NBL: Dead?

Basketball and Soccer are the most popular sports in terms of participation in Australia from junior level to senior level. Men, women, and children of all ages play the game each night, and if you were to go to one of the local courts you would think Basketball is thriving here in Australia. The game thrives here, but not professionally.

Basketball is not a popular sport amongst our political leaders, and that has cost the game over here. They prefer their Rugby League, Rugby Union, and Cricket (Soccer has only really been given political support since we qualified in the last World Cup), so Basketball doesn’t get the same government backing as the other sports – that won’t happen till we win a medal at the Olympics or beat the USA.

Australia excels in sports which are to do with the other Commonwealth nations, not the true global games, and I think that’s another reason why Basketball struggles here. If your national team isn’t in the top 3 in the world, you won’t get supported.

True Basketball followers in Australia are mostly of a European, African or Asian background. Their parents loved the game back home because it would of been either the country’s number one or number two sport along with Soccer, and so these kids have grown to love the game too by their parents. But to have these same people follow Basketball professionally in this country? Good luck!

The NBL has been viewed as an amateur competition from the way it’s been promoted and run. You see more advertising about upcoming games at your local competition than from the NBL marketing department. You don’t know which day your team is playing, you don’t know when they are at home or on the road, and in the last two seasons we didn’t even know when the NBL Season began because there was no promotion of it. We started seeing the results in the newspaper and asked each other when did the new season begin. How will anyone take this game seriously in this country? Kids with a future in Basketball or who’d like one will most certainly look to Europe and the USA through college. There’s no money for a player here, and no matter how much talent the league might have… if your not getting paid to make a life out of it your going to leave.

Politics is one of the biggest things to deal with here. For example, Andrew Bogut never got chosen for his State representative team. This was because some dad or mum who’s part of the local basketball club made sure they got their below-par son/daughter into the representative team. This turns off many parents who know their kids are better, so they look to send them to play overseas onc old enough. I don’t know about the USA, but over here many organisations are like tight knit families and many kids with talent are overlooked so you can put the crap son/daughter of the club secretary.

Also, if it wasn’t for the Michael Jordan era, I think Basketball in Australia would have been dead by now. Michael Jordan started a basketball card craze, and that got everyone into playing basketball and wanting to be like Mike. You can’t ask for a better promotor of the game than Michael. He put it globally on the map. Australia also bought into it. Then came the 1992 Dream Team and what they accomplished in Barcelona. Watching Bird, Magic, Jordan, Malone, etc was another reason for basketball in Australia to stay popular. In 1996, Team USA versus Australia with Shane Heal and Sir Charles ready to brawl. This gave Australia false belief we could beat you guys (I know hilarious isn’t it?). It also kept Basketball popular in Australia.

This was happening when Australia had NBA Action on free-to-air television, and also a game of the week (most times Chicago for Jordan and Pippen, or Orlando for Shaq and Penny).

In the end, no matter how many play the game, you won’t see even a quarter of them head to watch their professional basketball team play. We just don’t rate the league. How can you rate a league when Mark Price was brought in by the South Dragons (current champions, but first year debut when Mark Price was brought in), and was then sacked so they can appoint Shane Heal as a Player/Coach? I’ve never felt so embaressed in my life for Australian Basketball till that moment when I saw how they treated Mark Price.

Would anyone who knows basketball and understands the game, respect or rate a “professional” league where you’d be lucky for your franchise player to make a third of what a second round draft pick will make in his first NBA contract, and they treat Mark Price like he was nothing?
Make him bring his whole family for a three-year stint, and then send him back home in the middle of the first season. That’s pathetic!

It’s all about politics at the top and protecting their positions and has nothing to do with the talent coming through. Basketball fans aren’t stupid and can see what’s been happening. It’s why I stopped going to games.

So the issues are many. The NBL needs to be killed off. Basketball Australia needs to look at itself in the mirror and ask if they want to make basketball successful in Australia and stop the Suits from filling up their pockets and caring for the game, or if they are happy with just a fair performance at the Olympics and World Championships every four years from whichever group of Aussie guys are playing at that time in the NBA or Europe to represent Australia.

THANK GOD FOR THE NBA!!!

TLDR prevention – hit enter for a new line, or makeeach paragraph a separate post.

The Mark Price problem is with his hiring, not his firing. Another classic NBL blunder – hire the guy with the big name recognition and WITH NO EXPERIENCE. His 0-6 record was the reason he was fired – he sucked. And Heal did a better job after he was gone.
Take a look at the resume of Mo McHone, the other top candidate for the Dragons job that year, and tell me Price, a guy whose coaching experience was at his son’s primary school, was a wise choice for the job.

Well I haven’t come across too many Native Americans in Australia, but if that be the case then yes they’d be all for it too. So my bad on that one if that be the case.
As for the Mark Price situation I didn’t know about his lack of actual coaching experience. In that case I guess the NBL tried to build itself up by showing that past NBA Superstars were going to come coach here. Thanks for setting the record straight Dave. Your right about Mo McHone.

p.s. I do believe a native american is an American Indian.

p.s.s. For Basketball to surivive, yes, there needs to be heaps more American Indians.

That vid is just cruel, Erick.

The NBL is alive and well, it has gone through some really tough time redefining itself, but it came through in the end with afew less teams and a new look, rule changes, teams must now prove to be finacialy viable to enter into the league, so it’s really just laying the foundations for a sustainable future for the game in Australia, as tough as some of that was, I know, my own team almost went under.

The NBL also became a faction of Basketball Australia to make the game more united in Australia, which it badly needed.

check out these websites and you can see the current state of the game here is not as bad as what some of you might ne thinking.

http://www.nbl.com.au and

http://www.basketball.net.au/

Cheers, Ing