The NBL is in a rough patch at the moment. The loss of the Bullets, Kings and Slingers in the off-season is just the start. They’ve also lost the Victoria Giants and the Hunter Pirates recently, too.
Fox sports only signed a one year extension to their contract with NBL.
I was mulling the situation over in my head recently and an interesting idea hit me. It involves a partnership with the NBA.
The NBA has been losing players to Europe for many years. Most of the time they would send their second round picks to Europe because they weren’t ready for the NBA.
They would play pro ball in the Euro leagues and then, when the NBA would come knocking for them to come back, Europe is willing to play three or four times more than the NBA can, essentially stopping teams from signing them.
The NBA developed the NBDL, a development league, for teams to send players to who weren’t NBA ready. The only problem was that teams actually had to sign their players, sacrificing money and a roster spot to a player that was spending the season in the minor leagues.
While this may be a minor problem, if a team in the hunt for the Championship really wanted their new player to come step in three or four years when they were ready, but saw their window was closing to win, and also wanted a talented veteran player to help them out and put them over the top, they had to choose.
So either the team doesn’t get the final piece it needs and the window closes, or the talented youngster is lost to Europe.
My idea for the NBL is to turn it into a mini-NBA. We already play a 48 minute game, like the NBA but we play on a European court configuration.
Changing the rules to match the NBA identically is the first step.
Second, in exchange for NBA teams to ‘sponsor’ an NBL team by covering part of the yearly operating cost of the team, they can send their rookie player to us.
The NBA team wouldn’t have to sign him, leaving their roster spot open and still freeing up salary room.
They will gain valuable pro experience, in a competition similar to the NBA, and we will surrender rights to the player as soon as the NBA comes calling, avoiding a bidding war. We will also not have legislation that forces the player to cover his own buyout like the NBA.
The NBA has to agree then, as we keeping their future on lay-buy in a sense, that they will only come to sign the player at the end of his contract in the NBL, which means they have to figure out exactly how long they are willing to wait before including him in the lineup.
For the NBL, we have a large pool to use for our import players, which is always a task in the off-season to secure new imports.
Another bonus is the affiliation with the NBA increases the leagues prestige and would assist in drawing more crowds to see future NBA players in the league and Australia’s current talent, also creating more revenue.
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