either way,a bad day in australia is still better than a good day in beirut !!

i mean,even if we lose some players to europe etc,the prospect of getting some of our young kids back from college is pretty exciting!!

definitely exciting but the fact that the guys leaving are big names (established) with 10+years ahead of them to create history, it's a loss...And plus most college kids list NBL as their "backup" option

Backup to what, though? NBA?

Europe, lower league in the states; both probably pays higher

Might be being a bit hopeful here, but isn't CJ just playing the off-season in Israel?

Farouk agree with Skull, he say plane fly overhead, drop value. I don't care. In Beirut, plane fly over, drop bomb. I like these planes...

if anything this whole thing may wake a lot of players up,most of them are over paid for what they do.playing nbl in australia at the moment must be the easiest pro sport gig in the worid,very little committment to club,sponsors,fans etc.
they need to get back to work like everybody else,otherwise this thing is not going to work!!!

yes me agree lots. nbl big trouble for season come
(Sorry, just getting into the spirit of the above posts)

My 2 cents worth are that some players here are paid for more than what they are worth. As pointed out above they hardly have the work load of say an AFL player as far as media and sponsors are concerned.

I also think that due to the GFC that the Euro options will shrink. It is hard for us to comprehend but it is having a huge effect throughout Europe and simply they dont have as much money to splash around any more.

Sponsors are clamping down and private owners have been hit hard.

Existing big name Euro players are looking at pay cuts and even the NBA are shipping big wage players out when they can. ( Chandler trade recently was reported to be purely and economic decision)

To give you an idea of how bad the economy is in Europe the entire country of Ireland last month saw 6 houses sold. To put that in perspective that means 30 houses in the whole of Australia.

There is no more Ogliarch money to be paid in Russia ( how Anstey was getting a big deal) either so that has cut out the big paying gigs there as well, which has a flow on effect.

I know next to nothing about European basketball.

What months of the year do they usually play?

Is it feasible to schedule the NBL during the European off-season?

Wouldn't many of the Australian players currently in the European leagues be interested in playing back in Australia during the European off-season, given they could earn two incomes?

Not to mention some of the imports?

Or is this just not possible?

Thankyou anon for providing some much needed intelligence to yet another stupid debate based on a topic lacking in facts- it's annoying to read these stupid rumours every few days based on what some player thinks, knowing full well they are the least to know anything credible going on- just ask them- they always complain they don't get told enough!

nbl this year will be a solid paying league, thats one of the reasons the nbl only wants financially viable teams in the league, we do pay better than d- league for the good players and anyone that does go to europe can easily be replaced with new talent, anyhow fresh faces are great for the league, more exciting being that we dont know what they can do.

jay jay - European leagues run long seasons, generally commencing Sep/oct and running through late April to early june.

catch 22 for the NBL i'm afraid, compete with AFl, RL, etc etc in winter, or compete with players playing in euro leagues if they can get a gig. Relatively few have gone from here and taken "import" spots on Euro sides, many have done it, as Ingles is proposing, on a local passport because they can play as a euro zone player.

the compromise is a june through October type season here. many players could then play in two different leagues but you then hurt badly in release and preparation time for those tiddly little events like the World champs and olympics.