ABL Season 4 looks more compact, but still competitive

KUALA LUMPUR (Mageshwaran’s AsiaScope) - The Asean Basketball League, South East Asia’s catalyst for development in the last few years, last week launched its Season 4 with much fanfare with a revamped look. A look that, in the words of the ABL co-founder Tan Sri Tony Fernandes, is “brighter and more exciting and does a great job expressing the passion.”

But it’s more in the renovated format of the league itself that the efforts of the ABL founders towards consolidating the gains made in the previous three seasons – stimulating as they were – are more obvious. Simply put not only the logo – the face of the ABL – has changed, but also an effort has been made to get the right approach along with keeping in mind the overall development of the region itself.

Tinkering and tampering with any league – especially international – which involves multiple and multi-faceted dimensions in terms of background is not uncommon, and sometimes even considered important to determine the long-term future of the sport.

On the face of it, the ABL Season 4 will feature two fewer teams than last season, but that doesn’t mean any dilution in the intensity of the competition. Quite to the contrary, the current format of each country being represented by no more than one team will in fact crystallise the basketball talent in the respective countries thus not allowing any dilution.

The South East Asian region – barring the sporadic showing of Philippines – is yet to fulfill its potential in international basketball. This is a reality. And this exactly seems the backdrop of the pragmatic approach that has come about in drawing up the ABL Season 4.

With no more than one team representing each country, all teams will have a better and more even spread of the local players thus gradually gravitating away from the tendency to depend on imports in order to merely win. A title triumph is for sure very important and exciting. It's just that when it happens with local players it’s all the sweeter.

A triumph that comes with an import-laden team might help to promote the commercial interests of a team – and there's nothing wrong with that at all – but the interests are met with a more fruitful and purposeful end when the domestic talent contributes in the triumph. And let's not to forget the development – on all fronts – that happens alongside.

Having one team less in the competition might look like a reduction in the level of the league, but in this context, the reality is that the reduction in teams will only help in weeding out the bloat ware.

After all, hasn’t quality always triumphed over quantity!

So long…

S Mageshwaran

FIBA Asia

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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