Absolute rot, BA is the problem, current teams reacting to survive their incompetance in managing individual organisations.

The elite league should be run separately not as a cash cow for BA and it aspirations.

More fools are the previous NBL owners who assumed BA had the teams/leagues interest at heart.

Its gone doubly backward since they got control.

Had they left it a new league would of surfaced and gone into Asia but left BA's asperations behind.

Get ready for the loss of Hawks,Cairns Taipans as BA now cause the season to abort and the legs of survival will disapear due to apathy at those centres.

Miss a year and $ will disappear from Sponsorship and never come back, spectators will garb onto the A league and anything else to fill the void and most not come back.

2010 will bring BA's real plan *****
Capital city teams propped up by Television rights
or
A Rouge league run seperately.

Agree or disagree but one question

Are we better off in 2009 than 2008 - in my eyes NO

by no stretch of the imagination is this an ideal situation for basketball in our country.
i am not suggesting that for one moment.
having played,coached,umpired,been in administration and most of all have had the game running through my veins for 40 years..... i feel the blows.

the playing standard of our national league has been one of the higher ones around the world.
it also hasnt stacked up financially for a long long time and was only a matter of time before it collapsed,much like the current WFC.
it is going to go back to its bare bones right now, and b/a is hopefully going to turn negatives into positives.

i think we should go back to one import,there are plenty of naturalised players here now anyway.
maybe the AIS kids should be spread through rosters as 9 and 10 spots,giving them a taste of it in a semi professional atmosphere.
maybe a draft situation should be run through the AIS system, further enhancing that programe.

i really believe that the next era of australian basketball is about our junior ranks being exposed to the new nbl.

You raise some good points skull. We have reached the stage where a solid base to rebuild on is most important. We cannot afford to have the league take a year off because it would be near impossible to start again. To limit teams to one import would keep costs down, and give young Aussie players a chance keep playing ( because less teams in the comp. limits chances). Salary cap should be kept well under the million$ mark.
ABL should also be changed to a development league;no imports. The money saved could be spent on advertising the ABL , and hopefully introduce more people to the game. Perhaps from those teams could come new NBL teams to expand the NBL past 8 or 9 teams.
The other phase of rebuilding would be to concentrate more on schools, a job made easier by the federal gov. school expansion programme.

Skull- at the time of the merge between BA and NBL I was a supporter of BA taking over. But honestly thus far I really don't like the decisions they are making. And have since been supporting the club owner's idea more as it make much more sense. I have to say most of this comes from the fact they are still choosing Foxtel over FTA which is definitely not a right move for the league even talking about the future.

However I absolutely can't agree with you more about the playing standards of Australia. Whilst I think much more is still to be improved but overall I highly rate standard of NBL comparing to other leagues I've seen. Because of this was why I think cap will need to go up. NBL can't afford to just have players develop, become a star and leave. Just like Newley, you can't have one of your local hero just opt for other leagues. I think why AFL works so well is because it's the only place the game is played and they "retain" their players.

This was also one of the primary reasons for not supporting BA's decisions anymore, it seemed to me the first thing they were trying to change was the product. Whilst it will be the last thing I'd touch.

Simple equation

Salary Cap up more teams out due to loosing millions

Simple as that

LA Boy - while there is an NBA,we and all other nations around the world will be "developing stars and have them leave"

please stop with the "netball and AFL" comparisons, the mechanics of these sports are like comparing apples to oranges.

netball is a great example for NBL to follow. Basketball is definitely a more popular sport but netball has obviously become reasonably successful now at least much better than what it used be and should therefore serve as a model for this revamp.

I mean you're right about the NBA etc. but the reality is not that many guys will reach it. You currently have 3 or 4 of your best players playing in Europe, other than the 2 NBA guys, the rest of the pros should be playing here. And this is an issue for the league on how to retain them, now you have Barlow, Ingles also unlikely to return. You can't have a league like this. It's like Kobe and Lebron going to Europe.

you CAN have a league like this, the guys in europe are striving for the NBA.

the NBL should be the stepping stone to europe/NBA.

the aussie kids that go to college should be going to NBL first,as non professionals.

then every 4 years they all meet up for the olympics,like all other nations in the world,except USA.

it is not like kobe and lebron going to europe,that would be about money, nothing else!!