The Sydney Kings find themselves rooted to the bottom of the NBL table with only one win from their opening five games of the season. Not surprisingly the whole organisation including players, coaches and management are in the spotlight.

It was not supposed to be like this. New ownership in 2016 was supposed to signal a change in fortune. Investment, structure and clear direction would set the foundations for the Kings to be in a position to challenge for their first NBL Championship since 2005.

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This looks a long way off currently and the upcoming clash with the Hawks is already shaping up as a must win game for the Kings or finals qualification begins to look a bridge too far to gap.

The Nightmare in Adelaide

Everything that could go wrong seemed to last Saturday against the 36ers. This result followed a 17 point loss to the New Zealand Breakers only two days previously.

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Adelaide were comfortable 30-point winners with the game effectively over before half-time. Sydney Kings coach Andrew Gaze was obviously disappointed and did not mince his words after the game.

“In this early stage, I think there are three clearly really dominant teams (Perth, Melbourne and Adelaide), the rest are very good and then there’s us. It’s a scary proposition because there are some issues there that you can’t fix quickly.”

The Lisch Factor

Captain Kevin Lisch is currently sidelined with a calf injury suffered a fortnight ago. His return date remains unclear with the prognosis not encouraging. It is expected the 31 year-old will not be in a position to start full running for approximately two months.

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Last season, Lisch played in 27 out of 28 games. He averaged 16.5 points a game, 3.5 rebounds and 3.7 assists. This type of output would be pretty handy right about now.

A lot of pressure now falls on Jason Cadee to have more scoring impact. What will be fascinating is whether the Sydney Kings look for further reinforcements to a roster that currently looks disjointed and short on quality.

Can the legend turn the Sydney Kings around

When you think basketball legends in Australia then Andrew Gaze is number one in the eyes of many. A champion with a playing record in Australia that is unrivaled. Multiple Olympic representative, NBL titles, MVP awards and 18,909 points scored across 612 games are remarkable stats.

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As we often see in many sports, a champion player doesn’t always translate to a successful coach. Gaze had minimal coaching experience before signing a three year contract last year and he did also lose assistant Dean Vickerman this season to Melbourne United in what was a big loss.

General Manager Jeff Van Gronigen gave every indication this week the coach was not under pressure and they would provide as much support as possible.

“We haven’t had a discussion about coaching because we have a coach under contract and we want him to do well. If Andrew felt that he needed extra resourcing in that coaching area I’m sure we would be very amenable to that.”

While those words may provide some comfort in the short-term, sport is a results driven business and a similar season to last year in which the team finished in 7th spot won’t be viewed favourably by fans.

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If results don’t change then something will. And it’s normally the coach and the players who will be the ones under the blowtorch.

by Liam Sheedy – contributor

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