Basketball On The Internet.

YES it’s happening again isn’t it? Here we are in 2016 and once again the lessons of history are being ignored as agents and players with extremely short memories line up with their hands out for the big payday.

It’s one thing for the NBL to bump up its soft salary cap to $1.1million but, quick question here, do all nine clubs have $1.1 million?

It’s one thing to pay your marquee Aussie $400,000 with only $150,000 going on the books, but how long can that be afforded if there’s no massive influx of dollars from television rights or from machinations in Asia?

Illawarra did not have the $$$ to hold on to league MVP Kevin Lisch and it never could.

If Brisbane wants Rhys Martin, it also can outbid Illawarra.

Don’t think the Hawks haven’t offered him a deal. And don’t think, as already is the case with many other free agents, once the player agents latch on to the conversation, loyalty or “best environment” aren’t discussed. There’s no 10 per cent in that for them.

The monies being talked about right now have many players seeing dollar signs and agents happy to auction their guys off to the highest bidder.

Saw this in the 80s, saw it in the 90s, saw it when South Dragons won the title. What did the league look like after that? A basket case which Basketball Australia had to salvage.

The NBL ultimately demerged from BA to save itself from that new disaster, then only took two years to slip back into the mire Executive Director Larry Kestelman saved it from.

While on the one hand you have to admire the “full steam ahead” approach, the addition of Brisbane Bullets for 2016-17 and some consolidation on last season’s gains may have been more prudent for a year.

Now we already have dual-Breakers championship starter Cedric Jackson bound for Melbourne, where United also can and may try to suit Stephen Holt as a FIBA Asia/Oceania import exemption.

NEW CLUBS: Ced Jackson is United-bound, Adam Gibson at Brisbane Bullets.

Nathan Jawai was heading to Brisbane but now also may be detouring through Melbourne for a while. Chris Goulding will be back too and there’s still room for two more imports.

Kirk Penney had serious family-based reasons to return to New Zealand so the Breakers have reasons to rejoice at regaining the league’s 2009 MVP and Tall Blacks hero.

Jordair Jett won’t be back for Townsville but only because he tore an ACL playing in the NZNBL, the Crocs with Mitch Norton and Luke Schenscher on their books and Nick Kay soon to be confirmed as returning to the green. And not FOR the green.

Playing for the Crocs, Kay won Rookie of the Year honours and he is the first of very few players to recognise the environment was key in helping him achieve.

That’s what agents don’t get and players forget.

Players forget it because they too easily get sucked in to seeing speculated figures on some player movements and decide: “If Player X is worth $300K and I’m half as good, I’m worth $150K!” when, in actual fact, they still might only be worth just $60K.

And agents don’t figure it into calculations because the best financial deal they can get for their man also means the highest return they can get for themselves.

They’re not all like that, of course. Just most.

Really, what they should be preaching is:

KEEP
CALM
and
STAY
REAL

because a club and a league that pays you $75K is still far preferable to a bankrupt club that pays $0, from a pro league that’s ceased to exist.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.

Let’s hope the NBL office has its share of historians too amid the “go-for-broke” brigade.