The 2016/17 NBL ( National Basketball League ) season started here in Australia a few weeks ago and my favourite team - the Sydney Kings - are 4-1 and are on top of the NBL ladder. Sydney was the worst team in the NBL last year and they have not really had a good season for about a decade, but the Kings have new owners and they have put together an amazing team for this season and it only gets better with the recent announcement that the Kings have just signed former NBA player Steve Blake. http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport...news-story/b7846fe0d715d6866f6f59e5d054a1 9d The NBL is at a much higher standard than NCAA and it makes sense for young players out of high school like Adelaide 36ers Terrance Ferguson to come to Australia and get some professional experience before entering the NBA draft rather than playing a year in college, and the NBL is also a great league for NBA veterans like Steve Blake to come and play in when their NBA career comes to an end. The NBA has had plenty of players with NBA experience over the years and we even get guys with NBA experience playing in our state leagues sometimes, but like the above article says, things are improving and so are the quality of players with NBA experience that are coming to play in the NBL. The Sydney Kings have had former NBA player Josh Childress on the roster for a a few seasons before this one, and while I am not a big fan of his and am very happy that he has gone - I am happy that he came here because the more guys with NBA experience coming to our league the better. The Kings also had former NBA player Zach Randolph for a few games last season. Josh Childress and Zach Randolph are a step up on guys like Drew Barry that came to play for the Sydney Kings in 1999/2000 ( he didnt work out ). The NBL allows teams to bring in non-Australian three imports ( it used to be two ) and it is always exciting when your team gets new imports. It is often the case that the best imports that come to the NBL are guys that just missed out on being drafted to an NBA team - so they come to a place like Australia and they dont have big egos, and they work - guys like NBL greats Ricky Grace or Steve Carfino. A lot of the imports that have come to NBL that have had experience in the NBA underestimate the standard of play here in Australia and they basically get humiliated and sent back to USA - like Drew Barry. But like I said - things are looking up when we are getting NBA veterans like Steve Blake coming to the NBL. Steve Blake is no Drew Barry. In my opinion ESPN or Fox should partner with the NBL to show NBL games to a US audience. I am sure you Americans can watch Euroleague games on cable someplace but can you watch the NBL? If not then you are missing out because it is a great league. John Wooden would prefer our purer style of NBL basketball over the run and gun NBA - I am certain of it, and like I said the NBL is at a much higher standard than the NCAA. Our NBL teams could compete with the best teams in the Euroleague. With guys like Terrance Ferguson coming to the NBL rather than playing a year of NCAA, and with NBA veterans like Steve Blake coming to our league it makes total sense for a US media company to partner with the NBL to show NBL games to a US audience. There is a much better chance of a US basketball fan being interested in an NBL game than a US football fan being interested in so-called Canadian Football isnt there? It is not just guys out of high school or NBA veterans that are of interest either because like I said - a lot of our imports that we bring in to fill a role are undrafted players that may have played 4 years of NCAA and a lot of these guys end up being our best imports. Steve Blake will be backing up new Sydney Kings import Kevin Lisch who is an American that has played enough seasons in the NBL to become naturalized and Australian. Lisch was the NBL MVP last season playing for the Illawarra Hawks and he is a great example of the kinds of guys that have come to Australia and have helped to make Australian one of the best basketball nations on earth. There have been a number of Australian-born players that have used the NBL as a stepping stone to the NBA draft and it makes sense for guys like Terrance Ferguson to come from the USA to take the same path. The Australian NBL is also a league that can be a stepping stone to the NBA for coaches and honourary Aussie Brett Brown is an example of this. Brett Brown is Melbourne basketball royalty in Melbourne, which is essentially the basketball capital of Australia. Brett Brown started his coaching career as an assistant under basketball legend Lindsay Gaze at the Melbourne Tigers before taking a job as head coach of the North Melbourne Giants in 1994. Brown led North Melbourne to an NBL championship in his first year as an NBL head coach and he was also named NBL coach of the year that year. Brown was a great NBL coach for many seasons before getting an assistant job with the San Antonio Spurs for a while before returning to coach the Sydney Kings in the NBL. The next job Brett Brown took after his job as head coach of the Sydney Kings was a job as head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers. So the NBL is not just a pathway to the NBA for young high school players like Terrance Ferguson but also for coaches as well. Honourary Australian Brown was able to go from coaching in the NBL to head coach of an NBA team. The NBL is being broadcast all across the Pacific including to Chinese audiences and it makes all the sense in the world for the NBL to be shown to American audiences. I would like to see the NBA partner with the NBL to show NBL games through the NBA app. The NBL is looking to China to grow our league and we are hoping to include some Chinese teams in the future. Our NBL is much better than the Chinese CBA but China is a much bigger market and we want to tap into that. Because of the size of basketball market in basketball loving China, and the money basketball generates in China the Chinese are able to sign NBA veterans like Stephon Marbury and the NBL wants to tap into that ( we cant afford to pay what the Chinese teams pay for imports but we have the advantage that Australia is a much nicer place to live for an American than China. Australia is also a nicer place for an American to live than Europe. We speak English and we have beautiful world class cities like Sydney and Melbourne ). The NBL already has a team in New Zealand ( NZ Breakers ) and we used to have an NBL team in Singapore ( Singapore Slingers ) and we want to bring in at least a couple of Chinese teams as well. Basketball is a global sport now and the NBA should do all it can to try to help the NBL - and one thing that I think would help a lot of for the NBA to partner with the NBL in some way to that gets the NBL shown to US audiences. The more that can be done to raise the profile of the NBL the better for international basketball and for the NBA. If you are a basketball fan and you watch the NCAA or Euroleague then wouldnt you be interested in taking a look at the NBL in between NBA games? Isnt showing the Australian NBL to US audiences a much better idea than showing Canadian football to US audiences? Any Drew Barry fans? [video=youtube;gWmEFljPU48]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWmEFljPU48[/video] [video=youtube;opmwfRqdGsg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opmwfRqdGsg[/video] [video=youtube;pw7oRtQtkWs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw7oRtQtkWs[/video] [video=youtube;AJ9Yd5upYr0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ9Yd5upYr0[/video]
See I get to watch four basketball games today. Earlier I watched Boston vs Celtics and then Portland vs the Clippers - and then I watched an NBL game - Cairns vs Melbourne replay from last night. And later today I will watch another NBL game - Illawarra Hawks vs Perth Wildcats. It is much better having two leagues to follow and like I said - the NBL is a better league to watch than Euroleague and NCAA. The NBA should definitely do something to partner with and raise the profile of the NBL. Any help the NBA gives to the NBL helps the NBA.
