Basketball On The Internet.

BASKETBALL Australia Hall of Famer Ken Cole had his say today on Facebook about his vision for the NBL.

Here is a slightly edited copy of what he had to say:
 

I’m really new to this and I’m sure I will ramble BUT I want to stimulate ideas to raise the NBL to the #1 League outside of the NBA.

AND the NBA is not basketball – it’s a hybrid, a better version of the globetrotters. This message is for my basketball friends.

As a person who sent down many ideas that aided in the formation of the original NBL and who participated in its boom development period, I would like to throw a series of thoughts out to the basketball community regarding the future of the NBL and the role of Basketball Australia.

I start with the premise that the NBL should assume a rightful place in the top levels of Australian sport. We continually undersell the power of our sport, the numbers involved, and the incredible marketing potential available to sponsors that align themselves with basketball.

It was always my belief creating the NBL was going to be the vehicle to raise Australian standards and promote our sport as a major international force.

So where do we start?

First, second and third – CHANGE THE SEASON.

I spoke vigorously against switching seasons, as did the late Mike Wrublewski. Unfortunately, we were proved correct. Changing to summer was an unmitigated disaster.

Our goal was always to showcase the cream of Australian talent and supplement that talent with the best imports we could find.

The change of season forced almost all of our elite players to take their talents overseas as the money was just simply too much to turn down. This has to be reversed.

So our starting point is switch seasons, allowing the cream of our talent to play in our NBL while still allowing them time to participate in a variety of international leagues to supplement their incomes.

While difficult, the women seem to have been able to accomplish this task with Opals stand-outs playing in Australia, the USA and Europe all in one year.

Now let’s make a few dramatic changes.

• I believe the so-called “point system” is still in play. If so, it should be thrown out immediately. The last thing the NBL should do is legislate mediocrity.

• Secondly, the salary cap.

It’s appalling that one Australian Aussie Rules player in Sydney earns more than the entire salary cap of an NBL team.

I believe our minimum salary should be $1million per team with a maximum of $2.5 to $3 million.

Money does not buy championships, it never has and it never will.

It places teams in a position to be able to win championships but as the New York Yankees have proven with the biggest payrolls in the history of sport, they have won one championship in approximately 10 years.

The fear of an expensive powerhouse team hurting the league is the complete opposite of what has always been proven in basketball. One or two powerful teams drag everyone else UP. I could give numerous examples but most basketball people would understand this right away.

• We need to look at a system that allows clubs to develop and RETAIN their talent by allowing them to expend money to keep top local players. A classic situation is developing where an exciting youngster such as Chris Goulding is likely to be lost unless we make changes.

We are not a big enough country to lose 8 or 10 of our Olympic players to overseas leagues. We need the cream of our talent being showcased in Australia to give encouragement to our juniors to progress through to the ultimate level.

In my opinion, we should be striving to make Australia’s NBL the premier international league competition, adding recruits from the US and Europe.

We should exclude from salary cap fringe benefit items such as rent assistance, cars, etc that may be made available to players to make their contracts more attractive.

• We need to ensure maximum value for the public. It was always the intention of many of us to ensure that our national league took the best ideas from the NBA, the NCAA, and international rules in forming the best “product” possible for the public. We need to return to a 48-minute game. We need to allow six fouls per player, and I say this as the public get to see as much of the top players as they can and a free-flowing, high-scoring physical brand of basketball is put on the court.

Most of the rule changes I am suggesting were brought in when I was president of the NBL coaches’ association and all of these changes were recommended and endorsed by the coaches, and subsequently their clubs. It was obviously endorsed by the public in view of the huge numbers that were attending basketball at that time.

We need to recognise while the NBL should be showpiece for Australian basketball, we need to be a vital and active participant with Basketball Australia.

We are the end result of the development of nationwide talent by the smallest of clubs and the biggest of associations.

NBL teams need to be a vital part of the community and also participate where possible in the development of junior programs in their areas and throughout Australia.

The time is right to support Kristina Keneally and the leaders of the NBL into bringing the sport that I referred to many years ago as the sleeping giant of Australian sport, back out of hibernation.

Until we regard ourselves as a major sport in every aspect, why would we expect other sporting bodies to accord us that recognition?

We should be able to attract more people and more sponsorship than almost any other sport available. It is time we SCREAMED the incredible pluses of our sport from the rooftops.

Despite ridiculous statements in the past of making changes to avoid competing with sports such as Aussie Rules, we need to embrace those sports as providing an additional fan base for us.

Night football is no competition. That’s just a poor excuse for bad marketing in basketball.

We’ve got to attract basketball people first, and casual fans second. We have millions of current players and millions of retired players. We need to get them back to our games.

We are burning talent. Look at a few of the former coaches we have simply sitting on the sidelines or out of the NBL altogether – Bob Turner, Brian Kerle, Calvin Bruton, Alan Black, Ian Stacker, the brilliant Phil Smyth to name but a few.

We also have former great players such as Damian Keogh, Ray Borner, Peter Byrne, David Spear, Karl Luke, Mark Lampshire, Toli Koltuniewicz, again to mention a very small sample, who are outstanding business people. They are scattered throughout our community and very rarely do we seem to tap into this vast reservoir of talent.

We have completely wasted an entire generation of basketball people such as Bryan Hennig and dozens of others and perhaps I should point out, in my opinion, the most famous basketball export we have developed, FIBA president Bob Elphinston. We should all be so proud of Bob.

This is what I hope can be the beginning of raising Australian basketball through the NBL to become a major player in the Australian sporting calendar.

While I think of it, DO NOT SEND OUR PLAYERS TO A TRAINING CAMP OVERSEAS TO PREPARE FOR AN OLYMPICS.

Switch seasons and have them available AT HOME unless they are in the NBA, the only exception.

Why would you send 12 players, 9/10 of whom do not play in Australia, to an overseas camp? Train them at home, let them inspire young Aussie talent. Pre-tourney games are easy to arrange.

Let’s make the NBL the foreign league that all top international players would like to play in. I would like to further elaborate at a later stage on how to build relationships with NBA and foreign teams and how to assist quality coaching academies utilising talents that are already in place in Australia.

Many years ago I approached Basketball Australia with a plan to place as many of our kids as possible in US colleges, getting an education and four years of highly-intensive basketball coaching.

My dream was then to see these players return home for at least a few years to contribute back to our game. I offered to target these players, monitor them through their college, and provide monthly feedback to BA.

I was told this would be “far too hard” even though I was offering to put the whole program in place for free. This current year I believe there are more than 100 of our young players playing in the USA.

This is fantastic, my dream was fulfilled BUT we never put anything in place to capitalise on it. Because of this the only people being pursued to return are the small number at the extremely elite level. We want ALL of these youngsters back developing our game at home.

In view of the urgency, please feel free to share this with any of your basketball friends. Let’s see how fast we can turn this ship around.

Let the sleeping giant awake.