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NBL star Sam Mackinnon says the ailing competition needs a total rethink if basketball is to re-establish itself in the Australian sporting marketplace.
Mackinnon said the NBL, which tips off this weekend, must look to change the timing of its season among a raft of measures to stop the competition sliding further into obscurity.
Basketball is awaiting an independent review which is set to be released next month, with the struggling NBL likely to be comprehensively shaken up.
Mackinnon, a 15-year NBL veteran forced to find a lifeline at the Melbourne Tigers after his club Brisbane was one of three to fold in the off-season, said Australian basketball had a bright future.
But it was heavily dependent on whether the long-awaited review made the right changes, especially the timing of a season which starts buried during AFL and NRL finals and has little continuity in its fixturing.
“For outsiders it doesn’t look great. You can’t hide from that fact,” Mackinnon told AAP of an NBL in which the Bullets, fellow on-court powerhouse Sydney Kings and Singapore fell over in the off-season.
“It’s something we need to get right this time and I do see there’s a share of the marketplace there for basketball.
“Maybe having less teams, eight or 10, not focus on Asia any more, and get the right people running it – independent people in there.
“We start at the wrong time and finish at the wrong time. If we have to play from July to December, we play from July to December.
“We (should) start in the middle of the footy season and finish up before everyone goes on holidays. To me that makes sense.”
Mackinnon knows first-hand the frailty of the league.
Just days after signing off on a Queensland-based business venture to set him up for life after basketball, his Brisbane Bullets club folded as owner Eddy Groves’ child-care empire fell apart.
Mackinnon is now establishing his chain of Queensland pizza shops from Melbourne and has shaken off a succession of injuries and illnesses which wrecked last season as he prepares to suit up for the Tigers.
Melbourne, who go into the season championship favourites, take on Sydney Spirit – effectively a hastily repositioned West Sydney Razorbacks franchise – in their season opener on Sunday.
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