Could a coaching change help the South East Melbourne Phoenix rise once more?
Even after a breakthrough Throwdown win, the South East Melbourne Phoenix remain in a deep hole. How did they end up here, and can a new coach dig them out of it?
Credit: Dan Cowley Photography
Sports move fast, and the NBL is no exception. Last Saturday night, Mike Kelly was head coach of the South East Melbourne Phoenix; by Sunday morning, the whole world knew that he’d been shown the door.
After just ten wins and a last-place finish last season, this year was meant to be different for Kelly and the Phoenix. They underwent a restructure off the court, with former coach Simon Mitchell brought into the newly-formed role of GM of Basketball, and there was an even bigger overhaul on the court, where Kelly worked alongside his predecessor to reshape the roster. Out went a pair of stars in Mitch Creek and Alan Williams, but in came a former Grand Final MVP, a four-time All-NBL selection, a pair of new imports not long out of the NBA, and an elite defensive big, among others.
After swimming against the tide in his first season with the club, Kelly suddenly had, on paper, one of the more talented rosters in the league at his disposal. That raised expectations, and by extension, it made a slow start to the year unacceptable.
As they remained winless through their first four games, Kelly’s position became more and more tenuous, and last week’s loss to the until-then winless Brisbane Bullets proved to be the last straw. With an 0-5 record and their season quickly slipping away, Mitchell, CEO Tommy Greer, and the team’s ownership decided to pull the ripcord before the hole got any deeper.
“There’s certain things that Mike was really pushing to turn around in regards to performance of the team, and unfortunately on Saturday night we weren’t able to turn those things around,” Mitchell said on Monday of the decision. “I don’t think it’s about losing the playing group, I think it’s about the values and the points of emphasis that Mike was pushing were perhaps not being adhered to or weren’t being fulfilled.”
There’s a strange sort of symmetry, or maybe asymmetry, when comparing that to Greer’s comments before the season. “We are doing everything we possibly can to win, but that’s not how we are grading this season. We are grading it on how we live up to those values, our above and below line behaviours and standards, and setting and creating that high-care, high-challenge performance culture,” Greer told The Pick and Roll’s Tom Hersz last month.
It became clear across the first five rounds of the season that something had to change for the Phoenix, and Kelly was always going to be the first to go. The team responded immediately under interim coach Sam Mackinnon, claiming their first win in Sunday’s Throwdown, but that result was quickly followed by reports from ESPN of a permanent replacement in Josh King, who has spent the last few years coaching in the Czech Republic, Germany, and most recently in Turkey with Darüşşafaka.
There’s often an emotional reaction from players when a coach is fired, and against Melbourne United there was a level of intensity not seen from the Phoenix in recent weeks. The win did come at a cost, with star guard Derrick Walton Jr. suffering a hamstring strain, and it remains to be seen if their effort will be sustainable without him and under a brand new coach.
“We’re making strides… but we’re not winning basketball games”
Injuries were a valid excuse for the team’s struggles last season, but there was no such defence coming into this year; instead, there was a lineup stacked with talent, but with clear flaws from the outset. Some of that stemmed from uncertainty around Creek, whose departure from the club after five seasons wasn’t confirmed until mid-July. “We built the team with the possibility of him not being there – to an extent. We had that last import spot and Creeky’s final decision to stay or go, determined what that position looked like,” Mitchell told The Pick and Roll ahead of the season.
By that point, the Phoenix had already locked in a core of Walton, Nathan Sobey, Joe Wieskamp and Jordan Hunter, with the hope that Creek would stay and round out their starting five. In that case, their third import would have been a centre to play behind Hunter and bolster their defensive stocks; instead, they were left needing a starting power forward to replace one of the league’s best three-level scorers. From that perspective, the eventual signing of Matt Hurt has been a success as he has poured in a league-high 21.3 points per game, but that pivot also threw off the balance of the team. It gave Hunter a huge responsibility to shoulder, particularly on the defensive end where the Phoenix were left very thin; that’s something even Kelly was aware of ahead of the season.
“Defensively, I think we’re going to have to work a lot, we’re going to have to work very hard,” he told The Pick and Roll, before adding: “But, I think we were able to bring in lots of shooting, some athleticism there and really high-character guys.” That sums up the prevailing thought on the Phoenix – their defence would have its shortcomings, but it would be offset by a high-powered offence.
The first part of that equation played out as expected, and at the time of Kelly’s departure they sat seventh in the league in defensive rating, per NBL+. They were a sieve on the perimeter, with Walton, Sobey and Wieskamp all providing little to no resistance at the point of attack. At the end of round four, teams were shooting a league-high 36.1% from three against the Phoenix, per RealGM, and when they did chase players off the three-point line, they were too often able to waltz into the lane. Hunter would ordinarily clean up some of that mess, but without a reliable backup on the roster, he has been forced to play with restraint in order to avoid foul trouble.
Again, none of that is hugely surprising. This squad was never going to be elite defensively, they just needed to be good enough to allow their explosive scoring to win them games. The problem is, their offence has been more “blow it up” than explosive – in fact, they were even worse at that end of the floor under Kelly, ranking eighth in offensive rating through the first four rounds, per NBL+, and scoring only a touch over one point per 100 possessions more than last season’s injury-cursed squad.
Five games is still a small sample size when looking at the numbers, but the eye test was just as damning. The sheer star power was meant to overcome any and all issues, but some small spurts of individual brilliance weren’t enough to overcome a real lack of cohesion. That started in the backcourt with Walton and Sobey, who have struggled to shake the “your turn, my turn” routine that often comes when two ball-dominant guards share the court.
“I think we’re in that process of trying to get out of their way, to help each other to play well together – they’re both phenomenal players and you can see them making individual plays at times or plays for the group at times, it’s just having them do it on the same day consistently and within the team framework,” Kelly said after the team’s round three loss to Adelaide.
As the ball got stuck, South East Melbourne struggled to shift defences and find open shots. As it now stands, Sobey and Walton are both shooting below 40% from the field, with Sobey averaging almost as many turnovers (2.5) as assists (3.0); Wieskamp, a renowned sharpshooter who made over 40% of his triples in the G League last season, is shooting 20% from deep and struggling to find open looks; and the Phoenix are dead last in bench points, with their second unit unable to find any rhythm.
Maybe most damning of all, though, is where they sit in the effort plays. They knuckled down on the boards against Melbourne, but that’s been the exception rather than the rule – according to NBL+, they sit dead last in rebounding percentage and are giving up the second-most second chance points as a result. They don’t have the personnel to dominate on the boards, but defensive rebounding so often comes down to effort, and their difficulty there has been an indictment. It’s a similar story in transition, where they’ve given up the third-most fast break points, another key indicator of effort and hustle.
It’s those factors that back up what Mitchell pointed to as key in Kelly’s dismissal – the values of the team not being met. The coach felt like there were some positive steps against Brisbane, even in defeat – “I think we’re making strides at both ends, but we’re not winning basketball games” – but by then, it was too late.
“We have some players that are down on form at the moment, but one of the things that we believe is that they can turn that form around a little quicker with leadership of somebody else,” Mitchell said.
Out with the old, in with the new
Ask anyone in the NBL – players, coaches, media – about Mike Kelly, and they’ll all start the same way. They’ll say that he’s a great guy, well liked by all and respected across the board. That’s been a precursor to every piece of analysis early in the season and since he was let go – he’s one of the best people in the league, but…
For all of those platitudes, and as important as they are to acknowledge, the cold hard facts of his coaching career also can’t be ignored. Across three seasons as head coach of Cairns, he posted a 31-64 record overall, with a Coach of the Year accolade in 2019-20 sandwiched between a pair of last-place finishes. Add in last year’s wooden spoon, and the Taipans’ run to the semi-finals in 2021 is the clear outlier, and one in which he had three All-NBL players at his disposal.
It would be easy to say that Kelly was sold up the river this season, handed a squad that had plenty of flash to raise expectations, but with little thought put into how it fit together. That may even be true, at least to some extent, but Mitchell has been quick to point out the coach’s role in building that house of cards. “The roster is the roster that Mike wants,” he said after Kelly’s departure. “When we convene in the offseason we go through options for each position, and we assist Mike in putting this together.”
Of course, that’s what Mitchell should say – after all, he’s the one still at the club and trying to explain their decision. Their roster build was almost certainly a collaborative effort, and it’s impossible to know who led what decisions without being behind the club’s closed doors. All we can do from the outside is evaluate what Kelly did with the players at his disposal, and as they slumped to an 0-5 record, there were some levers he could have pulled to try and right the ship.
Kelly did shift Sobey to the bench against Brisbane, starting Next Star Malique Lewis in his place, and it made a difference defensively – the Bullets were 9-28 from deep and had 15 turnovers – but it was too little, too late. Ben Ayre has brought a spark off the bench across his NBL career, but he made just one appearance and played two minutes under Kelly. Owen Foxwell made positive strides in the dumpster fire of last season, and he too was used sparingly, playing less than nine minutes per game. He’s not stepped on an NBL court for more than a year, but with a serious lack of size, could Majok Majok have been thrown out there for a minute or two?
Those are easy suggestions to make with the benefit of hindsight, but beyond the X’s and O’s, it seems like the Phoenix just needed a new voice. As much as Mitchell pushed back on the idea of Kelly “losing the playing group”, every comment from the club suggests that he wasn’t able to get through to them and motivate them any more.
“There’s a lot of love in the room for Mike, it probably was just the organisation wanting to get the most out of this group and just wasn't exactly vibing exactly how we needed,” Hunter, the club’s captain, said on last week’s episode of The Phoenix Files.
Mackinnon is another with plenty of love for his predecessor – after all, Kelly is a long-time friend and the godfather to his son – but in the days after taking over, he too alluded to the changes that were needed. “My style is a bit different to Mike, I’m a bit more direct I guess… I feel like if I can just give them a different voice and be really clear with what we’re trying to do out there on the court, that’s probably the biggest thing that I can bring,” he said last week.
That approach has certainly seemed to work, with Sunday’s win a crucial circuit-breaker for the club and Hunter asserting post game that “he’s a good coach”. Despite that, it became clear in that press conference that Mackinnon had been told his stint in charge would only be short. “I kind of know what’s going on so all I can do is control my next day… I want to be a head coach, when that opportunity will come I’m not sure, but all I can do is control with these guys right now and get us playing the right way,” he said when asked about the situation.
According to Code Sports, Mackinnon will take the lead once again when the Phoenix travel to New Zealand on Thursday and again at home on Saturday, with reports suggesting that Josh King will arrive in time for round six. The 39-year-old American brings with him an interesting coaching background, serving as an assistant at multiple NCAA Division III schools and then in Division I before jetting off to Europe, first as an assistant and then for multiple stints as a head coach. After spending just a handful of games with Darüşşafaka SK Istanbul, he has now chosen to leave in favour of what is reportedly a multi-year deal with South East Melbourne.
The Phoenix decision-makers were quick to pull the trigger on signing him, despite Mitchell’s assertion that they hadn’t sought out a replacement prior to Kelly’s release. There’s not a heap more detail available about King, but for those at the Phoenix, the criteria was simple. “The ideal coach will present themselves… it’s about coming in and fulfilling the potential that’s in the group and bringing in the person that we feel can do that the best,” Mitchell said.
Last year’s Illawarra Hawks are the gold standard of what might be possible from here, and what the Phoenix would be manifesting now that they’ve made this change. The Hawks were 3-7 when they parted ways with head coach Jacob Jackomas, before assistant Justin Tatum stepped in and led them to a 12-7 finish to the regular season and a semi-final berth. They didn’t make a single change to their roster, but the playing group clearly trusted Tatum, bought into his messaging, and played hard for him.
The obvious difference is that Tatum wasn’t some unknown figure to those players – he had been with them through the early season struggles and had built that connection already. King will be coming in cold, leading a group of players that have seen what’s possible under new leadership, but that will now have to reset and start over again. That’s not to say that it can’t work just as well, but it will be interesting to see King’s approach and how the players respond to it. It helps that, as reported by Code Sports, Mackinnon and fellow assistants Luke Brennan and Adam Gibson are likely to remain, providing some level of familiarity and consistency.
With a long-term commitment to their new coach seemingly imminent, it could be Mitchell and Greer that are next under the microscope. It’s already a unique scenario – the former coach of a team now presiding over his replacements and the basketball department in general – and while Mitchell is fresh in his role, Greer has been in place as General Manager since the club’s inception. With a finals appearance in their second season but no sustained success since, and now staring down the barrel of a second straight disaster of a campaign, the heat is already on and will only rise if this latest appointment doesn’t stick.
“Whenever we have a situation that we’ve found ourselves in, everyone’s got to shoulder a little burden and some responsibility,” Mitchell said last week.
A win over their bitter in-state rivals was the perfect start to a new era for the Phoenix, but it was just a baby step in the right direction. Still in a deep hole with a 1-5 record, potentially facing a stretch with Walton on the sidelines and with the unknown of a new head coach, there’s a long way to go if they want to be this season’s fairytale story. South East Melbourne’s recent history is full of disappointment, but by making the tough call early this time around, they’ll hope the Phoenix is set to finally rise once again.