Australian basketball's forgotten NBA pioneer

Aron Baynes currently with the San Antonio Spurs Matthew Dellavedova made the cut with the Cleveland Cavaliers Are the only recent Australian players to make the cut, we currently have 4 Australian Players in the NBA, those 2 alongside of patty mills and Andrew Bogut

Thanks for the recognition. Clearly few know of the history. If you want some more history I can be reached at: Cell 303 332 9529 Hme 303 978 9022 Carl Rodwell

Johnno - good point regarding a lot of players not being ready for NBL at 18-21 years old. Check out www.basketball.edu.au, The Australian College of Basketball, which is being run by Phil Smyth and Steve Breheny our of Dandenong Stadium. It's a two year program for the age group you've identified, which also provides a Diploma of Sport qualification for its graduates. It will have 60 students at any one time. Reece Jordan - Regarding AJ Ogilvy. He had a great career at Vanderbilt University, and most likely would've been a first round NBA draft pick had he declared after his freshman season. His form slipped off a little bit after those two years, for a number of reasons, and he is currently playing in Spain with Valencia, after spending last year with Besiktas in Turkey. He's a solid European pro, but I'm not sure he'll quite reach the heights of the NBA.

Sorry to digress from the content of the article, but all this talk of Aussie players in the States makes me yield the question....what happen to A.J. Ogilvy? I've never followed college closely, but he'd gotten a few magazine spots (SLAM Magazine comes to mind) and I'd seen him pegged up fairly high in the second round on some mocks but he was never drafted. Anyone have an explanation as to why?

B-Rock you make some good points in regards to channel 10 and the increasing exposure needed to get the general public more interested and buying tickets. However at lest the NBL gets those regular games shown on a commercial channel like One even if it is at 10:30 at night, the WNBL gets only one game a week on the ABC, and they are thankful for even that. While I realize, right or wrong, women’s sports will never have the same draw cards or support as their men’s counter parts, Australian women’s basketball has one of the strongest group of players they have ever had. With women like Belinda Snell and Sam Richards coming back from the euro leagues and the range of new exciting, talent such as Lizzy Cambage and Rachel Jarry coming up it would be a great time to try and capitalize on this forgotten side of basketball.

Big Al - 'abysmal performance in front of a home crowd at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.' That's a bit harsh. To finish 4th is a bloody good achievement. We'd be jumping out of our skin with 4th at the Olympics or World Championships these days.

To mention the NBL's rise and fall over the past 20 years is not to deathride the sport - it's pretty much common knowledge, and people might have opinions of how, when and why - all of which will have some validity - but to deny that there was a rise and fall is to deny the verifiable history of the sport. Only people like you need to bring in a reference to the AFL - no one else is doing it.

Yes, I remember that 1996 team well. Remember the boomers took on the Dreamteam in a friendly just before the Olymnpics, and Heal shot a string of 3 pointers, and someone took him, might even have been Shaq?? Heal confronted him, and it got a bit nasty, an ol' Shaq may even have been taken aback somewhat. It was pretty much from that effort that Heal ended up with a contract with the Timberwolves.

I think the high point of b/ball in Aus. was 1996. The Boomers set off for the Atlanta Olympics that year with a well deserved expectation that they could medal and some people in basketball circles (Wayne Carroll ?) went on the public record saying that basketball would be the biggest sport in Australia by the year 2000 !!? As we know, they didn't quite do it in Atlanta, and things just seemed to go down hill from there, culminating in the abysmal performance in front of a home crowd at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

I seem to recall that Shane Heal's actual on court time for full NBA games was 23 seconds !

I think we can have a sustainable Basketball league in OZ. The NBL is already a higher standard than US College ball. I don’t think the league needs to be based on superstar imports though, but can be supported by the basketball community as it grows which it inevitably will. Soccer will develop in a similar way I imagine. Down the track a bit you’d imagine the Kings and Tigers may be able to support teams in an Asian league. and that would be a pathway for our best talent like Mills, Bose, Bruce et al. Death riding by AFL types like IW is meaningless, he does it with every sport, other than AFL of course.

JVGO good points with the facilities and infrastructure issue. A sport can boom but if there are not enough coaches, basketball courts , and officials to deal with the popularity it can reduce development of basketball , massively in OZ. With pay TV now with the nab being accessible more than ever, basketball our local league can get better now we have more faculties. But what can't be overlooked and i see similar patterns with A-leauge soccer and basketball in this country, is the whole basketball and soccer landscape has changed , all in 1 world word basically, globalisation of sports. Now the NBL has faced serious competition from Euro basket , and chinese league, it can't at present afford the Dwayne Mclain RIcky Grace Leroy loggins Robert Rose Types of imports, until more money comes in. As Basketball in Asia develops more and more, i want to see a Asian champions basketball league, much like the Europe model, Euro basket, or the Asian soccer champions league, or the euro champions league. In Asia-paicfic now good basketball teams are Australia China NZ Iran Singapore Sth Korea and Japan are improving Australia, China, and iran, and NZ have all competed at world championships, and done okay. All countries above I know have produced some NBA players how ever don't know about NZ but the other 3 countries have. We tried to get Singapore SLingers into our NBL and I still thought that was a good move even though it went bankrupt, it exposed the NBL to new tv markets,if done better the Singapore slingers could still be in the NBL who knows. But the NBL can come good again but I believe like soccer in this country the NBL has to embrace ASIA more, and have maybe like a Asian champions league tournament like the Euro basket.

The issue in the 80's and 90's was really that the explosion of the sport meant the facilities were simply not there and it has actually taken all this time for court space and infrastructure to be created. Sydney basketball in the 70's was seriously tiny, a couple of hundred engaged people, so when all that interest in the sport occurred there were not enough coaches, clubs or organisers to cope. The sport is infinitely better situated than it was back then. I would expect the Kings, if they can keep the core of this young team together will be averaging 8-10,000 within two years. There is a core 4-5000 basketball people who will support them now since the comeback. The excitement and atmosphere is back. As you say jerai grant is the perfect import, an athletic highlight machine surrounded by very promising young Aussies..

Phil Smythe he was the man lol.

B-rock you make some good points especially with regards to the TV deal on Ten one. But to say the NBL needs athletic imports is right, but that is easier said then done. Im sure they want Dwayne Mclain or leon Trimingham or Issac Burton or Leroy Loggins type imports but they can no longer offered those type of NBL american imports. The dwayne Mclain type imports now get snapped up by Euro basket leagues, and chinese league, where they are offered more money. NBL in late 80's and 90's was rated by many as the 2nd best basketball comp in the World only 2nd to the NBA. How the mighty have fallen. NBL was massive I grew up in the basketball craze, in the 90's and when dream team 1 came out i remember well no one playing cricket at lunchtime and everyone playing basketball , and having Shaq O'neil basketballs and wearing air jordans, or wearing your favourite NBA teams t-shirt, or singlet, and everyone was buying basketball cards, and all these teenagers deathriding cricket how wrong we all were, the interest and hype did not last, now I hardly see any high school teenagers wearing NBL or NBA merchandise compare to what it was in the Jordan era NBA of the 90's. Does fox still show NBL games i don't even know. Apparantly basketball junior registrations quite good Andrew Gaze was saying, but where we lose is senior basket ball the 18-21 age group we have no youth league, the state leagues ar not bad but not a good place for young talent to develop there skills unlike the USA college system. And not all the talented aussie players are ready for the NBL at age 18-21 , so they need a good youth system, where that money will come from I have no idea, soccer has not yet established a strong youth league so basketball has less money than soccer in OZ.

I agree JVGO - the potential for basketball is there - they just need to execute the strategy I grew up a big basketball fan as a kid in the 90's. A key reason for the strength of Aussie talent now is that these Aussie kids (not me unfortunately) who were most exposed to basketball at its mid-90s peak are now in their athletic primes (25-35 years old). I think this is an important driver of the strong domestic talent we have in the NBL and abroad currently. Of course, this will reverse as kids growing up in the 00's were not as exposed to basketball so are more likely to turn to AFL/cricket/league/football - we may see a dip in talent in future years. The NBA is now at its most exciting level since the Jordan era and is driving the global basketball boom so it is now the clear #2 sport globally. Unfortunately this is not occuring in Australia, IMO due to NBL/BA mismanagement from the grass roots to the professional level. The current TV deal with One is an absolute disgrace, starting telecasts at 10:30pm is a waste of time. How the NBL let themselves be screwed by Ten to this extent is a mystery to me. I wouldnt be too excited about a 6000 crowd in Sydney. It was a decent result last year but I would be surprised if they were even close to profitability with this turnout. they should be targeting 10,000 plus in a market the size of Sydney. I would suspect this would be needed to break even I have said on the roar before the NBL needs to target very athletic players as imports in order to get fans in the door. Australian talent is more than enough to form the core of most teams, but casual fans pay to see dunks/and 1 mix tape style stuff. There are plenty of young, hyperathletic players in the US without the all-round game to make the NBA. bring em down here, use them as an impact 6th man - all they need is one or two highlights a game to make the news occasionally and remind people that basketball still exists in Australia.

McKinnon was a great Australian player but plays a very competitive position to make it to the NBA - his athleticism would be average at best at that level for a SF while his shooting was well below average

Can we add Kyrie Irving to the list ? I'd say technically yes, but from the heart - no. Also - I believe Simon Dwight was offered a contract with the Hornets on the back of his u23's World Championship form in '97 but turned it down.

Ian I red the article and the reason it seems the winter to summer model failed was they did not take up a free to air deal with channel 7, and foxtel wasn't as big then so awareness of the NBl went down on pay tv not up despite pay tv possibly paying more for rights. Channel 10 did a good job on the NBL and got good awareness Billy woods and steve carfino did good job. But also the rise of Euro basket can not be denied. and i think the nBL like many sports when they are doing well are at there most vulnerable. Complacency sets in eg west indies cricket, Aust cricket team, NBL,. The NBL got big, jon top of Jordan and dream team 1 1992 barcelona olympics, and rode that wave, but other factor eg Jordan's retirement 98, and Euro basket cut the NBl down in popularity. Now rise of chinese basketball is a factor too a threat to euro basket, heck they signed a player like Patt Mills the type of import that was seen in the NBl in the 80's and early to mid 90's.