Goorjian’s message is clear: 'Toughen up'

The Sydney Kings may have reloaded their roster but Brian Goorjian says the game plan hasn’t changed — just the pieces to make it work.

Those pieces include Matthew Dellavedova and Kendric Davis, two of the best guards in the league.

“I really think we've recruited pieces that want to run and want to go. And we couldn't last year,” he said on NBL Now.

“That was the plan, and it became part of the problem. We were easy to slow down.

“We didn't have the pieces to do that. So we ended up in the half court a lot more.”

The Kings ended the season ranked seventh in both pace and offensive rating, but it was their league-best defence that kept them in contention.

Now, Goorjian is drawing on past experience with the Boomers to shape how he’ll approach the season with a new-look roster.

“If you look at, and there was a lot of talk about this with our national team, you’re playing Serbia, you're playing Canada. We tried to play at pace and we made decisions like, let’s not talk about set plays, because it takes away from playing at pace,” he said.

“And I thought the way we played Serbia was the way that Australia, with (Josh) Giddey, with Dyson Daniels, needed to play.”

As Goorjian draws parallels between the Boomers' style and what he wants in Sydney, he points to one key area the Kings lacked in NBL25.

“I thought last year and just with the group in general … it was tenacity,” he said.

“I thought last year … you get to the Grand Final Series and look at the teams in it … Wollongong (Illawarra) and Melbourne. When you played against them, they were physical. They stand over you. They had toughness. And that togetherness that’s been built over time.

“You go back to the teams that won the championship. They had the down year, a total change, and now we're building something.

“Wollongong last year, Tasmania when they were at their best, the connection and the toughness, it takes a little bit of time.

“And that’s the area we've got to fast track in order to get to where we want to go.”