Aiming for the Corporate games 2010

I attended the Corporate Games today for basketball at Condell Park. It was pretty cool. It’s a big tournament like March Madness =)

They had 13 pools of competitors, with about 4 teams in each pool. But some of those pools were mixed and womens. So there must have been like 8 pools for Mens Only, which is about 32 teams by my estimation. Seems like too many, perhaps there was less.

Anyway, the corporate games are designed for corporations to play in different sports. Teams are charged per head for competitors e.g. basketball is $55 per person. The money raised goes towards Diabetes Australia.

I saw a couple of teams play like GE, The Professionals (real estate), St George, Oakten, and IBM. I also saw Steve Carfino play for one of the teams.  Someone commented that he was a former MVP of the NBL! Wow. I heard from Justin that he plays premier league at Sutherland. He’s put on weight since his playing days, but he’s still got game, good awareness and his shot is butter. He nailed like 2 three point attempts with ease in practice. but he couldn’t hit them during the game (missed two) and he’s still got great handles and had some great layups and defence. 

Next year, I’d like to enter a team if everyone was willing to join. We really need a deep squad to advance. Because each pool involves 3 round robin games. The best record from each pool moves onto the the next round, which is elimination (ie. knockout) style. To win it all, you’ll need to play another 3 games. In total 6 games! Each game is about 24 mins long (2 x 12min halves).

I spoke to the directors of the corporate games, Ellen Goff and another American guy. There are not pools based on skill levels e.g. one pool for highly skilled another for beginners. Rather, the better skilled teams are put into separate pools along with the crappy teams. This is to ensure that the good teams play each other as the tournament advances. Therefore the cream rises to the top and the riff-raff gets kicked out quickly.

I honestly believe our team is in with a chance. We are an above average team as we play in a proper mens comp in Alexandria. There are no corporate teams in Alexandria – they are all real ball players. This is not to say that corporate teams do not have real ball players. I’ve seen some decent corporate teams at KGV.

But I generally find that non-corporate teams are better because they can source their players from anywhere and often include guys that have played together for a while. I saw the better teams, and I know we can beat some of them. We’re definently better than the crappy teams there. They consist of guys that are too short and just don’t know how to play. The teams that advance, they usually have a couple of guys that are really good, and some other decent players that look like street ball players (i.e have not played comp before) but can still bounce a ball, pass, etc…

I’m happy with our current team, as long as we keep improving and stay together to play in the Corporate Games. I’d also like to add Justin to the squad since he plays at Sutho and we talk about basketball all the time. You know guys can play if they are obsessed with basketball like myself =)

This is my Next Digital Dream Team lineup for 2010:

• Tristan  (C/F)
• Nick  (C/F)
• Vincent  (PF)
• Matt  (F/G)
• Aaron (G)
• Damien (G)
• Justin (G)
• Pete S (G/F)
• James (G/F)
• Jamie (F)
• Ben (SG)
• Peter W (F)

You are supposed to have minimum 7 – 10 players in the tournament. I’ve included more (currently 12), including one ex-employee and a staff family member, because they play on our current team and they are good. As its 1 year away, obviously not everyone will be able to make the day due to commitments, injuries, or may have left the company.

But this is our World Cup Corporate Games 2010 train-on squad. If anyone else would like to put their hand up, more than happy to include them (e.g. Lordy, James Duthie, Brett, etc…).

By March 2010, we’ll all have in total 3 seasons of playing for the Digital Dream Team in a proper comp. Everyone will be experienced. In addition, we’ll have some regular comp players in Aaron, Pete, Damien, Justin and myself. If we add James from Melb, that’ll definently boost our chances. 

I can just see a starting lineup with Aaron, Damien at the guard position, Me and Justin at forward, Tristan at centre. Imagine me, Pete, Justin and Aaron all running the fastbreak! Vincent bringing the heat! And Nick dominating in the middle! James Li (aka Mr Sly) and Jamie giving us that energy boost off the bench. Ben drilling those outside shots! And Peter W crashing the boards. I can just see it! 

To the 2010 ‘chip!

Matthew Ho

Next Digital heats up Alexandria

Scores:
Digital Dream Team 36
Xplosive 41

The rising temperatures soared throughout the day in Sydney. Bush fires raged throughout the state of Victoria.  As the mercury rose, so did the level of Next Digital’s play in their latest match.

We had dropped down a division after last week’s hammering by 50 points. Most of us were confident that the drop down would improve our chances and the our spirits were up.

First half

We started the game with Aaron and his brother Damian at guard. At forward we had Tristan and Pete and Nick as our centre. This gave us a bigger and taller lineup, and I planned to use James and Jamie as our energy guys off the bench. The game started off really well for Next Digital, and for the first time ever (!!), were were in the lead. It was 6 -4 at one stage, and then we lead again later something like 15 – 13.

Aaron and Damian formed a pretty good combo at guard as both were good ball handlers. Damian is a bit shorter than Aaron and could handle the ball, enabling Aaron to move off the ball. We were able to use two to fast break the other team, utilising their ball handling skills and speed. Pete’s shooting was off, and he remained scoreless throughout the first half. It just wasn’t his day. Aaron gave him a pass in the low post, Pete then spun around and was open. He then shot the ball too hard off the glass as he thought the defence was behind him (but he was in the open). But it was the right idea, because when your shooting is off, you need to attack the basket in a different way.

At about 10 minutes, I made my first substitution, James in for Tristan. I wanted to keep Nick in there, because he was playing good defence. He was starting to tire, but the other team couldn’t score with him in the middle as he was clogging up the area. James replaced Tristan’s position on defence but he was bit out of position. As I have stated previously,  you have to stay in position because the zone defence is strongest when we are all in position. The team we were playing against was doing everything one-on-one, so a good zone defence would keep them out all day. As long as had people in the right position protecting their area, they would find it difficult to score against us.

I motioned to Nick, give me another 2 mins, and then I will call a timeout as I needed to give him a breather. I called timeout and the the score was 20-14. It was easily the best game we had so far. The guys were keeping up with the other team. Pete needed to keep shooting and he needed to post up more, utilising his strength and size. I thought about taking Damian off, but Pete stated that he was playing well and we needed him becuase he was a threat. Damian said he was ok, so I gave Pete a rest.

The guys were playing great defence, except sometimes one side would collapse and they would sneak in and grab some rebounds and put back. The training we had the other day with boxing out was working, as we were grabbing the rebounds. I put Pete back in with 4 minutes to go. Jamie also picked up two fouls. I don’t mind the fouls as he wasn’t letting anyone in. But you need to shuffle your feet to get in front of the defender, use less of your arms to keep them out.

It was easily the best firsthalf of the 3 games we had played so far. Our big guys were keeping them out and our guards were scoring easy baskets on the fast break. Tristan also scored a shot, and holled from the bench and I yelled out “you the man” and then Tristan gave me the basketball handsign, two fingers down indicating his shot went in for two points!

Second half

We had lot of momentum in the second half. Everything was going well and one stage it was 30 – 30. Whenever you have momentum, you dont want to change anything because everything is going right. Pete drilled a 3, he also was taking it to the ring aggressively and scored on a tough layup.

However, from a coaching perspective, you have to balance that with maintaining the energy levels of the players. Players will start to tire out,  lose their energy and you can lose the intensity. It’s hard to know when that point is. I tried to ride it out as long as I could. I called another timeout and made some fresh substitutions.

The game started getting away from us and it blew out to a 10 point lead. It was 32 -41 at one stage, but we ended up scoring the last couple of points. The score line was 36 – 41, so we only lost by 5 points, which is pretty good. Everyone was positive after the game and Pete joked “start carving the championship rings”.

I feel a lot more positive being in this division and that we can win games. We could have beat that team, if our defence and rebounding was better, and if Pete shots were dropping. But overrall it was a good game and we can build on this, particulary at training. If we can get Damian to play, and then we have Vincent coming back, we’ll have a strong team. We’ve also got Ben, Peter W, and myself coming back from various injuries.

Going forward – next week’s training

More rebounding and defence practice

Pick and roll drills – to free up the ball handler from the defence

Swinging the ball around the perimeter to find the open areas, and to shift the defence

Shooting practice  – from the elbow, FT line, at the 45 degree angle.

Press Release: Digital Dream Team will restructure, may apply for NBL Sydney franchise license

The NBL (National Basketball League), Australia’s premier basketball competition will be restructuring at the end of the season. They intend to reduce the number of teams to 8. Players may also get reallocated in a draft type system.

As you may or may not be aware, the Brisbane Bullets folded due to financial difficulties. Also, the Sydney Spirit are in severe financial difficulty and may no longer have a presence for next season. Consequently, the NBL has asked for tenders for business partners for these two key markets in Brisbane and Sydney.  A truly national league cannot exist without a key presence in two of the biggest cities in Australia.

This gap in the market presents a unique opportunity for ball clubs like the Digital Dream Team to capitalise on. In order to apply for any vacant franchise license, we must get our club into order.

As a result, we have plans to restructure our player management and administrative responsibilities for the team. This is to ensure that we can build a strong and healthy club for the future. To lay down the foundations for a successful franchise, we have designated new responsibilities to key individuals within the ball club.

As it is our first year, we will expect there to be a turbulent season. New players, new management, new uniforms, a small but invisible fan base, injuries to key players/unavailability. Many of these appointments are informally in place, and this press release merely will formalise some of these positions.

New Positions

• Coach: Matt / Aaron
• Training: James. Responsible for venue & organising.
• Director of corporate communications / public relations: Jamie. Responsible for blog, yammer and email.
• Photography: Vincent / Tristan. Taking pics, posting online onto blog, flickr, etc…
• Video: Jamie / Aaron. Posting online on Youtube, blog, etc..
• Match reports: Various, mostly Matt
• Finance: Matt
• Uniforms: Aaron
• Scouting: Matt / Nick / Aaron. Scouting opposition, new talent and cheerleaders.
• Business Development: Peter Wright. The person to speak to about corporate sponsorship, corporate opportunities, etc….
• Maintaining rivalry with Melbourne Office: Matt / Stephen

Positions vacant:

- Head of Fan Club

- Strength & Conditioning coach

- Nutrionist

For applications for the above positions, please respond to this blog or email your resume to Matt. Do not under any circumstance call the office as we are already flooded by calls by recruiters and headhunters. Applications will be considered on merit and experience.

For further details please contact our newly appointed Director of Corporate Comms, Jamie.

The day that champions fell

Match review: Sunday, 1 February 2009

Free Ballers 69 Next Digital 18

It was a dramatic day for sport. Tennis legend Rodger Federer faced off against his arch-nemesis, Rafael Nadal for his 14th grand slam. The Australian cricketers were also fighting to regain their #1 ranking from South Africa. No less dramatic or compelling was Digital Dream Team second basketball game against the Free Ballers.

In a day of upsets, Nadal broke Federer into tears, the Kiwis snatched victory from the Aussies with the last ball, and Next Digital was beaten convincingly on the hardwood. As Roger Federer and the Aussies found out, our opposition was too well drilled, better conditioned and alas highly skilled.

We started the game with 6 players, with Matt giving some last minute instructions to Tristan on how to play centre and telling James how to play zone. Then the backup arrived. Vincent and then Nick made a dramatic entrance at tip off to add some needed size and height.

The game did not start out well as the Digital Dream Team gave up a 13 – 0 lead. We clawed back with a layup from Pete and a few other baskets. But the Free Ballers were too much to handle as they kept beating us to the rebounds and pushing the fast break, and scoring uncontested shots.

Like a man against a tide, Aaron was our last line of defence. The points flooded in and there was not much we could do. I made a number of substitutions to no avail. Nick in for Tristan, Vincent in for James.

Personally, I don’t think any of the opposition players were that great, maybe one or two of them were ok. It’s just that the sum of their parts was much greater than ours. We’re still a fairly new team, with some guys that have only played a handful of games. Only 3 or 4 of us have played competitive basketball, and only two currently play at a competitive level (and I’m one of them and I’m injured). We don’t have many players that can handle the ball confidently other than Aaron or Pete, nor much scoring outside of those two. We were in for a long day against a well drilled and fit team.

The positives from the game were the following:

- Pete had a couple of really HUGE blocks and a couple of 3′s, drawing a couple of ooh’s and aah’s from the bench

- Aaron had a coast to coast move showing off his handle with a behind the back dribble. As Nick said to me “60 more of those and we’ll be fine”.

- Nick making his presence felt at centre.  As Tristan noted “Should I be rubbing up against guys like Nick? I can do that….Just give me the word”.

- James fighting for the ball, on his hands and knees, losing the ball to another player and then tripping the guy after he took the ball off him. That’s what we need! More aggression, less lollies.

- Most importantly, the guys remained enthusiastic throughout the game and the effort was never lacking

Going Forward

Things that we have to work on is our zone defence. We’re a bit out out of position and everyone needs to cover their area and communicate with each other. Once you let another player in, the whole thing collapses. It’s like in the movie 300, how they explain the spartan phalanx formation. We will be very difficult to score against if we can play defense like a unit. We also have to box out for the rebounds and fight for them. And contest shots. No easy baskets for the opposition.

I think on offense we also need some more options. At the moment, only Aaron and Pete are scoring. We’ll have to work on some team offense and learning how to swing the ball from side to side.

On a related note, Aaron/Pete/Matt/Vincent did some advance scouting and checked out the game on the next door. We saw half of a divison 6 game (we’re currently in divison 5), and we liked what we saw. The teams in Div 6 looked a lot less drilled and athletic. There weren’t really any tall players and I do believe that we can compete against them on a more even basis. So Aaron and I have spoken to the organisers and as a result we have moved down to Division 6.

At the moment, we’re still feeling our way around (or rubbing the opposition ala Tristan / Nick) and getting used to each other’s game and style. We can only get better.

And then we can cry when we lose our 14th championship to some young upstart.

Cheers,

Matt

Nextdigital uniforms

ND jerseys. Signature shoe coming soon........

Aaron and I have done a mockup of the ND jersey.

If you would like a jersey to support the team, please contact Matthew Ho or Aaron Pang. You can get any number (subject to someone else taking it), your name on the back, and we will organise for a autograhed team photo (courtesy of VZ photography).

Cost for uniforms

The cost of the jerseys will be $27 uniform + $6 (ND logo) +$6 (name). This is a total of $39 for a jersey.

Shorts will cost $27.

Total team uniform cost $66. However, feel free to get the jersey only.

The jersey looks great in playing basketball, at the gym and also for general casual wear.

Game #2 – Photos.

Good game.

Bloody hot.

Here are some pictures to go with the official report when it comes in from our professional sports correspondant.

this features feature the wolf man top right.