THE National Basketball League (NBL)’s newest club, South East Melbourne Phoenix might have had a challenging first season after a strong start – finishing eighth with a 9-19 record – but were able to show at their best they could compete with the top sides. Now a year on, the Phoenix are better prepared as a unit, and aside from some retirements, have effectively kept a large portion of their list together, as well as brought in some exciting developing talents over the off-season.<\/p>\n
Amongst some of the earliest retirement announcements, Tai Wesley<\/strong> and Ben Madgen<\/strong> both decided to call it quits at age 34 and 35 respectively, having been a part of the Phoenix’s foundation season. The announcements came following the re-signing of import Kendall Stephens<\/strong>, providing an established option for Madgen’s departure. Almost immediately following the back-to-back retirements, Cameron Gliddon<\/strong> signed on for a fresh start with the Phoenix.<\/p>\n The Brisbane Bullets guard gave the Phoenix an immediate starter in the back court, having been released from his contract with the Bullets a year early after not having the impact he could have late in his career. The 31-year-old has plenty of talent and was a Commonwealth Games gold medallist, so will be hoping to rekindle his form with the Phoenix.<\/p>\n Whilst not much basketball might have been going on in the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, New Zealand took centre stage with the NZNBL taking place. It helped hand Reuben Te Rangi<\/strong> and Izayah Mauriohooho-Le’afa<\/strong> contracts, the former on a full contract, the latter as a development player. They were joined by another Kiwi in Yannick Wetzell<\/strong>, who signed on then exercised his out clause to play in Germany, only to re-join the Phoenix after passport complications.<\/p>\n A couple of later import recruitments occurred late in the off-season, with Ben Moore<\/strong> and Keifer Sykes<\/strong> signing on. The American duo have plenty of experience across the globe, with Sykes playing in Turkey, Italy, China and Greece, while Moore also played in Turkey alongside a long stint in the G League having had a one-time two-way contract with Indiana Pacers back in 2018. Sykes was once touted by Forbes as the “James Harden of China”<\/a> following a ridiculous 50-point game and averaging 34.6 points in that league.<\/p>\n Sykes brought the intrigue with his signing, and will replace outgoing scoring machine John Roberson<\/strong> who lit up the league on a number of occasions. American duo Terry Armstrong<\/strong> and Devondrick Walker<\/strong> also departed, while the re-signings were just as big as the signings. Mitch Creek<\/strong> remained on board in search of another chance in the NBA, with the forward one of the most dominant players in the league.<\/p>\n Alongside Creek, Kyle Adnam<\/strong>, Adam Gibson<\/strong> and Dane Pineau<\/strong> also remained at the club, to create a stable core of players from last season. Dan Trist<\/strong> headed to New Zealand to play with the Breakers, but the inclusion of Gliddon along with Te Rangi and Tristan Forsyth<\/strong> as a development player meant the depth in the front court is not a concern.<\/p>\n Overall the Phoenix look stronger than last season, which should equate in a better season and move up the NBL21 ladder.<\/p>\n Picture credit:<\/strong> AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THE National Basketball League (NBL)’s newest club, South East Melbourne Phoenix might have had a challenging first season after a strong start – finishing eighth with a 9-19 record – but were able to show at their best they could compete with the top sides. Now a year on, the Phoenix are better prepared as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":16676,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,2871,2738],"tags":[263,1953,3938,100,3933,141,2179,3029,2028,3939,1952,86,2881,102,3942,123,1954,3941,3940],"class_list":["post-18829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nbl","category-news","category-south-east-melbourne-phoenix","tag-adam-gibson","tag-ben-madgen","tag-ben-moore","tag-cameron-gliddon","tag-dan-trist","tag-dane-pineau","tag-devondrick-walker","tag-izayah-mauriohooho-leafa","tag-john-roberson","tag-keifer-sykes","tag-kyle-adnam","tag-mitch-creek","tag-nbl21","tag-reuben-te-rangi","tag-south-east-melbourne-phoenix-preview","tag-tai-wesley","tag-terry-armstrong","tag-tristan-forsyth","tag-yannick-wetzell"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}