Is Hodge A Good Fit?

Julius Hodge should probably be in the gym working on his jump shot instead of the beach if you ask former teamate Brad Davidson.

I've been surfing the net this morning just checking out all things basketball and this Brad Davidson blog entry is by far the most interesting read I found.

The Commonwealth Games gold medallist talks about his relationship with new Melbourne Tiger Julius Hodge during their time together as teammates at Adelaide.

I will let you decide for yourself and come to your own conclusions, but it would be interesting to here from a Melbourne Tiger (hey Wortho, in between beers, give us a blog on Hodge) to see if Hodge has painted a different picture in Melbourne, than the impression he has left in Adelaide.

Here is Davidson's words, let me know what you think.

"Since Julius Hodge last left our shores in the middle of the 2008/09 season, I have said to a few people that he was the worst teammate I’d ever had on my team throughout my basketball career.

Is Julius a bad person? No he’s not. Did Julius give you everything he had on game night? Absolutely yes during his first season here in Adelaide, but the second season hmmmm - most of the time.

Julius mark 2 came in so much fanfare that you can see why he was so self centreed and deluded and I think a big factor for his attitude was he didn’t want to be here after being so close to fulfilling his NBA dream. The tech fouls, not getting back on defence and general attitude when things were going bad really hurt him in the face of the team. When a guy that really did like you say that you were a cancer for the team you gotta start to think it’s you mate, not the rest of the world that has the problem! I think the Adelaide 36ers were at fault to start the disintegration of the relationship but Julius was at fault there after but not once has he said he wished he’d done something differently so he could’ve stayed in this place that he claims to love so much. I’m pretty sure he was getting some bad advice from his American agent too (and not the first person that has had that, Schensch?).

I think it’s sad that Julius is back. He is easily the most talented player I’ve played with, but is he the best player I’ve played with? No but he should be. Make no mistake about it Julius is going to come back to Australia and put up big numbers and be in the top 3 players in the league. Do you know how good you have to be to score 25 a game and put up the numbers he does with that ridiculously bad shooting style and flat shot? It was like Anna Kournikova - her serve was the worst in women’s tennis but she was still in the top 10 in the world because the rest of her game was so good. I could say that Julius is like Kournikova and isn’t a winner but I never got a championship, so you know what they say about people in glass houses……

Everyone knew Julius and I didn’t quite see eye to eye as we are polar opposites, yet also surprisingly similar. We are both smart arses who liked getting a rise out of people. I would shoot and hit a few threes in a row and say to Julius “if you had this shot you’d be earning five million a year right now” and he would call me ‘mini me’ and enjoyed dropping some short jokes any chance he got. But that’s where the similarities end. Julius worked harder in the gym during his second season here and did spend time shooting, but this was after sitting out the parts of practice he didn’t want to participate in. I personally didn’t want to shoot with Julius after training because I’d already had my workout and didn’t need more fitness work rebounding all his misses. Besides, I would get up more game type shots in 30 mins as he would get up standing still shooting in an hour.

I’ll be interested to see whether Julius has learnt anything since he left and whether he returns with a better attitude. It will be interesting to see if he helps the Tigers get better or whether he still thinks the world revolves around his every move. Either way it’ll be good to watch!!"