Joseph the new messiah
TweetEXPECT the new NBL to shortly reveal Albert "Alby" Joseph as its new man in charge of the refereeing and its direction.
Apparently Alby is "highly credentialled and respected as one of the finest referee educators in Australian basketball."
Sorry, but outside NSW, a lot of us will never previously have heard of him. That's not necessarily to say it's a bad thing, just a fact.
It also begs the question whether his appointment is to appease the good folks still based in the now largely redundant Sydney NBL office.
I guess it gives the always extremely busy Bret Mactavish and the equally productive Helen Curran someone else with whom to take a morning tea break, if there's ever any time for that.
Not having a crack at Alby but if the NBL can find three more qualified men to run the referees than Mal Cooper, Bill Mildenhall and Ray Hunt, then please enlighten me.
These were three of our greatest refs - only Eddie Crouch was missing from the administrative team - who not only officiated the game but also understood where it needed to be as a spectacle.
They were and are passionate about it too.
They went through the teething issues of unwrestling the NBL and returning it to an exciting, clean brand of ball.
Extraordinarily, no sooner had they started on this particularly thankless mission, than the NCAA, WNBA and Euroleague all started bleating about how their own elite versions of the sport also were suffering from too much allowed contact!
I am not sure what hands-on NBL experience Joseph has but it does strike as amazing any sort of decision-making in our sport has returned to Sydney.
Just because former FIBA president and now NBL board member Bob Elphinston lives there, doesn't mean the city now qualifies to make important basketball decisions.
No offence intended but Melbourne is where most basketball decisions need to be made. Even BA woke up and closed its Sydney orifice.
Joseph has played a senior role in development with Basketball NSW for a number of years, more recently working with FIBA Oceania in the development of officials in the Pacific region.
He recently was appointed as a FIBA Oceania Commissioner.
No doubting he has some credentials and wish him well in the role.
Just can't see why the NBL thought we needed a shift from its Three Wise Men.
If they had become unpopular, that probably says volumes for the fact they were actually doing something!