approached. Ken Cole's 1986 crew believed it could beat anyone and played a hard-running fast break which washed over opponents like a tidal wave.

Perth played to a far more conservative game plan which always gave opponents a chance to beat it. Few of the better teams ever felt they were out of the contest with the Wildcats.

That the Wildcats reigned supreme and were supreme is indisputable. But give a team such as the 36ers of 1986 the chances that Perth gave Eastside, or even Adelaide in the semi-final, and that 86 outfit would have punished it.

Nonetheless it's easy to dismiss Adelaide in the light of the club's subsequent play-off demises of 1987-88-89 and remember only those years of unfulfilled promise, in-fighting and egomania overwhelming the championship quest.

But while it is difficult to divorce the subsequent memories from the actual events, Adelaide's 1986 team was a superlative outfit.

Its starting backcourt of Al Green and Darryl Pearce was absolute dynamite. Green averaged 19.4 points per night and the Iceman added 19.2 over that 1986 championship. Again remember, we're talking Green and Pearce circa 1986 ... not how they're playing now or how they played before.

Throw THAT Al Green against Ricky Grace and you have a southpaw showdown of serious dimensions. Pit that Pearce against the 1991 Mike Ellis - and again remember, that's the Ellis we're talking about, not the Ellis of previous years when he was injury-free and more of an impact player - and Adelaide looks pretty good.

The opening frontline of Mark Davis against Tiny Pinder, Bill Jones against James Crawford and Peter Ali against Pete Hansen goes slightly Adelaide's way.

Hansen saw MVP honors in Perth's championship but before you give him a decided edge over Ali, remember it was Ali who stopped Leroy Loggins in the 1986 grand finals and also restricted Jim Bateman in the semi-final.

Loggins was the league's MVP in 1986 so Ali's effort cannot be under-rated. Similarly, Bateman in 1986 averaged 20.8 points and 8.1 rebounds a night and was as much value to Illawarra as Hansen was to the Wildcats.

In the other spots, remember that Crawford, 31, and Pinder, 35 - while still key players - no longer possess the extraordinary athleticism of their younger years. Adelaide's 1986 tandem of Davis (eventual finals MVP) and Jones - who was a man on a mission that year - were 25 and 27 respectively when the 36ers marched to the title.

Dwayne Nelson came off Adelaide's bench to provide relief minutes at forward or centre and while his impact often was important, he lacked the consistency Vlahov showed in 1991.

Ray Wood, a one-time NBL games-played record-holder, would be more highly regarded in most circles as a relief playmaker and defensive specialist than his Perth 1991 counterpart, Eric Watterson.

And Mike McKay? Well a lot of people would take McKay over David Close at those respective points in their careers, and that's meant as no slight against Close.

Adelaide's 1986 first eight - the players that play - rates extremely competitively with Perth's 1991 first eight. And while Murray Arnold could, and occassionally did turn to Steve Davis and Torrance deep in his bench, Ken Cole was able to find similar minutes for David Spear and Scott Ninnis, deep in his rotation.

You see the key here is to remember what Adelaide 86 was like and compare it only to Perth 91. It's hard not to let subsequent images of Bill Jones or Al Green as they have become older players, for example, not negatively influence your opinion of that side.

And it's just as hard not to think of James Crawford and Mike Ellis, for example, as vastly more exciting players than they showed within the constraints of Arnold's 1991 system.

With no disrespect intended toward Eastside, which suited Bruce Bolden, Kent Lockhart, Dean Uthoff, Darren Perry, Darren Lucas, Scott Ninnis, Wayne Larkins and Lucas Agrums as its main eight in the grand final, have a look at Adelaide's 1986 opponent.

The main rotation in Brian Kerle's 1986 Brisbane Bullets runner-up side was Leroy Loggins, Larry Sengstock, John Dorge, Cal Bruton, Ron Radliff, Robert Sibley, Chris McGraw, Dave Nelson, Danny Morseu and Tom Gerhardt. That's not too shabby, especially when you think of how Loggins, Bruton, Sengstock and Co were playing in 1986 as defending 1985 champs.

The 36ers' 24-2 record would give it home court advantage over the Wildcats' 22-4 mark, sending Game One to the Perth Entertainment Centre before the series would shift to Apollo Stadium for Games Two, and Three, if necessary.

The home court edge - Adelaide did not lose at home in 1986 - would clinch it for the 36ers in a series that would go the distance. And what a series it would be.

But then, would that Adelaide team beat St Kilda's 1981 side? Would Perth beat Canberra's back-to-back 1983-84 champion?