Should have done some research first...

From herald sun...
NBL green light for second Melbourne franchise

A SECOND NBL franchise for Melbourne is set to be announced later this week.

While the deal has not been officially finalised or signed, the dormant Victoria Giants licence will transfer to a partnership headed by Melbourne businessman Mark Cowan, who has been seeking an NBL team for several years.
The name and colours of the new team are yet to be decided, but it will start playing next season with home games at Vodafone Arena.

A teleconference of NBL officials on Thursday approved the sale of the licence by the Giants' owners to Cowan and the return of the league to a 12-team competition.

The return of a second team to Melbourne, which boasted four NBL franchises (plus one in Geelong) during its heyday, is a coup for Victorian basketball as the Gold Coast was a strong contender for what appears the only available licence.

Many local fans see a second Melbourne team as crucial, especially with a belief there are many fans still disaffected by the mergers and collapses that surrounded the South East Melbourne Magic, North Melbourne Giants and Victoria Titans/Giants.

The Tigers had been opposed to another Victorian franchise while they tried to re-secure a foothold in the NBL market, but are now supportive of a second team in the city and are hopeful of again making Melbourne a vibrant and dominant basketball location.

If the club is known as the Victoria Giants,maybe the states blue and white colours could be used.Not copy the state uniform but give the vics a team they can relate to better.

Victoria Giants.....the team for all victorians!!

They'll have to extend the number of teams in the play-offs to 12.

Easy enough to extend to 12.

The challenge will be to give all 12 a double chance!

I would try and get the South East Melbourne Magic back in. This was one of the most hated Australian teams in sport. There fans were pretty loyal, and everyone wanted there scalp, unfortuantley they will have to be a tough team to start with so they are hated again...Not percieved as pushovers!

If the Magic were re-born, they should pay millions to get Goorjian back. He ran an exceptional program.

they better have big cash. Last thing i want to see is another team go in and out again.

How would another team in SA cope?
Financially and dealing with the 36ers that don't get much publicity at the best of times??

Are there enough NBL Quality players available to start up another team, or would we be diluting the product again.

Basically, a new team would need to find 7 or 8 Australians ro play plus either 2 or 3 imports.

I just ask are there sufficient available at the moment.

Boy Gorg's basketball is dull and uninspiring which is why the second vic team failed. Nobody wants to see that type of basketball played anywhere.

So he should've they had the best team by far. A monkey coulda coached the kings to at least 2 of those titles.

I thought I would look a bit further into the numbers of teams and where players come from. From NBL site, I have found out that the players origin's are as follows: -

Vic - 31 (1 team)
NSW - 21 (4 teams)
SA - 13 (1 team)
Qld - 11 (3 teams)
WA - 9 (1 team)
NZ - 7 (1 team)
Tas - 3 (0 teams)
Total 95 players

There are currently 37 overseas born players in the NBL, 28 of these from the USA.

Based on these there would appear to be enough players from Victoria to have a 2nd team based there, however the NSW & Qld teams would have to pull their fingers out a bit in developing their own players.
eg Kings have only 3 NSW born players, Hawks & Razorbacks 2, although Pirates have 5 (but they are bottom). Bullets only have 1 Queenslander, only 1 at Taipans but 4 at Crocs.
Also of interest, well to me anyway, is that Wildcats only have 3 WA born players even though there are 9 in the NBL, whereas 8 of the 13 SA born players are on the sixers roster.

For the curious, the five South Australians playing with other teams are Ronaldson, Newley, Boodnikoff, Bradtke, and Rogers.

I don't think he's on a roster this year.

He is taking a year off to recover from injury, retirement may be iminent (as mentioned in another thread)