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The Roar

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Time for NBL to deliver

6th October, 2015
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Resuscitated by businessman Larry Kestelman, the National Basketball league must now deliver the goods and turn a feelgood pre-season vibe into tangible success.

The 2015-16 NBL season, which tips off on Wednesday, has plenty riding on it after the league was on a respirator early in the off-season when two of the eight clubs, Townsville and Wollongong, went into voluntary administration.

Kestelman, who was already involved with NBL franchise Melbourne United, took control of the ailing competition and set about trying to make the NBL “sexy” again.

Pay and free to air television deals have been secured, the latter with the Nine Network which will broadcast one game every Sunday and five finals.

While there are several new sponsorships there is still no naming rights sponsor.

The on-court product is set to be boosted by the best influx of quality players in recent memory, with a host of proven Australian players returning from overseas and a clutch of quality imports.

Former NBA star Josh Childress re-signed with Sydney, while Hakim Warrick, another player from the world’s premier club competition, signed with Melbourne, who won the pre-season Blitz tournament.

Among the locally-produced talent returning to the league are big men Julian Khazzouh (Sydney), Nate Jawai (Perth) and AJ Ogilvy with Illawarra, who revert back to their original name after being known as Wollongong for several years.

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“There’s a good influx of former Boomers and Boomers coming back from Europe,” said Dean Vickerman, coach of defending champions NZ Breakers, who have won four of the last five NBL titles.

“There’s a huge quality of big men coming into our league this year.”

Aaron Fearne, coach of last season’s minor premiers Cairns concurred.

“To have those quality Aussies come back, the league goes to another level,” Fearne said.

Melbourne regained high-scoring Australian guard Chris Goulding and signed Todd Blanchfield from Townsville, while the Illawarra Hawks and their new coach Rob Beveridge have recruited former league MVPs in Kevin Lisch and Kirk Penney.

The Breakers have retained the vast majority of their 2014-15 title-winning roster, though Corey Webster is currently trying out with NBA club New Orleans Pelicans.

Their biggest threats are are likely to come from perennial contenders Cairns and Perth, while Sydney, Illawarra and Melbourne, all of who missed the finals last season, have each significantly beefed up their rosters.

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Cairns lost last season’s best-of-three finals series to the Breakers in straight games after notching the best regular season record.

But they will be out to continue North Queensland’s sporting high, after rugby league’s Cowboys claimed their first NRL crown at the weekend and the Townsville Fire won the WNBL last season.

Cairns lost influential import guard Scottie Wilbekin to NBA side Philadelphia, but his replacement Markel Stocks was voted joint best player at the pre-season Blitz, along with another new import, Melbourne’s Stephen Holt.

The Taipans will boast an even stronger frontcourt this season, adding Boomers stalwart Mark Worthington to their roster.

Sydney have injected plenty of experience into their lineup with Boomers Khazzouh and Steve Markovic, who left Townsville, who may struggle to be a finals contender.

Question marks also hover over Adelaide and whether they can repeat last season’s top-four placing after losing Boomers powerhouse Brock Motum and centre Luke Schenscher.

The influx of so many quality bigs doesn’t automatically mean the NBL will be full of teams playing a grinding halfcourt game.

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“There’s teams that are going to be running and gunning,” Perth coach Trevor Gleeson told AAP.

“I think Adelaide are going to do a fair bit of that, and Illawarra and what we’ve seen of Melbourne is that they can all shoot threes.”

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