Just a reminder that our next game is on Nov 5, 7.40pm against the Malaysian All-Stars at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
Should be a tight game as we lost to this team by 1 point in the Malaysian tournament. Plus, the Malaysia-Singapore rivalry is a good one.
See you there.
Game one vs Chinese National Team was in Wuxi on 4th July. The stadium was great – held about 8-9,000 (at a guess) and everything set up real nicely.
Wuxi stadium
Game 1 warming up
We knew that China would have good shooters, tall, and that Yi would cause us a bit of trouble because of his size and athleticism. I knew that they had a couple of exciting players to look out for in Sun Yue and Chen Jianhua. Wang Zhi Zhi of course has been in the NBA too.
Philippine Basketball Association teams San Miguel Beer and Talk ‘N Text will play their regular season game at the Singapore Indoor Stadium on November 30, followed by another Philippine pro-team against the Slingers in a Challenge series game. Read more here.
This is sure to be a popular fixture, with the local Filipino community here in Singapore expected to get right behind it. My guess is that we will sell out the Indoor Stadium or have around 10,000 in attendance. More information to come!
Came across a pretty funny skit on the comedy channel in Australia about “saving the NBL”.
Nice little cameo by my ex-team mate Brett Wheeler at the end. Of course he’s my ex-team mate…. he’s played for five NBL teams.
What team did you play for before the Slingers?
I played for the Adelaide 36ers in the Australian NBL for 5 years. I started with them in 2002 at age 18. You can check out a little highlight clip in my about section.
Chronologically, this was the first basketball event to take place for me this year (the first part of the year was my own weights and fitness – thanks to Chris at AEP for his intense training).
I got a call from Andrew Gaze in mid-June while I was doing a ward round at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide. It was such an important call that I left my registrar waiting for me! Andrew said he was taking a team to China to play against the Chinese National Team for two warm-up games on the 4th and 6th of July and wanted me to go – of course I couldn’t give up this opportunity to play against China, where my ancestors are from.
There were some problems getting visas for everyone going to China, so much so that my and Oscar’s passport was only delivered to Adelaide the day before we left. Anyway, we got them, so the trip was underway.
Dear Doc,
How do you and the team feel about playing in an ‘Exhibition Season’ and not being in the NBL? I just can’t begin to understand how it feels- I was SO pumped for this coming season, and whilst I still follow the team keenly, it disappoints me that you’re not in the NBL!
First of all, its important to understand why the Slingers pulled out of the NBL. I had arrived in Singapore and two days later was told we were pulling out. For the Slingers to be in the NBL, they had initially signed a three year agreement to pay for all incoming teams’ airfares, which they did for the first two years. This off-season just finished, both Brisbane and Sydney (powerhouse NBL teams) dissolved because of financial difficulties and the S’pore government (our major backer) was worried about the direction of the NBL allowing this to happen.
Beijing Aoshen was the latest scalp for us in the Slingers Challenge Series as we won 86-81. You can read about the game on the Slingers website.
Here are the stats.
It was an interesting game with us taking the lead for the first half, and Aoshen coming back to be leading by one at the last break. For those of you who were there, you may have noticed our defence kicked up a gear in the fourth quarter, about the time Sam Harris came onto the floor. We’d had trouble defending the American point guard for Aoshen as he was coming off onball screens and penetrating our defence. With Sam in the game, a quick thinking Blagoj came to me and said “let’s go into a zone, with Sammy in, we’re having trouble guarding the screens and we can have him inside.” (Or something along those lines). Read the rest of this entry ?
Tomorrow we play the fifth game in the Singapore Slingers Challenge Series against the team Beijing Aoshen.
This team was playing in Singapore last year, competing in the American ABA league. From what I’ve heard, the ABA has a few different rules compared to the normal – e.g. players cannot foul out, instead after the 6th foul, every foul they commit is a technical foul.
I know that the Chinese national team player Sun Yue played for them last year and has now been picked up by the NBA (so unfortunately he won’t be playing). But they have three imports and some fairly good quality players on their roster.
Be ready for an uptempo, intense game with lots of fast breaking and attacking basketball. We have certainly had a big week on the training court and are ready for a big game tomorrow, with Eric the only current injury. Hope to see you there.
Dear Doc,
What is your day like? Tell us what a typical day is for a Slinger.
The Singapore Slingers is a professional team and as such we go to work everyday. A typical week for us is as follows:
Monday – 9.00am – 12.00pm On court basketball training
- 1.00pm – 2.00pm Lunch
- 2.00pm – 4.00pm Weights
You are currently browsing the Darren Ng #8 blog archives for October, 2008.
Darren Ng
#8 for the Adelaide 36ers
Doctor MBBS (Adel)
