Standard of the NBL....

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Just wanted to comment on the standard of the NBL currently.....I've watched 3 games over the past week......and I have to say I think the quality of play has improved markedly this season.
It's only early days yet (and it may be because I get to watch it more regularly on free to air TV)....but the league seems to have improved since the re-structure 3-4 years ago.
The Aussie players are not as "3-point happy".....and the imports are adding some flair and athleticism.

It's still not as good as it was back in the early to mid 90's......we seem to be importing a lot of guards. The league needs imports like Dwayne McClain, Leon Trimingham, Lanard Copeland, Dave Simmons, Dave Culbert, James Crawford, Marcus Timmons, Rob Rose, Leroy Loggins....bigger, dominant, more athletic imports. Those guys (and there are a heap more names you could add to the list)....changed the game here and improved the standard of the local players.
 
First thing, It will never, ever be like the 90's again..... Ball in Australia and as a whole never will be... It is evolving, and always will in different ways around the world.

Secondly, the NBL has improved game wise each year since the restructure... The quality of players keeps getting better. Better Imports coming across and this will only happening more and more as the league grows. From an Admin point of view they have a long way to go, especially gettind teams back into Brisbane and the like, but they are moving forward which is a good thing!

The NBL will always be a shooters league to a point. Your right that the Imports around the league now and last year have/are bringing more flair to the league and hopefully this continues!!!

The league can really only grow from what it was, but, unfortunately it will never get like it once was, but it will grow and prosper!
 
It sure has been a solid season so far, good games.. nice imports.. im loving it.

NZ vs Syd tonight. :)
 
I might get back into it if we get a Canberra Team back. After all, I'm only half an hour walking distance from the AIS.
 
Ian, just curious as to why you think it will never boom again? Ever ever? Lol

Because Basketball as a whole, NBA etc etc, not just NBL was booming here in Australia! But because of past failures in a number of different ways, it' near on impossible for it to get back to what it was... While I believe the comp will grow and we will see better imports they won't reach the heights that we once had... The NBL burned so many people involved n Basketball so badly for so many years, and they still are in some cases it just won't gain the same momentum as it once have.

We won't have teams in Tas, Canberra, Newcastle, Geelong again due to the fact the sport just isn't big enough in Australia to maintain the size of a professional league like we once had!!
 
Basketball in Australia will never be as big as it was in the 90'.

Having said that, the standard of the league is pretty high and some of the imports are pretty close to the standard we had in the 90's and the Aussie players are certainly better. The NBL doesn't need the imports to be stars any more, hence why the standard of imports isn't as good as it once was, when imports came here to be the stars of the league.
 
I'm one of the few people who follow the NBL a lot more closely than the NBA. In general I think the aussie players are bridging the gap on the imports. Imports in the 90's were the flair and explosive excitement that captivated all the other aussie try-hards. There was a real "white men can't jump" mentality, where the imports (usually Americans) would put our locals to shame. Go watch some 90's and early 2000's youtube weekly top 10's of imports doing coast-to-coast tomahawk dunks. The league is too much of a level playing field for anyone to do that these days.
Currently I feel the salary cap restricts the import quality. The imports are under massive pressure to deliver. There is no doubt they can play, but they are not shown enough faith, expecially when they are only paid slightly more than some aussies. To compensate they do a lot of talking the talk (Homocide style) but struggle to walk the walk. Just relax and play!!

With that said, I have noticed an improvement this season already. Cedric Jackson (NZ), Jamar Wilson (CNS) and Jerai Grant (SYD) have all impressed me. Only a couple of imports have performed below par. That's a pretty good sign. Lets hope that just one poor game doesn't see them axed.

A few things that could return thing back to the "good old days":
Increased salary cap (for imports only - to improve quality).
Signing imports on 3+ Year deals to give more stability to teams. How many imports recently have become naturalised Australians?
Officials to protect the player with the ball - this would produce a highly offensive game style. To score over 100 points is a miracle!!! I cringe every time I see a scoreline of 120 points combined.
Game time = 48 minutes. I mean why the bloody hell not?
And obviously expand the league - bring back the Brisbane Bullets and S.E. Melbourne teams! (which will happen soon). (I would also like to see a 2nd NZ team introduced. The Singapore Slingers was unrealistic dream, but NZ could easily harbour a 2nd team).

Cheers.

Go Tigers!!!
 
Ever since my South Dragons left, me and some mates just starting not following NBL anymore because Dragons left. I got a 7-game membership to Tigers last season, not better then Dragons, but I did love it! And this season, the games I have watched have been great. I think I'm starting to follow it more due to the NBA lockout. But I say stuff the FIBA rules (10 min quarters, no jump-balls etc.) I hate them lol. But I think NBL needs more teams....all 3 games this week have been blow-out's....clostest game has been 16 points....and it should of been bigger if Perth kept playing the way they can. But all in all, the NBL has been really good this season.
 
Increased salary cap (for imports only - to improve quality).
Not gonna happen for now and it shouldn't. I would rather see all the teams survive in the league with very good imports, rather than go broke trying to find great imports.

Signing imports on 3+ Year deals to give more stability to teams. How many imports recently have become naturalised Australians?
I agree mate for returning imports, but not new imports. 1 year for new imports and then longer for imports staying in the league works fine. Ubaka, Dorsey, Wilkinson and Lisch are all now on multi year contracts which is great because they are all great players. Rychart, Ballinger, Redhage and Gruberwere all imports that have naturalised in the last few years.

Officials to protect the player with the ball - this would produce a highly offensive game style. To score over 100 points is a miracle!!! I cringe every time I see a scoreline of 120 points combined.
Well that is supposed to be happening according to the league, but the level of referees in the league is not great, which is another problem. I agree that there is at times too much contact on the ball carrier.

Game time = 48 minutes. I mean why the bloody hell not?
Everyone would love to see that, but I think the NBA is now the only league in the world playing 48 minute games. unfortunately I don't see it ever going back.

And obviously expand the league - bring back the Brisbane Bullets and S.E. Melbourne teams! (which will happen soon). (I would also like to see a 2nd NZ team introduced. The Singapore Slingers was unrealistic dream, but NZ could easily harbour a 2nd team).
I don't think there should be many more teams in the league. The talent is there at the moment, but if you start diluting the talent with too many teams, the league becomes weaker.
 
Good points BigD. I don't actually believe things will ever be the same as the 90's either.

My push for the higher profile imports is simply for the excitement factor.

Another idea I have, and I would love to see, is the eventual increase of salary cap to $1.5m, where one player per team allowed to be paid $350-$500k per year. What if our national team players like Newley, Neilson, Ingles, Penney etc would return from Europe to captain a respective NBL team each? This would also counter the dilution of talent by adding more teams.
 
Another idea I have, and I would love to see, is the eventual increase of salary cap to $1.5m, where one player per team allowed to be paid $350-$500k per year. What if our national team players like Newley, Neilson, Ingles, Penney etc would return from Europe to captain a respective NBL team each? This would also counter the dilution of talent by adding more teams.

I would love to see that too mate, but when there is 2 or 3 teams not even using their whole salary cap as it is, they just wont be able to compete with the bigger teams if this happened.

I would rather see the NBL stay as it is, relatively even and competitive, than see teams going down the toilet again by spending too much money.
 
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