What a round once again. Perth and New Zealand went to each others homes and New Zealand came out well and truly on top. Melbourne sea-sawed, Cairns exploded after Michael Carrera went down and huge scores were everywhere in the fantasy points.

That’s all before mentioning the biggest news, Sydney made two signings and dropped Leslie. One of them we are all familiar with and the other looks huge when you drop him onto the NBL court as we saw on Saturday.

This week the game reports return to give you some information to help with your picks and a break down of the two newest additions to the NBL; Jerome Randle and Jeremy Tyler.

THE AUSSIE HOOPLA NBL OPEN STANDINGS

THEGENERALZ led by AJ Smith is now top of the league with a slender 6 points. If only Carrera had not gone down he could have taken a huge lead.

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GAME REPORTS

New Zealand: 88 (Newbill 46, Pledger 36, Penney 36)

Perth: 84 (Cotton 47, Tokoto 44, Martin 40)

A true top of the table clash in this one. Both teams brought it too the end and Perth made a late run which brought them close. Bryce Cotton with 47 fantasy points was the attacking option and played well and appears to be getting better defensively. His score included a block and 2 steals. He has now averaged 44 in the past 3 games and didn’t look like slowing down. If he maintains these contributions across the board he will be the first choice option for the SG spot. JP Tokoto continued his momentum and Damian Martin continued to be consistent and got 3 steals in this one. His score is not as likely to remain high due to his point production but he was vital to the performance tonight. Lucas Walker remains great value for money with a score of 31 in this game.

New Zealand was also great in this game. DJ Newbill will continue to rise in price on the back of this one and the NZ guards boost there score through assists and rebounds consistently which is a great sign for sustainability of the score. Pledger won the battle in the frontcourt and it was reflected with a score of 36 fantasy points. One of two dominant performances against Perth this week. Kirk Penney with a good performance enters the conversation but his scores remain inconsistent as most games it is driven by offensive effort.

Cairns: 92 (McCarron 80, Smith 46, Gliddon 46)

Melbourne: 69 (Ware 30, Wesley 29, Prather 28)

Mitch McCarron with the best individual performance of the year stepping up as Carrera went down. 80 fantasy points built around solid play. One can only hope this continues. It’s hard to describe just how good Cairns were this week. The entire team seemed to get double figures in points and contribute rebounds. This was effort ball at its best. Reservations about how much this should be taken as an indicator but what a response from Cairns. Cameron Gliddon and Scoochie Smith also deserve high praise. Was Michael Carrera going down a good thing for Cairns or was this just an immense response to last weeks heartbreak.

Melbourne hardly deserves a mention in this game. Josh Boone disappeared and a number of costly turnovers saw his score drop to 16 points. Chris Goulding was missing again. Casper Ware and Casey Prather had flashes but nothing consistent which made there scores elevated based on actual performance. Tai Wesley benefited from the rest of team playing poorly as he went to his go-to moves and ground out a 29. The take away is that they remain inconsistent and the big players perform ok but not always great. It could be time to consider avoiding Melbourne until they get properly on their feet.

Melbourne: 108 (Boone 60, Ware 53, Wesley 52)

Sydney: 90 (Newley 39, Cadee 37, Blanchfield 27)

Josh Boone produced a double-double in the first half of this one. Melbourne dominated in every sense of the word throughout the game although the scoreline only started to show it down the stretch. Tai Wesey rounded out a great week for him and showed his ability putting up 21 points with 5 rebounds and 3 assists. Casper Ware and Casey Prather once again scoring big and they rise to the top whenever Melbourne are playing well. Sydney had little resistance for any of them today. Chris Goulding ended the week with 31 points over two games and was pretty much a nonfactor although he put up 10 points in the match. Overall Melbourne’s performance was what everyone expects. David Anderson and Majok Majok had more minutes in this one and concerningly low scores. Majok Majok made a points impact with 12 points but some costly turnovers and a low rebound total saw him only bank 23 fantasy points.

Sydney was poor in the frontcourt. Even with the debut of Jeremy Tyler, who will be discussed later on. Newley, Cadee, and Blanchfield all benefited from being the only players in Sydney’s side who looked like they could score. However, the future looks brighter with the new signings next week. Expect a drop in Cadee’s output from next week with the likely starts for Jerome Randle.

Adelaide: (Creek 39, Moore 36, Childress 34)

Illawara: (Conger 72, Ogilivy 54, Clarke 46)

Josh Childress made the top for the first time and seems to be settling in. Steady score improvements for Josh, but given his role so far it is not clear if this will continue. Ramone Moore showed the value of the bench again in a very point heavy result with 26 points for 36 fantasy points. Mitch Creek continued to score across the box score.

Demetrius Conger’s mammoth performance led Illawara. A double-double made up of 26 points, 11 rebounds, and 6 assists. The only thing holding him back was 5 turnovers. His game impact was massive though and he continues a strong run. Rotnei Clarke with a number of rebounds and 24 points is now the top scorer in the league. He is shining at the moment for Illawara and just how long he can keep up this form is unclear. Next week they face Sydney with Jerome Randle. Sydney has been a thorn for Illawara and some of his lower scores have come against Sydney. At the moment though he is dominating week on week. Ogilivy has now averaged 45 in the last 5 games. They have a double round this week but as with Clarke it’s a gamble on how well Sydney gel for the game next week.

Brisbane: 82 (Trice 40, Bruce 35, Buford 33)

Cairns: 74 (Gliddon 47, McCarron 32, Weigh 32)

On the back of the over the top performance from Cairns against Melbourne in the week, they were more subdued in this one, but with Carrera, Gliddon and McCarron are performing more like what was expected at the start of the season. This is good news as both the values have dropped in prior rounds and they have a good run of fixtures.

Brisbane saw Trice create 8 assist and 17 points. He is demonstrating consistency throughout the 6 rounds so far. Perin Buford with 8 rebounds and 11 points remains a prime candidate to bring in this week. As Brisbane has 4 double rounds coming up he could be the key to building a massive score this week.

Perth: 82 (Tokoto 40, Cotton 35, Martin 33)

New Zealand: 88 (Pledger 47, Vukona 34, Newbill 33)

The other end of the doubleheader top of the table clash did not disappoint. New Zealand took out both games to put themselves clear on the top of the table. Mika Vukona in his 400th game performed well again with a team supporting performance. Alex Pledger 15 points and 8 rebounds with his best performance to date at 47 points and won the battle with Angus Brandt on the week. Devonte Newbill appears to be the key to this team. Both Edgar Sosa and Tom Abercrombie underperformed this game but given their form, this is not likely to continue each week.

For Perth Tokoto continued his rampage once again. Also Cotton and Martin were both on form this week. The issues arose in the frontcourt with Angus Brandt a non-factor with 15 points. This could be a case of New Zealand’s style shutting him down though and could be beneficial as it drops his value. Perth faces Brisbane and Melbourne on the road this week. Brisbane is the weakest rebounding side in the league so far with 28.1 rebounds per game where Melbourne is the strongest with 36.2 rebounds per game. It could be an up and down week for Brandt at the 5 but he remains a good pick for the double this week.

Key Points

Mitch McCarron – Top scored the round and will need to continue this form for Cairns with Carrera down.

JP Tokoto and Demitrius Conger are consistently dominating the league.

AJ Ogilvy is back in form and scoring well going into a double round this week.

Cameron Gliddon helped fill the gap from Michael Carrera and scored well twice this round. Cairns schedule still has a bunch of opportunities in the coming rounds to add well to your score.

Casper Ware and Casey Prather are the safest bets on the Melbourne side. Josh Boone has been inconsistent at times and Chris Goulding a non-factor. If Melbourne gets into a real run of form Tai Wesley may be a big factor also.

If you can add either Sosa, Newbill or Illi into your bench, you should. After the one game this week they will have another run of two double rounds and looked unbeatable this week. They have scored relatively consistently but Newbill is the pick of the bunch. If you can get on them now they will help you when the season is wrapping up.

Don’t be discouraged by the bad week for Angus Brandt. Look at Boone and Ogilivy’s varying performances and keep the faith. His early season form overall is very good and he saves money to stock up elsewhere. Perth plays two games which also might be a little more favorable for him this week.

Keep reading on into the special section to educate yourself on Tyler and Randle.

SHOULD YOU ADD TYLER & RANDLE

Jeremy Tyler: Game 1 for the much-touted Sydney signing. Is it all hype or not?

Opening game and he banked 19 fantasy points. Not a lot right? If we break it down it’s a lot better than it looks.

It was made up of 8 points, 4 rebounds with 3 of them coming offensively. He also added 1 steal but we have to wait and see if that continues due to his position. The negatives were the 4 misses and 2 free throw misses. These negatives would be expected consistently with his position.

He put these numbers up with 10 minutes though as he faced foul trouble. Now its a common thing for players adjusting too foul in the NBL. If the fouls come down and he plays the same sort of minutes as Josh Boone and AJ Ogilvy, then we have a real contender for the top of the pack come the end of the season. He was aggressive in the game and it could be a week or two before he settles in. Sydney is not strong rebounding and we could assume he is going to be asked to have a big role in that department. How Gaze decides to share the minutes with the two essentially development guys, Humphries and Singh will also have a big impact. Overall at now less than $1 million he is the bargain of bargains going into the next round, as long as he can not get too many fouls.

Jerome Randle: Jerome Randle enters the game at $1.8 million. This reflects the MVP season performance last season. Unfortunately, Sydney’s system does not look as good as it was in Adelaide for him last year. It might take a few games for him to settle in and find his place. Similar to Bryce Cotton his scores can be variable but his averages are very good. Luckily from last year, we know he is an offensive beast. He averaged over 5 assists and over 20 points in his MVP season and added an average of a steal a game. He is about to really shake up the much-hyped “best PG in the league” debates.

With his numbers last season his value may be a little bit too much. At $1.8 million averages around 50 per game would be needed for him to maintain the value. The point guards so far this season have not been able to maintain this level week on week. Considering this the best strategy is probably to wait and see how he goes week 1 and then consider him for rounds 8 and 9.

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That’s it for now. Good luck with Round 7

Disclaimer: All of the news in this article are at the time of writing and from publically available material.