Coach Mitchell on the Rise of the Phoenix

South East Melbourne Phoenix coach Simon Mitchell has opened up on the formation of the club and its early successes in a wide-ranging interview with basketball podcast, Slappin’ Glass.

The third-year head coach has been at the helm since day one of the Phoenix’s rise, taking the team to an unlikely finals appearance in just their second season.

Mitchell says the epic Semi-Final series against Melbourne United earlier this year was a far cry from the club’s humble beginnings.

“When we put this together, it was just a piece of paper,” he said. “We had a CEO in Tommy Greer and an Operations boss in Rohan Short, and then I was hired.

“We didn’t have an office, any equipment, no laptops, nothing. We just had ideas and a whiteboard. We’d get together and smash out some ideas on what we wanted to be and how we wanted the Phoenix to evolve.

“It was an interesting process and one I’m unbelievably appreciative of getting the opportunity to run an expansion team. You don’t get that opportunity too often.

“I was really taken aback by what we were able to do and just the purity of it. You have a blank canvas to do whatever it is you want with a basketball team.”

With official pre-season preparations for season three soon to get underway at the State Basketball Centre, expectations on the Phoenix are high.

Coach Mitchell says the honest and team-orientated culture they aimed to build from day one will set the club up for more success.

“When we started putting it all together, culture was the number one thing for us,” he said. “This team had to be a group of players that played the sport the right way because they’re not going to fool the basketball-crazy people of South East Melbourne.

(Toughness and intensity are high on the agenda in Mitchell's coaching style)

“We recruited some smart veteran players and we made sure everyone we brought into the club were good people who were going to contribute to our culture moving forward and help grow it.

“We had this rule that’s common in Australian sport, the no d***head rule. We’re not bringing in a guy who can give us 25 and 10 a night if he’s a pain in the a** in the locker room.

“That was the number one thing on our recruitment. We didn’t want players who brought baggage or guys who were pointing fingers, whether it be at the refs, teammates, coaching staff, front office. We wanted to make sure we have guys who care for the club, care for their teammates and help grow the sport in our community.

“Along with that, we had to build the environment to grow a culture as well. We use the term ‘basketball family’ out here a lot – we wanted to make people feel like they’re part of something special.

(Mitchell is passionate about the growth of the sport at grassroots level)

“These concepts we came up with were pretty much for the whole of the staff we hired from the front office through to the medical staff. We wanted to make sure we had really good people, people who understood what we were, and people who dream big.”

By his own admission, Mitchell’s squad have built a winning culture quicker than even he thought possible when jotting those ideas down on the whiteboard.

The rise to prominence of the likes of Kyle Adnam, Izayah Le’afa and Dane Pineau under Mitchell’s tutelage, and the growing belief within the fanbase are indicators the club is achieving those early goals.

Making up the numbers was never on the agenda for the ambitious group rebuilding the famous corridor of Australian basketball at the top level and Mitchell says it’s only the beginning of something special.

“Expansion happens in AFL football and there’s this idea that you get a five/six/seven year grace period to get your training wheels off. We weren’t about that.

“We wanted to make sure from year one we could see this was rolling and there were places this thing was going to go. Year two, we thought we’d build a nucleus of a championship team and year three, we were going for it.

“The way things have panned out, we may have been a little forward on year two than maybe even what we expected. We were hoping to push for playoffs and we ended up 10 minutes away from maybe making the championship series and could’ve come out with something really special.

“It’s a building process for us and it’s still building.”

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

BROWSE PHOENIX MEMBERSHIP PACKAGES

Sam Bunn for Phoenix Media (30/08/2021)