Basketball On The Internet.

WOLLONGONG signing Adris "2Hard2Guard" Deleon means the Hawks again will be very much in the mix of what threatens to be a fiercely contested 2012-13 iiNet NBL championship.

Deleon averaged 16.6 points, 4.3 rebounds and 3.2 assists in 28 minutes per game last season for Gold Coast Blaze and joins new import Lance Hurdle in Wollongong. 

The Hawks already bring back Larry Davidson, Oscar Forman, Tim Coenraad, Rhys Martin, Glen Saville, David Gruber, Tyson Demos, Daniel Jackson, keeping so much of their core intact, plus Auryn MacMillan.

They look very promising.

But spare a thought for the defunct Blaze, a semi finalist last season.

Their personnel has been quickly snapped up, showing what a great job coach Joey Wright and the club did in assembling the crew.

Mark Worthington has landed in Serbia and Stephen Hoare has retired.

But imports Deleon and Will Hudson (New Zealand) both have found new homes, and so have Adam Gibson (Adelaide), James Harvey (Sydney), Chris Goulding (Melbourne),  Anthony Petrie (Adelaide), Jason Cadee (Adelaide), Tom Garlepp (Sydney).

Wright, by the way, is working for Gold Coast Basketball, which should keep eight NBL coaches very much on their toes.

NOT sure why some clubs (or associations) want to play games with the media when it can only end badly for someone, usually the club (or association).

Since they nearly disappeared without trace, the Cairns Taipans, for example, have been a model NBL club.

They have the community/ownership balance right, their front office is professional and astute, their coaching staff among the best in the nation.

So why play games with the Cairns Post newspaper last week when that medium can be such an asset for the Taipans?

Why give the paper virtually every detail about incoming import Shane Edwards, without revealing his identity?

What is the point in that?

I gave Edwards' name up in these pages last week to highlight the folly of holding out on a vehicle such as The Post, the paper in the town which can most help the program.

Why on a Friday would you not give up ALL of his details and be the beneficiary of maximum exposure in Saturday's newspaper, than hold out and announce it on a Monday?

I don't get it.

For the record, Edwards is 25, 202cm,100kg, and attended the University of Arkansas (Little Rock) from 2007-09, the same school NBA veteran Derek Fisher not only attended but for which he bankrolled an amazing practice facility.

I had the pleasure of seeing the venue - which is a perfect NBL size - and the adjacent courts Fisher paid for and it is a gem of a place to practice, grow and thrive.

In Edwards' senior year, UofA finished as Sun Belt Conference (West Division) regular season champ. He averaged 11.8 points, 5.4 rebounds and 1.5 assists per game and was named All-Sun Belt First Team.

The Sun Belt has some pretty decent teams now, including Western Kentucky and University of Louisanna (Lafayette) - the Ragin' Cajuns. Adelaide 36ers 1998-99 NBL championship teams boasted Darnell Mee from WKU and Kevin Brooks from those Ragin' Cajuns.

Edwards has also played some D-League and European ball.

LET'S just say IF the 36ers sign CJ Massingale, should they then look at adding BJ Carter and EJ Rowland?

I mean, as long as the Sixers already have DJ Johnson, why stop there?

Is AJ Ogilvy available?

That would be a fair line-up there with AJ, BJ, CJ, DJ and EJ.

BEFORE I forget. Whaaaaaaat waaaaas uuuuuuppppp with all those ridiculouuuuuus sloooooow motion replaaaaaaaaaays of peopllllllllllllle grimacinggggggggggg or blinkinnnnnnng after plaaaaays duuuuuuring the Olympiiiiiics basketballlllllllll coveraaaaaaage?

There. That was the written-word equivalent of all those useless pans during the Games. See how annoying that was?

IS Matthew Dellavedova the new Tully Bevilaqua?

YOU know, I've strongly felt that for the past decade or so, NBL clubs have made a lot of mistakes with their import selections.

Going for a guy who was an "NBA last cut" or maybe a D-Leaguer is understandable and marketable.

But how often have those guys panned out in the longer term when they're still of an age to be thinking the NBA is their next destination?

And how much have those players demanded financially?

I bring this up because there are about 35 Division 1 conferences across the NCAA in the USA.

Let's under-estimate the number of teams and say, 10 per conference and that gives us some 350-400 teams, if you factor in some NAIA, NCAA Div.II and independents.

That's about 4,000 players competing in any given year. (Yes, I know I am under-estimating the numbers but this makes for a quicker and easy-to-follow analysis.)

Let's say of the 4,000, 1,000 are seniors who are graduating. After we have the guys who are drafted to the NBA, can make a big quid in Europe or Asia, what do we have left?

I'd say about 500 guys a year who will be hanging up their pro dreams and either playing domestic ball somewhere or never throwing down another dunk in their working lives.

Where am I going with this?

A couple of years ago, I was in the USA watching my daughter play some college ball and a few times, her university was playing a women's-men's double-header.

This was in the Sun Belt Conference which, I believe, at the time was rated at about #8 of the 35 Divvy 1 conferences.

I saw so many potential NBL quality imports running around that my mind boggled. Exciting young guys with mad hops or crazy skills. And post graduation, most, if not all, fell into that category of "basketball career over."

These guys would LOVE a shot out here, would play for manageable money and, often, settle down.

Who do we consider our greatest American NBL legend?

Obviously it's Leroy. Now where did he play?

Fairmont University.

No offence intended but have you ever heard of the Fighting Falcons?

It's a Div.2 school - not that there is anything wrong with that - and it produced our greatest American NBL player. And he settled here. And he became a citizen. And he played for Australia at an Olympics.

Do you think these are not attractive options for a guy whose alternative is to hang up his playing career?

If I was an NBL CEO, each year in January I would send a reliable scout out to the USA for three weeks to go and watch the "lesser" Conferences and teams in action.

We once had Dr Dave Adkins to do that for us because he knew what our playing level was. Now we should do that for ourselves, and I say this with all due respect to any former NBA or D-Leaguer now on our shores.

I just think there are some fabulous long-term options being lost and money invested in finding them would be a very sound investment.

THE Woollacott Medal for the fairest and most brilliant men's player in the SA State league has become a bit of a "kiss of death" for those wanting to suit for Adelaide 36ers.

Sturt guard and long-time 36ers development player Tom Daly, who on Sunday became the youngest winner of the Medal since Phil Smyth in 1978, is the latest to be hit by the "curse".

Being the best player in domestic SA basketball has not been translating to an NBL roster spot, though Daly will travel with the team next week to China.

But he is not on the team roster for the 2012-13 iiNet Championship.

Last year Jacob Holmes won the Medal (for the third time) and could not get a contract here, winding up in Townsville where he was and remains a huge hit.

American swingman Riley Luettgerodt won it at Forestville the previous year and would have been a better bet than any of the four imports tried and fried by the 36ers that season.

Darren Ng won the year before and, OK, it may be a coincidence ... but he isn't playing this NBL season.

Erik Burdon at North the year before? He has been playing SEABL at Mount Gambier.

Dusty Rychart at North the year before that? He was off to Brisbane and hasn't been a 36er since.

Oscar Forman won the Woollacott in 2005. Where has he been since?

No Woollacott Medallist since Rupert Sapwell last century, has made it or stayed on the 36ers' roster.

I'm not throwing out any sort of conspiracy theory. It's just an unusual oddity.

A RABBI, a priest and a Buddhist monk 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?