Hoops

NBL changes

Meg, there is absolutely no guarantee that ONE HD is even interested in the NBL. It would be suicide to dump fox without any iron clad assurance from ONE HD that they are even interested. In the past we have all heard how 7 were interested to compete against cricket etc in the summer and nothing ever eventuated.

Just to pick ankles up the USA women won Bronze in Brazil. They were beaten by Russia in the Semi thus Russia got Silver.

Left behind is a relative term but I would say 'yes', the US were left behind in International terms. 6 years without a major international title for a country of 300 million people and the enormous resources poured into the NBA and the college game is to me being left behind (I know - we should be left behind so badly!)

But a lot of the rhetoric surrounding the Redeem Team was about the project they undertook and the adoption of many 'international' initiatives, such as squads and camps and 3-year programs.

While the women's program silver in Brazil was a smaller bump, the US didn't give due respect to the way other countries were playing the game and the progress they had made.

Correct me if I'm wrong but three of the last four MVP's in the NBA were foreigners? Best female player in the world is an Aussie?

Again, a relative term, but perhaps 'left behind' should be replaced with 'marked time while the others caught up'.

As opposed to the women's program, the Boomers success is about beating every other nation (given the assumption that the US should be out of reach) so we must excel at the international game. That is the only way basketball will remain relevant on the local level.

Alternately, we resign ourselves to being a minor player in a parochial sporting landscape (our favourite sports are seemingly those in which we can excel with little or no competition from elsewhere - AFL, Rugby League, Netball - and with the increasing globalization of swimming, we seem to be losing interest in that!) because as an international sport we can't hope to con people into thinking they are seeing the best in the world because they will never reside here - we simply can't afford them.

Patty Mills is relevant because we see him taking it to the US at the Olympics. Nathan Jawai is relevant because we saw hi play in the NBL last year. If the league can create more of these players, the local league maintains its relevance.

So the next question is what constitutes 'excelling' and I think the answer to that lies with the marketing department - 7th in the World sounds pretty good to me, while top 30 in the world sound fantastic to football fans. Why was there so little hoopla about the Opals silver in Beijing - because expectations meant that basketball people were desperately hoping and cautiously optimistic that gold was possible and non-basketball people expected gold from the reigning world champions, so silver was a failure. If we can learn anything from football, it should be diminishing expectations by overstating the magnitude of the task, and then celebrating every minor victory!

I think we need to understand the drivers for the growth of the sport in this country (from an administrators point of view). For too long, we have slavishly followed all things American as the spiritual home of the sport, while even the Americans have been left behind in the international game.

Success on the international stage is essential for the sport to prosper. International success ensures ongoing Government funding (our current World #3 ranking is being propped up by the Opals and junior teams). International success also buys exposure at the Olympics and the credibility that comes with that (its basketball's World Cup). Who is the sport's most recognisable figure for the layperson in this country - Lauren Jackson or Andrew Bogut. Both #1 draft picks in the US but one with considerable international success at Olympics and World Championships, the other with limited (I resent the notion that 7th at the Olympics can be classed as failure, particularly when football wets itself when it simply qualifies in the top 32 teams in the world for the World Cup).

Consequently, we need to bring the sport more into line with the international game, which represents 99.5% of our opponents, as opposed to bringing it into line with the NBA, which represents the other 0.5%. The Opals might be a different story because they are in a 'beat the Yanks' situation, whereas the Boomers (and our respective junior teams, face the majority of their competition from places outside of the US (for now at least).

40 minutes of high-energy, quality basketball is plenty. 48 minutes of 'going through the motions, NBA regular season' tripe is too much. Think the college game (40 minutes - 30+ game season) vs the NBA (48 minutes - 82-game regular season).

I understand the intention of the new rules (opening up the game, providing more driving lanes and opportunities for penetration) but having coached under these rules (with the new courts at Albury in January) I would say that they will have absolutely no impact if the existing rules are not enforced. The way the 3-second rule is currently interpreted (read changed) by referees means you can still put your big in the key for as long as you like. I argued with a referee the other night about the need to enforce the rule to provide space and his reaction was simply 'they didn't get the ball' - but they had to be guarded and their presence resulted in an open shot from a better spot than would otherwise have been possible had they not been there. So it doesn't matter what size the key is if the refs ignore it.

I don't think the rules are the key to the marketability, the passion and intensity of the players is.