Basketball On The Internet.

THE dust is settling on what has been a landmark season for the NBL, sell-out crowds for the Grand Finals closing it on a high note.

But there is so much room for improvement.

For starters, pandering to television with an 11am start for the deciding game yesterday in Perth not only took advantage of the Wildcats and the club's great supporter base to appease the eastern states, but demeaned a deciding Grand Final contest.

With all due respect to Ten/ONE - and it was excellent to have our Grand Final live on Ten - fans and sponsors should be getting the priority at this point, especially if the Network has plans to cut basketball loose after the upcoming final year of the existing deal.

So there's the first issue NBL fans need to understand. Until the existing deals have run their contractual courses, don't expect any kind of return to the much-loved 48-minute game.

It doesn't fit the timeslot as comfortably as 40-minute games do.

That's at least one more season then that you can put that discussion on hold.

I'm also not sure it's a coincidence the NBL doesn't plan to expand until AFTER this last 2014-15 season's contractual obligations conclude.

The NBL website's live stats service was a backyard abortion at key times all season - not the least of which during the Grand Finals!

Terrible.

Crashing even during the league's showcase event.

We know out here in the land of the great unwashed that PERFORM is as responsible for website problems as it is for the pixilated world we laughingly refer to as NBL.TV but surely there must be some bottom-line standard the league can enforce for the benefit of its product's credibility in the wider world?

Subjecting the faithful to another year of such poor quality offerings further risks alienating a fan base we should be trying to build, not disenfranchise.

The website and NBL.TV should be absolute priorities, not issues lumped into the "it will be better AFTER next season" bag.

Unless it is designed for under-10 basketball, the possession arrow is pretty much a nonsense everywhere else, but ESPECIALLY in the NBL.

I know the return of in-game jumpballs was a priority for referees boss Mal Cooper before this season started, before it was pointed out the new keyways did not have the full circle painted on them.

D'oh!

But we have til October now to get those paint jobs done. Then the tactical challenge of the jumpball should make a welcome return to NBL basketball next season.

Elsewhere on this website, you can find my views on flopping. But it is a blight on the sport which must be stamped out. My solution is a post-match video review and an automatic one-match ban. (Imagine being the first guy - and most likely the only guy - to be rubbed out for a game. The anti-flopping legislation would then almost certainly become know as the "insert name of first player found guilty" rule.

What a lovely stigma to carry. Cause believe me, the first guy rubbed out for flopping will be the last. (Unless someone has a brain fade sometime.)

Dismantling the Player Points System and renewing proper policing of the salary cap - particularly in light of the incoming "marquee player rule" - should be high on the off-season agenda.

Just cannot see how legislating for mediocrity is a plus and I can't see the PPS any other way.

The prospect of fulltime referees was thrown up on social media and while it sounds good, not sure it is feasible and how many of our top guys would want to give up their employment to be part of the NBL universe. (See what I did there, wrestling fans?)

Losing the slash from 2013/14 also was brought up. In other words, instead of Perth being the 2013/14 champion, as the season concludes this year, just make the Wildcats the 2014 champion.

I agree it would remove confusion and hardly any record adjustment. It is more cosmetic than anything else and makes way more sense to me than rewriting history to call the Illawarra Hawks team of 1979 the Wollongong Hawks, just because the league's only remaining inaugural club adjusted its name during the journey.

These others are mainly personal ones I have championed before so forgive me in advance if you roll your eyes at reading them again. (Who are you, my daughter?)

But!

*Less freaking loud rock concert music at games. Crowds create atmosphere, not DJs. Don't believe me? Revisit Games 1, 2, 3 of the Grand Final where, for much of it, the fans drowned out the music. Now that was music to my ears.

*Get adult, or at the very least, older teenage floor-wipers rather than the cavalcade of embarrassed children many clubs trot out in front of thousands to find and erase wet spots. Does someone have to get injured (and a club sued) before the league makes this compulsory?

*Unless a club's colours are white-and-whatever, let's be a colouful league and have clubs in alternate strips that reflect their colours. You know, like the old days when New Zealand wore black and then had light blue as its alternate. Or Sydney had purple as its main uniform and gold as its alternate. Same for the 36ers, who wore blue and had gold as the alternate. It's just a thought. Pretty sure everyone is watching colour TV these days. We don't need the contrast necessary for black and white sets. (Do they even make black-and-white TVs now?)

*Reinstate the NBL Hall of Fame. Leaving NBL stars hanging around waiting to get into the BA Hall of Fame when BA has so many associations, national teams, administrators, WNBL etcetera to consider in each annual intake just makes it too remote. No-one wants one of our ageing superstars to miss out - or pass away, as already has happened - while waiting to be considered behind someone who filed the scoresheets in Andamooka for 30 years.

*Realistic ticket prices. I know each market is different and what you might charge in Sydney is, or should be, different to what you may expect in Townsville. But just annually raising prices when we are still trying to reconnect with lost fans and attract new ones is fraught with peril. Stay close to what cinemas charge to be considered as a viable alternative entertainment option.

That's it for now. Got an early flight to catch home.

BUT FYI ... Still to come this week as I clear the backlog from last week's minor murmur:

*Abby Bishop and BA's outrageous treatment of a single mother;

*The NBL's Summer Pro League in Vegas;

*SEABL leaning back to BA and away from NBL.