Random dribbling - Hallejulah!
TweetHALLEJULAH. Having long been an advocate we heavily should promote our sport's advantage in being for both sexes, the joint NBL/WNBL preseason announcement today could not come too soon.
It's a first for basketball and maybe a first for any prominent sport to have its premier competitions featured together in this way, with all 17 teams in action at Dandenong Stadium in Melbourne from September 20-23.
The tournament will even be tipped off in Fed Square at midday on September 20.
Both the NBL and WNBL regular seasons tip off on October 5, so, as usual, even this initiative has been left to receive very little pre-publicity.
Then again, let's face it, most of it will get lost in the AFL footy finals anyway.
Just for their own sake, maybe AIS could have been invited to join the nine WNBL clubs for this tourney instead of China B.
The men's format makes no sense at all. Match ups appear to have been drawn out of a hat.
Eight teams is so easy to work with I'm surprised the NBL cannot come up with a decent format.
Actually, no I'm not.
WHAT's cooking at the Kings?
They have been back in the NBL two years, about to embark on their third and already have watched three fairly decent CEO/GM/Operations Managers leave or be shoved out the door.
I'm talking Bob Turner, David Wolf and now Ian Robilliard.
Back in the 80s-90s, I never subscribed to the theory a successful Sydney club automatically meant success for the NBL.
There were some pretty decent Kings teams - names such as (off the top of my head) Davies, the Daltons, McClain, McClary, Carfino, Keogh, Ridlen, Robilliard, Uthoff etc ensured Sydney was relatively prominent - but it never truly meant anything tangible for the NBL.
Even Brian Goorjian's threepeat teams did not heavily impact for a successful league.
So "successful Sydney = successful league'' wasn't an equation to which I subscribed.
That changed though this time around, after the Kings' hiatus and this second coming of the club.
So many positives happened for the league in terms of sponsorships and support when Sydney Kings returned that it is a worry the club cannot seem to settle its front office.
Especially when it has had some pretty credentialled people in there.
OUR Rollers and Gliders wheelies are into the Gold Medal matches at the Paralympics in London in another fantastic and inspirational performance.
The Rollers are defending Paralympic champions and unbeaten so far, while the Gliders are as regularly on the medal dais as the Opals.
In both cases, it was the USA the Aussies despatched, the Gliders in a 40-39 semi final epic, the Rollers with a 72-63 victory.
PRESEASON games continue tonight with the Kings-Taipans game available through Kings Radio and the 36ers playing Elkhart Express in China.
THE Royal Show is back in Adelaide but former Tigers championship-winner and 36er Neil Mottram has had his fill of roller-coaster rides.
From winning the SA championship with Forestville to life-saving bowel surgery 36 hours later, Mottram has been through the most dramatic of ups and downs this week.
On the one hand, the 36ers watch his stellar grand final performance and consider reviving his NBL career, on the other he is bed-ridden for a further week at Royal Adelaide Hospital, then headed for a three-month recovery period.
"I guess I put a nail in that,'' he said of speculation of an NBL return.
But as the 31-year-old multiple-championship winner starts the slow climb back to our previous image of him as a star player just last Saturday, he most cruelly has been reminded there is a lot more to life than dominating a basketball court.
A near-death experience will do that for you.
"It makes you remember just what's important in life,'' Mottram's dual-Olympian wife Jenni Screen said.
Mottram could not have been more important than he was in the grand final before post-game stomach cramps turned out to be much worse.
"Since the word got out about what happened to Neil, people have been incredibly gracious and generous,'' Screen said.
"It's been quite overwhelming.''
Dual-Olympic Boomer and San Antonio Spurs guard Patty Mills popped in to visit him and his four-time Olympian brother, star distance-runner Craig, also came to town and in for a visit.
A RUSSIAN soldier, an American GI, an English commando and two German U-boat captains walk into a bar.
The barman looks up from where he is cleaning glasses, stares at them and says: "What is this? Some kind of joke?"