The Devils' successful and popular coach Warrick Giddey has walked out, along with their two biggest recruits, American imports Curtis Small and Ingo Beaudet.

There is also a fear that their most promising young guns, David Zammit, Mathew Wilkinson and Andrew Johnstone, will also leave because of the decision by the club's hierarchy to drop to division 1.

It is understood the club would have been forced to drop down a division by the Big V league anyway because of poor performances in recent times.

The Devils finished second-last on the ladder with a mediocre record of 5-15 this season despite the arrival of their boom recruits.

Giddey, a Melbourne Tigers assistant coach in the NBL, told the Banner he was disappointed with the club's decision.

"The club didn't want to stay up there. I did and the players did. But the people controlling the club unfortunately saw that they didn't think it was value for money," Giddey said.

"Blokes like David Zammitt and Matthew Wilkinson and Andrew Johnstone, the three local kids who have come from division one to Big V, they've got to make the decision: do we go to another club?

"Our association now doesn't have the highest level possible for us.

"It's the biggest thing that I argue against because you've got to have parameters for the juniors to come up and something to strive for."

Giddey said the Devils were within a sniff of the finals with five games to go before petering off.

"We never lost confidence. I thought it was just a matter of putting things together. We shot the ball poorly all year. You can have everything in place. I thought we played some reasonable games," he said.

"With five games to go, I thought we still could have scraped in and made the finals.

"I don't think you can judge the whole season on wins and losses. We were within two points of Dandenong and we were one of only three sides to beat them last year."

Giddey said Beaudet, who has returned to Germany to play basketball, didn't fulfil expectations.

"Probably Curtis was more reliable than Ingo. What we needed from Ingo was for him to be a dominant player in his position. He had a pretty solid year numbers-wise, I think he averaged nearly 18 points and nine rebounds a game. But with someone of his size and stature, we would have liked a lot more out of him," he said.