Basketball On The Internet.

A CAMP was supposed to tip off in Phoenix, Arizona, on Wednesday but instead the first Opals squad of 20-22 players now will join new coach Sandy Brondello in the US next month.

While no-one will say it on the record, it does appear organising passports, visas, papers, time off etcetera for such a big group to join the Mercury's WNBA championship-winning coach so quickly after her long-awaited appointment, was maybe too sudden even for Basketball Australia's crack organising team.

"Some of our European-contracted players couldn't get releases," BA's high perfomance general manager Jan Stirling said.

Instead the Opals now will head over in June but the fact remains, if the camp was to have gone ahead two days ago, a squad already must have been selected.

WNBA players such as Rio Olympic starters Erin Phillips and Leilani Mitchell head a small Aussie contingent who will not be available for the camp or the Asia Cup Series in India from July 19 to August 1.

"I am happy we could reschedule the camp to end of June as now I will have more players available and it is closer to Asian Cup," Brondello told me.

As for which of her newly-appointed assistants, WNBL championship-winning Sydney Uni Flames coach Cheryl Chambers or Canberra Capitals' rookie coach Paul Goriss, would likely hold the reins at the Asia Cup, it hasn't yet formally been decided.

The pair and others in Brondello's coaching staff are heading to Phoenix to meet with the new Opals boss.

Stirling said there were decisions to be made yet on peripheral squad members to trim it back to the required number, which seems at odds with the fact the camp originally was scheduled for two days ago.

The fact London Olympics teammates and past WNBL MVPs Liz Cambage and Abby Bishop both will be back in the WNBL in 2017-18 should give Brondello a solid initial starting point.

CELEBRATION: Abby Bishop and Liz Cambage celebrate beating Russia in London.

Cambage was the lynchpin of the Opals' 2016 Rio campaign while Bishop fell out of favour with the previous Opals regime after adopting her sister's baby Zala and taking on the role of a single parent.

What should have been a massive positive PR exercise for Basketball Australia celebrating her selfless act, instead became an embarrassing botch ridiculing it, which, given the Opals have a brand new face, hopefully is cause to rejoice.

While support for the appointments of Chambers and Goriss as assistants has been universal, it is interesting that the first key criteria in consideration for an Opals assistant's  role was "Held a coaching position with a WNBL team for a minimum of THREE years".

Again, not having a crack here at Goriss, who clearly didn't select himself, but as a rookie WNBL coach at Canberra this season past, it appears the criteria largely was irrelevant - unless your name is Larissa Anderson.

Dual-championship winner and 2017 Coach of the Year runner-up Chris Lucas has good reason to feel slighted, though no-one is in any doubt Goriss will fulfill the faith shown in him.

It just begs the question, what's more important - meeting the criteria or being a pawn in the masterplan of a Melbourne-based BA desk jockey?

YES, regular visitors here have known since March 9 but Melbourne Boomers finally made it officially official by revealing the WNBL outfit has signed Louella Tomlinson.

Another member of one of basketball's "first families" Tomlinson, 29 and 193cm, is a player who for too long has been overlooked for international opportunities with the Opals, having spent time playing abroad in Hungary (twice), Italy and Spain.

She also helped Perth Lynx into the 2015-16 Grand Final Series.

A two-time Bronze Medallist with Australia at World University Games, she is a massive defensive keyway presence and alongside other new Boomers faces Cambage and Jenna O'Hea, puts Melbourne truly into the championship race.

Another Opals squad candidate, Sara Blicavs, also has resigned with Dandenong Rangers in other WNBL news. 

Louella Tomlinson, Boomers bound, and Sara Blicavs heading back to Ranger station.