The NBL looked well and truly dead a month ago. Everyone but Larry Sengstock felt it was time to call in a priest.
The progressive decline in health that afflicted the league in the 2008-09 competition is just the sort of the thing that leads to last rites – struggling attendance, clubs crying bankruptcy, star players jumping ship, poor media coverage and a general lack of interest from the public.
Something had to give. Or did it?
The NBL’s newest boss, Sengstock, has refused to stand idly by and watch his sport, and his league, keel over.
Instead, the four-time Olympian and NBL hall of famer – who may become Australia’s own Larry Legend if he succeeds – is doing his best to resuscitate what many once regarded as the best basketball comp in the world, behind the NBA.
And the current prognosis is positive.
“I think on the floor we are going to see some fantastic basketball this season. The standard of play will be better and bigger than ever because we have consolidated the players,” Sengstock said recently.
The result is eight teams for the ‘09-10 NBL season, three of which have been staples in Australian basketball for many years: the Wollongong Hawks, Adelaide 36ers and Melbourne Tigers.
And it’s the participation of these clubs that’s crucial to the success of the league this season, simply because they represent consistency. Inconsistency, after all, is what hurt the NBL and bewildered its fanbase over the past decade.
If you think back to the halcyon days of the league (the early to mid-Nineties), it was a consistent product.
As fans, we knew what we were getting – our favourite clubs (like the Sydney Kings, Geelong Supercats or Canberra Cannons), soaring dunks from Dwayne McClain and James Crawford, a plain orange game ball, Mitsubishi as the major sponsor, regular free-to-air coverage, Bill Woods and Steve Carfino in commentary, simple but respectable looking uniforms and, public appearances in schools and shopping centres by the stars.
Yes, the NBL was once consistent and had sporting presence.
There’s no doubt 2009 is a far more challenging environment in which to run a sporting competition.
Just ask David Gallop.
But the sinful list of poor decisions by NBL chiefs from the mid-Nineties to today, only served to undermine a competition that should have grown bigger in the last 15 years, not smaller.
With the exception of the 36ers, Tigers and Hawks, where are our favourite teams now? What happened to the Supercats? The Gold Coast Rollers? The Newcastle Falcons?
Why did the game ball suddenly spawn yellow trimming? Why aren’t more star players out there promoting the game? And why can’t we get Billy Woods back? At least he cared!
I for one have faith in Larry Sengstock. He’s promising us eight quality teams this year. He’s scored us televised games on Foxtel.
And he’s realised that foundation clubs and communities, like Wollongong, Adelaide and Melbourne, are vital for an NBL resurgence. Sure, he couldn’t resurrect my favourite club the Sydney Kings.
But at least he hasn’t called in the priest, yet.
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