No wonder their basketball team sucked: Australia's National Basketball League on the verge of folding up

Posted by Jaemark Tordecilla on May 14, 2009 at 00:51 | Comments (4)

Last April, the PBA-backed national basketball team, Powerade Team Pilipinas, played a pair of tune-up games against a selection from Australia. The series came on the heels of the cancellation of a previously scheduled tuneup match against a professional team in Puerto Rico. The PBA scrambled to find a replacement so that the team could see some much needed court time, and ended up flying over a ragtag bunch of Australian ballers for the exhibition games.

Team Pilipinas wiped the floor with the Aussies in the first game, and it became apparent immediately that the visitors were overmatched. For the second game, PBA imports Tiras Wade and Shawn Daniels were assigned to reinforce the team, and while the additions helped make a more competitive second game, it was clear that the money spent on bringing the ballers from Down Under was not worth the money, the time, or the effort.

It turns out that all of basketball in Australia is in a state of disarray. The country's premiere basketball organization, the National Basketball League, is reportedly in trouble after one of its most popular teams, the Melbourne Tigers, decided to fold up.

Teams in the league have complained of the lack of business viability given less interest in the sport across the country. But the Tigers' departure hurts more than anything because of the team's storied history; former Tigers coach Lindsey Gaze is a member of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame and coached at the Olympics four times, while his son Andrew has been the greatest superstar in NBL history during his Melbourne stint, apart from having starred at Seton Hall in the US NCAA and having a cup of tea with a couple of NBA teams.

Some Filipino fans may also be familiar with the Tigers after a two-game series with the 2002 Philippine team in training for the Busan Asian Games. The Nationals split the series with the Tigers, but suffered the devastating loss of Danny Seigle in the first game against Melbourne.

While the best Australian basketball players make their living overseas--Andrew Bogut is the tower of power for the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks, David Andersen stars for Europe's CSKA Moscow, and Patrick Mills blazes trails at St. Mary College in the NCAA--the lack of a domestic league would certainly hurt the growth of basketball in the region, especially a league that has produced some great players. Beyond that, it's a terrible loss for basketball in the Asia-Pacific regions, and it robs teams in East Asia the opportunity to play superior basketball competition without traveling through vast continents or endless oceans.

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Tags: Basketball, Powerade Team Pilipinas National Basketball Team

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#1 Dave Jones on 2010-03-16 11:20 (Reply)

Since this article was written a successful 8 team NBL season in Australia has been done and dusted, and included the Melbourne Tigers. The NBL has had financial issues for a number of teams but Melbourne was never one of them.

The NBL decided to start the competition again with new conditions in place including team owners providing the NBL with a bank guarantee of a million dollars. Seamus McPeake the Melbourne owner disagreed the guarantee was required and suggested the comp was unsustainable and said Melbourne would sit out the season, not fold as written here.

I had to find the names of this Australian 'select' team. What a joke! The fact they included some nobody named Patrick Pilae to have size says it all. Bruce Bolden was 42 when he retired in 2003. A great NBL player in his time but at 47? Brad Williamson is the best of the rest and he is a bench player for Townsville as is Chris Cedar who sees little court time and is at best a very good state league player. Anthony Susnjara, Eban Hyams and others are state league players. Good ones but state league players. It certainly was a waste of money. Someone should have checked this 'team' out a bit better.

Current Australian NBA players include David Andersen whom Houston picked up from Moscow, Nathan Jawai at Minnesota (8th in offensive rebounding) Patrick Mills at Portland and of course Andrew Bogut who just received the Eastern Conference player of the week for averaging 19.3ppg 13 rpgand 3.7 blocks per game. He is also only one of 2 players averaging at least 15pts, 10 reb and 2 blocks per game. Clearly he is growing into the player expected of a number 1 draft pick. Luke Nevill also started the season with Cleveland but is now back in D League.

The NBL is alive and well after undergoing some much needed reforming. I expect Sydney and Melbourne to jump back in either the season coming or the one after that. Despite the obvious competition of other sports and the many outdoor activities that basketball competes against there will always be a national competition in some guise. And that can only be positive for the region.

#1.1 George Asakulis on 2010-06-18 16:33 (Reply)

The Australian contingent that came over did it for Goodwill, they were not paid and volunteered. They had not had one, i repeat one hit out together and many were out of their league. With Susnjara, Dann, Veg, Lalic and Hyams they had a nice nucleus to still more than compete but with no back ups, no PG and no coninuity how do you win. They were told by the commisoner how upset he was and that a loss by 8 or so points would be more desireable. Do you think that basketball in your country is an enterprise for National Pride or are pockets filling more important. As the national sport and a population of close to 95 million dont look at the "Goodwill" tour as bad preparation. A "rag tag" group went down by 20 odd after no practice, a long flight and bad calls. After being told their budget for the trip will be revoked and treated as second class by "PBA Authorities" the guys enjoyed a night out, stayed out till 6 am played San Miguel in a scrimmage at 9am and lost by 3. Mind you the Beermen were 6-0 at the time. Come on mate, look at your ambassadors and leaders. The people there are amazing, hospitality great, fan base second to none. Now put a product on the floor to be proud of rather than endorsing big fish in a small pond. People rave on about Taulava, Susnjara and Veg are better and dont get paid to play.

#2 Dave Jones on 2010-03-20 17:32 (Reply)

The last paragraph should have said I expect Sydney and BRISBANE to jump back in NOT Melbourne. Sydney Kings have been confirmed to rejoin the league from next season and Brsisbane is a likely starter the season after.

#3 Dave Jones on 2010-03-20 18:52 (Reply)

The Philippines national team is in Australia now. It beat the AIS (Australian institute of sport- under 19) 79-73 in the first game drew 73 all in the second and beat state side Canberra Gunners 101 - 84. Friday night game against the New South Wales state Institute of sport shows no scores. The best team they will play on this tour is Sydney City which is also a state side.

Without first hand knowledge I would suggest that this is not the best the Filipinos have. Clearly the opposition is not the best Australia have to offer either otherwise a couple of NBL teams would have been lined up.