Bogut: The “danger” to Boomers’ future

Andrew Bogut says the Australian Boomers could be in danger of becoming “USA light”, as the focus turns to the future of the program after a disappointing result at the Olympics.

The Boomers fumbled a 24-point lead to Serbia in the quarter-final, going down in overtime and failing to follow up the success of a bronze medal in Tokyo.

While the future looks bright with a slew of NBA talent and potentially a new coach to replace Brian Goorjian on the horizon, Bogut has warned the national team needs to be careful of falling into the trap of thinking individual brilliance will lead to medals.

“The danger of having such a deep team of NBA players is that we play a Canada style of basketball that basically, to me, Canada was USA light,” Bogut said on NBL Media’s The Gold Standard.

“I was like, they play exactly like the US. They going to face the US and get absolutely mauled if they face them. The Euro team is going to out execute you.

“I think we’re in a danger of that period. Are we going to become USA light where we have all these NBA players and we’re just going isolation basketball?”

Bogut added the search should be far and wide to find the right coach for the program.

“Do we go a route of hiring a fly-in, fly-out? There’s a lot of danger with that. A fly-in, fly-out NBA coach that just comes in for a month and then leaves. Bit of danger in there. Does he know the group as well? All that kind of stuff,” he said.

“But that’s probably more appealing to some of our NBA guys is to have an NBA guy that’s involved in the NBA on the day-to-day. What I’m hearing, a lot of the younger guys kind of want something like that. But from a sustainability of a national team program, you want someone that probably knows the Australian system a little bit better and the way things run over here.

“I would go open slather. Basketball Australia need to start from zero, start a pool of maybe 10 to 15, narrow that down to five and then have your hardcore interviews. That’s the best way to go. Have some Australian candidates, have some Euro candidates, have some American candidates.”