Melbourne United assistant coach Justin Schueller has heaped praise on star guard Chris Goulding, saying he’s never seen him in greater shape.
As United continues their preparations ahead of next season, Schueller says the added improvement individually will only aid the team ahead of tip off early next year.
“I don’t think I’ve seen Chris in a better way to be honest in my four years with him,” Schueller told SEN.com.au.
“He has had an outstanding World Cup last year and if you look at the comparison to now, I think his body is in great shape, the way he’s shooting the ball and just his movement as well.
“If we can keep him going (and trending upwards), it will put him and the team in the best position they’ve been in a while.”
Mitch McCarron was one of 12 players who tested positive for COVID-19 in August, but Schueller said he has now fully recovered and was working his way back to full fitness.
“What we’ve seen from Mitch McCarron is continual growth (during the off-season),” he said.
“I think that the benefit of this sort of scenario and the positive (of the situation) is someone like Mccarron has been able to benefit from that through not just the strength and conditioning but the skill work on what he can do on the floor.
“Especially in that direction to what he wants to go to become our main point-guard and he’s been able to put some decent work in there.”
Japanese guard Yudai Baba has signed on for Melbourne United this season and Schueller, who has worked closely with him in recent weeks, said his ability to shoot the ball stood out during training.
“He’s been my guy this week,” he said.
“The way he shoots the ball is truly exceptional, his attention and the way his footwork works and his skill … he’s going to be an exciting player.
“The thing that has really stood out to me is how good he can shoot the ball."
As the NBL continues to move towards next season, which is tipped to begin early in 2021, teams across the league have been forced to adapt their schedules to suit.
Melbourne United High Performance Manager Nik Popovic admitted there were challenges to face when it came to scheduling pre-season games but was hoping sufficient restrictions between states would be eased so some matches could be held.
“I do hear that there could be some form of formal pre-season games played,” Popovic said.
“Whether it’s a blitz (competition) or something similar, there’s challenges with that so I’m not too sure where that’s going.
“But we would welcome playing those games at some point in time, whether it’s in November or December.
“In order to (play some pre-season games) we would need some restrictions eased where we could have some physical contact training because currently, we aren’t doing any contact training.
“Most of our drills are five versus zero and individual work and you can’t go five on five at the moment given the restrictions in place.”