North melbourne giants until they folded, then the tigers

St Kilda were great to follow when the nbl started, used to go and watch them train. I still followed them when they became Westside Saints but after they disapeared so did this fan. Also did not mind Nunawading when Barry Barnes was there.

Knox Raiders

From the outside i thought the magic had a great brand and seemingly a very passionate legion of fans.

If they were still around today, we would be talking about the success of the Perth Wildcats and the South Dragons...

SE Melbourne Magic had the biggest single-season average for crowds (around 9900 from memory), but a longer period of time it was definitely the Tigers, and their fans were more passionate too, as much as an old Magic fan hates to admit it!

The NM Giants were the poor cousins in terms of numbers, though they had very passionate fans, the Titans got solid numbers for their time, while the Dragons could never consistently get people to games. The Victoria Giants would have to go down as the least popular.

I loved to hate the Magic in the early 90's more than any other club, Perth included. I wish we had them back, still remember that Bruce Boldon double clutch 3 to beat the 36ers at Finders Park like it was yesterday.

Knox > basketball

#514927

"the most passionate Basketball people in Victoria"

because those is able to be both quantified and qualified....

I think the Magic probably take the award as the most popular team in the league's heyday.

Of course that Saints side that featured Parky and Kerle were the most fun to watch - but they were just prior to the heyday...

knox>knox

Tigers.
Gaze, Copeland, Bradtke, LC would still beat most NBL teams now.

That's 6foot not 6 inches!!

Spectres

Spectres

Spectres

Wtf Knox

Drmic > Knox?

To throw Shanahan's name in that group is wrong. Was barely the water boy, maybe you mean Perry....

Has anyone actually done any market research on bringing back a 2nd team?

@Nobody

"Tigers.
Gaze, Copeland, Bradtke, LC would still beat most NBL teams now."

Why do you say so? History shows that team couldn't beat most of the teams back then!

"SE Mel Magic: Rose, Bolden, Ninnis, Perry, Lucas,Dorge, Ronaldson, Shanahan, Lemanis, Parkinson.

They had a huge membership base playing in front of 8-9k crowd each week at the Rod Laver arena. Those were the days when the NBL games was action packed!"

Actually, Goorjian had them playing a fairly bland style of basketball which didn't help keep the crowds coming in. The Tigers played action-packed basketball, one-way action but that's good to watch!

The Tigers, in that form would get murdered today. If that talent was mixed with the professionalism of today it would be hard to stop, but they would probably have to add more depth to the roster to compete over a full season.

The Magic v Tigers derbies were pretty much always amazing, huge crowd, ebbs and flows, real passion in the building. Shame that is all lost now, maybe for good.

Paul + 1

When the NBL started rationalising the Victorian teams, the bean-counters were no doubt confident that the fans would move across to another team. The fans proved them wrong. And they were NEVER going to support the Tigers!

A bit like the AFL - they tried to break the Melbourne strangle-hold by encouraging mergers and ended up by dropping teams. Melbourne was the power-base and had the most passionate fans.

The NBL didn't rationalise anything. Teams merged and folded of their own volition.
Personally, I think the merger between the Giants and Magic was a mistake. Might have been best to just let the Giants fold and keep the Magic.

As for the AFL, there is no "Melbourne Stranglehold." There were (and are) simply too many teams in Melbourne to be financially viable. The alternative was simply to let the Bloods and Lions disappear. Even now, Hawthorn who are a powerhouse on the field can only survive by selling games to Tasmania.

KNOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There is no club that can get near them.

Eastside.
Westside.
Nunawading.

Apologies on mentioning Nunawading again

St Kilda Pumas (as in the big cat) is what they were called for the first two or three years in the nbl. After that they became the Saints. In the late 70's i played in their rep teams, before they disappeared and Saints nbl player Mike Slusher was our coach.

Oh for the old days of the nbl, one week at Nunawading then Albert Park and watch out when you had to go to Coburg. It was also good to be able to watch the women play in the game before.