SEABL reticence restores faith in clubs
TweetLOOKS as if Basketball Australia needs to find more ways to leverage the SEABL after Sunday’s special meeting to snaffle the nation’s longest-running interstate competition had to be moved again.
BA has given itself another month and a half to find ways to convince the less-impressed SEABL clubs of its sincerity and ability to run the competition, with Saturday, June 21 the new deadline for “the decision”.
The BA staff involved in the upper echelons of the SEABL will now regroup again to come back more prepared.
But let’s face it. All a SEABL delegate needs to do is ring an NBL CEO or a WNBL GM and ask how they think BA handled or is handling their elite competition.
Once the laughter subsides, those that care about the SEABL and not about monopolising our elite comps will know that their misgivings are grounded in truth and history.
BA simply cannot run a competition that isn’t complete in a week. Yep, its junior national championships are pretty decent – but host clubs have much to do with that. And they are over in a week.
SEABL GM Mark Chivers has written to his clubs and it is clear he wasn’t happy they did not all jump into the BA pool like they were supposed to.
Silly buggers having minds of their own!
“It is with regret that the SEABL Board write to you to advise that the Special League Meeting scheduled for this Sunday May 4th has been postponed until Saturday 21st June,” he wrote.
“The Board is very disappointed that over the past three years, members have been consulted on the transition process and any queries from members have been addressed.
“The Final Meeting Papers were sent to clubs on 1st April with a request to clubs to contact the office or any members of the Board if they had any issues they would like addressed.
“It has not been until the last week that some members have circulated concerns to the transition process.
“These issues are issues that could have and should have been raised throughout the transition process.
“Members have had over three years to raise these concerns and they would have been addressed by the Board, Management and BA.
“The Board propose that all club presidents and CEO’s only be invited to attend the compulsory June 21 Meeting, where the Board and BA will make a presentation and address any issues that clubs might have.”
Well, perhaps those Final Meeting Papers delivered on April 1st were considered to be some kind of April Fools’ joke?
So now the Board wants only presidents and CEOs at the next meeting. Clearly BA is agitated the SEABL doesn’t want to surrender control without ALL the facts and full disclosure.
Maybe they are wary of The Exderwinator?
Maybe some of them just rang the good folk at Logan Thunder and came away less than dazzled.
BA’s tactic of simply wearing down the SEABL clubs is transparent and, to be honest, a little sad.
Like I have said before, the benefits of BA running the SEABL are minimal, the hazards incalculable.
“Sharing resources” is not a good reason to give up control of a competition clubs started while BA still was the ABF and figuratively patting itself on the tummy lauding the advent of Oceania and an easier ride into international tourneys.
Again. I do have the phone numbers for people at Logan and people at Gold Coast Blaze if any of the SEABL folk about to face six weeks of constant leveraging need to talk to basketball people about the “benefits” of BA involvement.
KRISTINA Keneally never really “got it” during her involvement with BA, first as its Chair, then as its CEO.
Away from the day-to-day of the sport, I found her intelligent, charming, humorous and very educated.
But once the lights went on and the audience attentive or the cameras rolling, she reverted to a politician which was never what a sport battling for relevance needed.
At last year’s annual Pete’s Bar Lunch in Melbourne where I had the privilege to join her and then interim-NBL CEO Steve Dunn as guest speakers, she again was too quick to be able to quote (rote?) participation numbers, medals, rankings etcetera while the audience stifled a yawn.
They came in good faith and wanted to hear her. But the person they needed to hear was the Kristina Keneally at my table, who was delightful and natural, while still a little imposing.
We had a disagreement where I felt her tweets should be less political – given she had been a NSW Premier for Labor – and more in keeping with someone who needed to work with both sides of the political spectrum as our federation’s leader.
When she confirmed this week she would not be returning from the six months’ unpaid compassionate leave granted by BA, few in basketball were surprised.
As much promise as KK showed when she came in initially as BA Chair and went straight after the ridiculous funding for soccer in Sydney’s west, there really wasn’t much to show for her time at the top.
“All of the staff at Basketball Australia can be rightly proud of significant strides we have made over the past two and half years, both in terms of sports high performance and commercial success,” she said in a press release from BA and on its website.
“In a time of tremendous change and challenge for Australian sport, Basketball Australia has delivered grass-roots participation growth, Olympic and Paralympic medals, new commercial sponsorship for the Opals and the WNBL, and expanded free to air national television coverage for the WNBL, Boomers, and Opals.
“BA has also transformed how high performance development is delivered for all four national team programs – the Boomers, Opals, Rollers and Gliders – with four full-time national team head coaches and the new Basketball Australia National Centres of Excellence.”
Yeah. It sounds good but brush the smoke away and it’s not really a lot that wasn't there previously.
It says just as much that the NBL clubs, given the option of “demerging” (at least we all learnt a new word last year), voted unanimously to do so.
And her treatment of former Townsville Crocs owner George Colbran can best be described as “unfortunate”, at worst “juvenile and brash”.
Colbran tangibly supported the game for a lot longer than KK but it is likely she was getting Bad Advice.
She leaves with promise unfulfilled and, sadly, with a far larger section of the basketball community barely batting an eyelash at her departure.
I guess it is hard to stop being a politician, even when the person was so much more worthwhile.
But at least she never has to think twice about a tweet again.
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This just in ...
THE United Nations apparently is sanctioning its first ever international basketball competition.
Word is it will be held at the Geneva Convention … Centre.
BEEN receiving a number of calls and emails from the good folk curious who might replace Kristina Keneally now as Basketball Australia as its new CEO.
Cannot confirm this but there are rumors Ashton’s Circus is playing Sydney so a new act shouldn’t be hard to find.
NBL CEO Fraser Neill was impressed with the manner in which his NBA counterpart Adam Silver handled the entire Donald Sterling/LA Clippers crisis this week.
Neill described Silver’s decisions as “quick and decisive” and I am sure he added: “Much like the NBL after the Perth-Adelaide melee in Perth”.