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NBL? Non-stop Bullshit League


A HUMBLE thank you to all the readers who sent emails, texts, DMs etc querying the lack of activity at this site lately but there are reasons. One, I have a project I'm working on but two, I am having serious difficulty handling all the bullshit constantly being spewed about the game.

For example, it's been years now the NBL has been trying to convince anyone who is new to the sport (or simply gullible) that it is the world's second-best league.

It's such a freakin' nonsense as to be offensive to anyone who knows anything about international basketball. Call the NBL the "baby NBA" or the "NBA wannabe" and yes, you may have a case.

But the world's second-best league, as the NBL tags onto its releases - as if trying to convince itself too? Check it out.

It's such bullshit. There's a reason we celebrate our Aussies going to the NBA, THEN next to a Euroleague team, or to Spain, or the G-League etcetera ad infinitum. You know why? Because those leagues - and others - rate more highly than our NBL. Pretty simple.

Dealing daily with that sort of self-aggrandisement apart, tuning into the opening game of the NBL season and one of the first things commentator Derek Rucker says is the Tasmania JackJumpers "stole" the championship last season.

Say what? WTF Derek?

The league's newest club started absolutely from scratch and in its three years of existence made the grand final series in Year 1, the semi finals in Year 2 and won the NBL championship in Year 3.

They "stole" the championship??? What a load of absolute codswallop, clearly designed just to be provocative.

Ruckster, you're one of the best at insightful, useful commentary. Trying to be Corey "Homicide" Williams II is not what we need from you. Damon Lowery already has that gig but sadly, no-one will ever be able to emulate the late, great Homicide's tongue-in-cheek cheek.

Next we're subjected to Derek's "Top 15" players. OK. I have no issue with opinion pieces. I'm writing one now! But the amount of baloney about Xavier Cooks is off the chart.

Rating him the #1 player in the league is particularly "out there" because he may not even be the #1 player in the Sydney Kings!

(Reminds me of the time Ringo was ranked the best drummer in the world until someone pointed out he wasn't even the best drummer in the Beatles.)

But OK, fair enough. Every player, import or local who didn't like Derek's rating is now going to be extra-motivated to prove him wrong, right?

Yeah of course. Pro sportsmen really give a flying frapdoodle what media thinks.

Trying to watch the game when next we cop an extended sideline interview with Carmelo Anthony while the match is in progress. And it goes on and on. FFS, couldn't that have waited until the halftime interval?

Is the game no longer the priority but instead sideline antics and the comedic stylings of a long list of funnyman wannabes?

The 36ers run out for their first game wearing maroon uniforms. Maroon. The club was built on the state's colours of red, gold and blue and every season when Adelaide trots out a heritage round uniform, the fans love it.

But does the management look at that go, "hmm, maybe navy, or pink or now maroon isn't the way to go"?

These uniforms were of such high quality too that by midway through his first game, the club's latest (and best in a long long while) signing Montrezl Harrell had a good portion of his name on the singlet's back peeling off.

And then referee James Grigoul has the audacity to think he is so very important and officious an official that he warns Harrell he will cop a technical foul if he engages with anyone in the crowd.

Say what??!

Again, what a terrific reflection of what happens to referees if the league is always so busy protecting them, rather than making them accountable. Fortunately, someone pulled him into line which brought a right-and-proper apology to Harrell. 

Welcome to the second best league in the world Mo.

Brisbane gets its pants pulled down by New Zealand and coach Justin Schueller says his team was pathetic and "this is the kick in the arse we needed, to be honest."

It's fucking Round 1 mate. If your team needed a "kick in the arse" in Round 1, you may need a kick out the door.

FFS, are we really supposed to take this sort of self-serving shit seriously?

And New Zealand was down its import Freddie Gillespie after his preseason head butt on Shaun Bruce.

Gillespie became the first player in NBL history suspended for an official NBL game BEFORE playing an official NBL game.

Let's talk Hoops Fest for a moment. It is a brilliant idea, exceptional.

It almost got me excited for a minute. That was before I remembered WNBL players such as Sami Whitcombe and Jade Melbourne for example would be unavailable (playing WNBA) and that due to some typically ill-conceived players union edict, teams could not actually start training in time to offer proper representation in Perth.

So yes, NBL, WNBL, BA - great concept but try doing it like the AFL's "gather round" and a few weeks in-season when everyone is playing, not when half the competitors cannot put their best foot forward. 

How did Hoops Fest go with all those grand sell-out matches?

NBL CEO David Stevenson called Round 1 an "outstanding success". Total Round 1 attendance - 23,198. Last season's Round 1 attendance? 52,835.

Nah, they're not feeding all us gullible lil mushrooms bullshit at all. (By the way, has anyone ever seen Stevenson and Nigel Purchase in the same room at the same time?)

LET's switch our attention to the Olympics. Opals coach Sandy Brondello took them to a bronze medal in Paris - can we please grow out of the "rose gold" routine now? - and Australia even beat silver medallist France.

So reappoint Sandy? Hell no. She did fine and let's leave it at that.

Truth is we were an embarrassment against Nigeria and also the USA where the strategy seemed to be let's see if we can beat them at their own game. 

Guess what? Nobody can.

That's why the women's final was so engrossing because France played them super-tough and frustrated the hell out of them with physicality and patience. It was a one-point game. Who saw that coming?

Not the Opals brains trust, that's for sure. It took two superlative efforts from outgoing captain Tess Madgen to drag Australia onto the podium after Brondello again forgot how to best utilise Lauren Jackson.

At 43, why take her if you're not going to play her? Fact is, she thoroughly deserved her spot on that team and if used properly - something Brondello showed she couldn't do even at the 2022 FIBA World Cup - likely the Opals could have been on a higher final rung.

Same for Goorj and the Boomers.

If you're going to take an ageing Joe Ingles who you then don't use but explain his selection by saying: "He was coaching. He was talking to the two guards. He was working guys out and working with guys that didn't get a lot of minutes. He was tremendous." then sorry, that doesn't cut it.

You just described an assistant coach, not a player in the rotation. Take Joe in a polo shirt and put him on staff, maybe unloading the assistant who consistently draws up the last plays that lead to us not even getting up a shot attempt.

The last play drawn up in a timeout against Germany at the Worlds was a turnover. The last play drawn up in a timeout against Serbia in Paris was a turnover.

Think we can let that fellow go. (And that after Patty's heroic basket over Nikola Jokic to send the match to overtime.) But hero ball just does not work at this level, and nor does trying to play like the USA. Except for the USA. And only just.

When you go to an Olympics hoping to create history and the only history you return with is having lost a game after leading by 24 - the greatest single leading margin a team lost from all-time at the Games - then apologies, but you fell well short.

Not of my expectations because I feared the Boomers wouldn't escape their group. But the "Group of Death"? Not one of its teams made it past the quarter-final stage.

The Paris result doesn't in any way diminish Brian Goorjian's record as our sport's most successful men's coach or his contribution to where we are and how we're perceived in world basketball.

We just don't have the "second best league in the world" and every now and, just once in a blue moon maybe, someone in the working media could actually punch out some harsh reality and not the rose-coloured glasses stuff so preferred at NBL headquarters.

The Commissioner, Jeremy Loeliger has gone, back fighting crime with Batman possibly. But even he had a parting podcast shot claiming a prolific player agent - best known as the only genuine source of an equally over-rated media type - was a driver of the NBL Next Stars program.

Sorry JL but that was a guy named Raheim Brown who brought the concept to 36ers coach Joey Wright who, with then club CEO Guy Hedderwick brought Terrance Ferguson to Adelaide, launching the entire concept.

Love revisionist history, or the other new term "alternate facts", don't you?

So finally, that's a general summary of why I'm taking a step back this season and will only write when something worth writing about occurs.

Right now, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Tasmania - after a rough early start - are my likely top four, Illawarra my other certainty for the post-season.

Why we cannot just call it a top six but have to slavishly copy the NBA with a so-called "play-in" tournament is just how the NBL operates.

Cairns is shaping as last, NZ, Adelaide, SEM and Brisbane all still at an unpredictable stage of their development.

So, you know, same old, same old. I'm just done with having crap shovelled at me.

Sep 27

Content, unless otherwise indicated, is © copyright Boti Nagy.