Written by Haggard
Having the opportunity to experience the NBL’s night of nights I quickly pounced upon it. The next thing I know I am bumping in to Nick Marvin on the streets of downtown Melbourne pre rush hour. Later that day I am forced to actually dress down from my normal standard to meet the formal dress code for the night. When I rock up to venue I see cameras flashing and film rolling, none of it capturing my daunting stature.
I swiftly seek solace in nice glass of red wine. Guy Sebastian kicks the night off singing a tune or two, I can’t help but wonder if this is where the team’s bank guarantee has been spent on. Thankfully Julia Gillard sent her apologies for not attending.
Straight off the bat Ben Magden gets the nod for Rookie of the year. Now I wasn’t too sure what the score was on this, A few weeks back I hear that he isn’t eligible to win it, then I hear that he is. I was uncertain if the league had changed its opinion on it again and neither had Ben as he ran up to the stage to swipe the award before the league changed its mind. Either way though, Magden was the pick of a shallow rookie class.
Damian Martin has been stealing balls and stealing hearts this season and no one was really surprised that Marto took the defensive player of the year award (unless you are the Breakers who claim that Damo stole that from Vukona too).
Some dude won the award for NBL referee of the year but it was a quick up and down presentation for referee Mike. The masses were ‘Aylen’ to hear from long time and much respected NBL referee Billy Mildenhall who has hung up the whistle.Ironically it was the beep test that Mildenhall battled to introduce that would call Billy’s fifth foul. After the first and only standing ovation for a league official at any level Billy wooed the crowd telling stories about former larrikins such as Ray Borner. Ray says to Billy “Hey Billy, Can I get a tech for things that I think” to which Billy replies “No”. Borner then quickly chirps “Great, cos I think you are an @$$hole”.
Most improved was taken out by Oscar Forman who silenced his biggest critics (us) with a huge season. Though we aren’t surprised he won this award I guess if one could put together a persuasive argument that you can’t win the MIP trophy if you once played good, then played crap then played good again we might listen but changing our opinion is something else. Steve Carfino is always one to steal someone else’s thunder and took the interview time here to tell the world how he would act if he won an award instead of letting Oscar speak.
Kevin Brasswell took out the sixth man award and they AV guy quickly played a pre-recorded interview with Lil Kev. One has to wonder why Damian Martin was not given this option when he was called upon for his award.
Coach of the year was a highly anticpated award, one in which everyone had an opinion and everyone wanted to express it on this night. Eventually Crocs sideline honcho Trevor Gleeson gets the award for ‘best coach’. Think what you will of that one, but if the award was for ‘angriest coach’ then Gleeson would definitely had been a shoo in.
The NBL First team wasn’t so much a starting five, more a dynamic two man team for some two on two tournament with Kirk Penney, Gary Wilkinson and Damian Martin not there to stand beside Julian Khazzouh and Gary Ervin.
Perhaps the biggest gaff of the night came last when they played the Gary Ervin highlight video before announcing the NBL MVP, effectively eliminating the guess work out of who won, that’s fine cos the fellas over on the Gold Coast Blaze table didn’t like surprises.
And that was it, the night was over except for those party boys that kicked on, Ian Crosswhite continually doing double takes and looking at me…. Awkward. I’m much smaller than him. One thing for certain was there were a few glassy eyed players and administrators roaming the hotel aimlessly the next morning. One thing to be proud of boys is that everyone behaved themselves. No Brownlow medal moments on this occasion, you are all welcome back next season.
