Individuals sacrificing for good of team behind Wolves' success: Ettridge

THE depth of talent that Joondalup Wolves coach Ben Ettridge has to work with in an attempt to win consecutive Men's SBL championships is significant but he knows it wouldn't work unless they were all willing to sacrifice and with quiet achievers Kevin Davis and Joel Questel leading the way.

Greg Hire was the grand final MVP for the Wolves in 2011 and Trian Iliadis won the award after the championship victory of 2015, but both have been willing to come off the bench this season for large periods highlighting that nothing with the defending champions is about individual numbers.

Captain Seb Salinas along with fellow veterans Damian Matacz and Rob Huntington continue to perform strongly as well as do Reece Maxwell, Sean Easther and Jordan Wellsteed.

Week 18 Tuesday night SBL wrap 

That willingness to sacrifice putting up dominant individual numbers in the name of winning is a major reason why the Wolves sit 20-4 heading into the final two rounds of the season and they will take the minor premiership with road wins over the Perth Redbacks and Cockburn Cougars.

Either way the Wolves are guaranteed of a top two finish and that's enough for coach Ettridge to feel they have done the job in the regular season but taking out the minor premiership would be a nice bonus.

"With one and two you have home-court all the way through the finals anyway so that's what we're looking at," Ettridge said.

"We'll approach that last weekend looking at match ups and depending on who you are going to get in that first round, you don’t want to have to go to Geraldton in the second round. We'll crunch the numbers and have a look at that, and we'll always go out trying to win the games obviously."

The Wolfpack are a team with any number of weapons who can catch fire on any given night, but the most efficient and productive, and perhaps hardest to stop is big man Kevin Davis.

He had a standout first season in the Wolves championship of 2015 and now he has returned in 2016 an even more productive force.

While his numbers might not match up with those of someone like Marcus Goode from the Cougars, neither does he play the same number of minutes, take as many shots or need the ball in his hands as often.

Davis provides Joondalup with exactly what they want which is a strong inside presence who dominated the boards, finishes at (and above) the rim and dictates the way the game is played.

He did that again on Tuesday night with 34 points and 21 rebounds in the 154-105 win over the Kalamunda Eastern Suns, and over the season he is averaging 21.3 points and 10.9 rebounds shooting 60 per cent from the floor.

Ettridge knows Davis could be averaging numbers that would make him impossible to ignore in MVP discussions if he played more minutes and got the ball more, but that wouldn’t necessarily be in the team's best interests.

"Last year and this year we look at per-minute production and if Kevin was playing 48 minutes on a couple of these other teams, he would average 50 and 25. Even though Ray Turner's numbers were great last year, if you put Kevin at his minutes compared to him it is very favourable," he said.

"To me Kevin Davis is the MVP of this league, I don’t care what anyone else thinks. What he does and the way he changes the geometry on the floor defensively, and then what he can do for us offensively, he is the game changer for us.

"We've got a system that he fits perfectly into and we have structured things around what he can do. When I hear conversations of MVP's in this league I find it very funny that his name isn't at the top of that list."

Another player that Ettridge can't help but feel is undervalued by the rest of the league is starting point guard Joel Questel.

Because of the likes of Davis, Matacz and Huntington inside, and then Hire, Iliadis and Salinas who take a lot of the outside shots, Questel might fly under the radar.

But his ability to run the point well, play strong defence and be the cool, steady head on the floor is something that Ettridge values highly.

"Our team complements each other year and look at Joel Questel. People might not see him as a great point guard, but the guy has run the most efficient offence in this league for the last two years," Ettridge said.

"He is the head of the snake with our defence which is giving up 10 points fewer than anyone else in the league so when people talk about the top 10 point guards in the league and Joel Questel's name isn't in that conversation, we take that with a grain of salt because he is phenomenal."

Ettridge continues to marvel at the way the Wolves players are willing to all pull together for the greater good of the team in the bid for a second championship. That means in turn he is happy to just let them go out and play for the most part.

"You chuck in Trian Iliadis, Seb Salinas and Rob Huntington as well as Greg Hire and our team just fits together perfectly. They've all had to sacrifice something as well. Greg Hire is a grand final MVP coming off the bench and he's happy to do that," he said.

"Trian Iliadis has been starting the second half of the season off the bench and he is a grand final MVP, and should be on an NBL roster somewhere. The way these guys sacrifice and buy into our program is phenomenal.

"We've got a few set plays but essentially we want to be fast first and find the open player. The boys are unselfish as well and are willing to sacrifice a good shoot for a great shot. That's what makes us hard to scout.

"Teams have tried for two years to work out what we do and even when we yell out sets, they aren’t actually offences so it throws off the opposition. We usually don’t know what we're doing and just let the boys go out and play."

Not only is 2016 a big year for Ettridge with the Wolves attempting to win back to back SBL championships, but he is also the head coach of the Australian Rollers team for the Paralympic Games.

That has meant that sleep has been at a premium so far this year but he wouldn’t have it any other way than to have the chance to lead a medal contending team to the Paralympics and then attempting to win a third a third SBL championship at the Wolfpack.

"There is a lot of travelling involved and I'm very fortunate that the guys here understand that. We sat down at the start of the year where I outlined when I was here and when I was away. The first question they asked was if I was here for the grand final and I am," Ettridge said.

"But to have guys like Luke Brennan and Doug Gates there to do the work they do and have the leadership group we have like Seb, Trian, Robbie, Damian Matacz and Joel Questel, they all know how to go about their business.

"They like to let me know that they are currently 11-0 when I'm not in the country so maybe if I wasn’t here for the grand final it would be a good omen for them. But we have a lot of basketball still to go before worrying about that.

"It is a massive year and there's less than 50 days to go now and I'm looking forward to it very, very much. I love basketball and if I'm not in a basketball stadium I feel a little bit lost. I'm looking forward to it and I'm very fortunate to have two great teams that I'm involved with and hopefully it's a big couple of months."

Article by Chris Pike
Photo by Serene-Elise Photography




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