A new Australian Basketball Championship?

MELBOURNE (Paulo Kennedy’s View from Downunder) - It was interesting chatting to a member of the Australian Boomers Olympic contingent this week, listening to how carefully they tried to manage their pre-tournament build-up to hit the ground running.

They didn't want to peak too soon, didn't want to play too many lead-up matches, were happy to lose to Brazil in an exhibition game ahead of their opening night clash in London …

It was a definitely a thoroughly planned lead-up, but you know what they say about the best laid plans? The Boomers had yet another tentative start to a major tournament, as is their habit.

Since 1998 Australia has had just one quality performance in the opening game of a major tournament, in 2006 when a vastly understrength team shocked Brazil at the FIBA World Championship.

Preparing a team for a tournament or season is not an easy job. It's important in the Olympics, and recent history tells us it is crucial in the NBL.

Over the past three years there has only been one change to the NBL's top four after the first third of the season, and on two of those occasions it has been the fifth-placed team stepping into a playoff spot.

If you want to make the playoffs you had better be on your game early, and that means preparing well.

In Europe, with countless quality teams across more than 20 countries, there is plenty of competition on offer to play multiple exhibition games.

But Downunder there are only eight professional teams - one in New Zealand and the rest spread across the length and breadth of Australia. That is an area not much smaller than continental Europe.

So, as you could imagine, it is difficult to get a lot of practice games.

As a result, most teams try to arrange a couple of two-game series against another NBL team and then play in the three-game NBL pre-season tournament.

That's seven games, and if they're lucky another game will fall into their lap late in the pre-season.

Others look to play in overseas tournaments. This year the Adelaide 36ers headed to China for five games following a match-up with Nicholls State University.

By the time the NBL season starts they will have had around 10 games. The problem is, after playing sides from the NCAA, Serbia, China and a semi-pro US squad they haven't yet faced an NBL standard team.

The Melbourne Tigers found out the damage this can do two seasons ago. After tours of Ireland and China they came into the NBL season almost undefeated, but were simply uncompetitive.

They had some big issues regardless, but playing inferior opposition masked how bad they actually were.

The other issue in NBL pre-season is most games are played in local stadiums to reach out to grassroots basketballers.

Unfortunately, with teams usually featuring numerous new players and not having many games to knit, these contests often aren't great advertisements for the league.

So the solution needs to have volume games, even if against inferior opponents, have games in local stadiums that present NBL teams in a good light, and have plenty of opportunities to play other NBL teams too.

My idea is the Australian Basketball Championship, running through August into early September.

In Australia's state leagues or division two competitions there are some 100 clubs, all linked to a local association.

In a cross between the FA Cup in England and NCAA Tournament in the USA, the Australian Basketball Championship (ABC) would place the top 56 state league teams and eight NBL giants in a six-round knockout competition.

All early games would be home games for state league teams, and the competition could culminate in an eight-team finals event over one weekend in a single location.

If the draw was arranged so at least two state league teams make the final eight it could create some serious anticipation. So would the prospect of an upset when an NBL team comes to play the local heroes.

Most importantly, it would mean NBL teams get 3-6 early practice games, play in front of local crowds against teams they can show their skills off against, with the tournament bringing the disparate Australian basketball community together under one umbrella.

When an NBL team travels as part of the ABC to play a local team, a practice game could be scheduled against that city's NBL team the next day, behind closed doors or for club members only.

Now the number of practice games is up to 6-9 with three weeks to go until season tip off. From there teams can arrange a two-game series and participate in the NBL pre-season tournament and they are into double figures.

Why is this so important? The NBL's biggest regular season TV ratings are almost always in Round 1. Unfortunately, if the broadcast games feature teams who are yet to gel the product isn't one that gets people to tune in again.

This has happened season after season where the viewer drop away is too big, hurting the league's standing with their broadcaster.

An idea like the Australian Basketball Championship creates an extra level of excitement for local basketball fans, brings them close to NBL teams, allows better preparation for the crucial start to the NBL season and gives young state league players a chance to test themselves against professionals.

It's hard to think of negatives that out-weigh those positives.
 

Paulo Kennedy

FIBA

FIBA’s columnists write on a wide range of topics relating to basketball that are of interest to them. The opinions they express are their own and in no way reflect those of FIBA.

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