Basketball On The Internet.

ANDREJ Lemanis credits Brian Goorjian for steering him into coaching, and his time with Ian Stacker in Townsville for helping awaken his desire to one day coach Australia.

That day is here now, though Lemanis, 44, at times still has to pinch himself at his new reality.

Born the son of Latvian immigrant parents, growing up in the western suburbs of Melbourne, Lemanis' discovery of basketball was inevitable.

Basketball in Latvia was and is huge. So when many Latvians fled the Communist regime of post-World War II, their passion for hoops followed them to their new homes.

(Just how big was basketball in Latvia? Check out this link and it will give you an idea, a glimpse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DdPZQEjjLI&feature=youtu.be )

"Dad played basketball, which was a very popular sport in Latvia," Lemanis said.

"In fact, dad's claim-to-fame is he played at Albert Park Stadium on its opening night.

"My older brother, he's four years older than me, started to play and I tagged along."

By the age of six, Lemanis was playing at Coburg Stadium and involved with the Essendon YMCA, which, through a merger, became the junior program for St Kilda.

St Kilda was an emerging powerhouse of Australian basketball, Brian Kerle on the doorstep of becoming the first great coach of the NBL.

"I remember shooting hoops at Brian Kerle's house at Altona with his son Simon," Lemanis said.

Lemanis went on to play SEABL with Bulleen Boomers as a smart, run-the-team style of point guard who could identify who to go to and did just that.

"I think I might have been the youngest or second-youngest to play in the NBL," he said, Lemanis suiting for Gary Fox and the South Melbourne Saints which had evolved from St Kilda.

When the Saints merged with Nunawading, or Eastside as the Spectres had become, Lemanis played under Goorjian at the new South East Melbourne Magic.

"1993 was my last year as a player," he said. "When they didn't offer me a new deal, I wasn't prepared to give up my job as an accountant at Price, Waterhouse and Cooper.

"Wollongong showed some interest but I wasn't going to move to keep playing."

That was when a few well chosen words from Goorjian changed the course of Lemanis' life.

"Goorj said: 'You'd make a good coach' and that was where it kind of started."

Lemanis did his apprenticeship coaching on Wednesday nights in the VBA with a Sandringham outfit which was something of a Magic feeder team.

Bulleen recognised his potential and invited him to coach their SEABL and VBA outfits. They were his first Boomers.

"I did it for a year," he said.

Stacker then invited him to join him as his assistant with the NBL's Geelong Supercats.

"I remember we both signed three-year deals and after one year, the owner handed back the license and we got one month's pay," Lemanis said.

How times change ... NOT.

One door closes, another one opens, Lemanis shifting to Ballarat where he was assistant coach to Mark Leader.

"I was the stadium manager, I worked in the bar - it was a pretty interesting year," he said, the experiences continuing to keep him growing but grounded.

Lemanis next was working at Basketball Victoria when Stacker won the NBL job in Townsville and invited him to join him at the Crocodiles.

"During my time in Townsville as an assistant, I first started thinking about the national program," he said.

"Guys would come back from national team trainings and Boomers camps all up and on a high, and I thought I would like to get involved - that I might have something to offer.

"When you start to look at the national program, you start to get the bug."

Lemanis' big break came when he won the job to rejuvenate the flailing New Zealand Breakers' NBL program, winning a lot of admirers when he first took up the coaching role.

"One of the first big issues was Pero Cameron was out of contract," Lemanis said.

A gifted and extraordinary player, Cameron had been named in the All Star Five at the 2002 World Championship while leading the Tall Blacks into the medal rounds.

It was a massive achievement and Cameron a cult hero in his native land.

That said, he also was treated with great reverence and, perhaps, allowed to play the game on his own terms. That ended when Lemanis told him there wasn't a new contract offer.

If a cannon needed to be fired to let the Breakers know a culture change was not only imminent but underway, that was the shot which did it, in no uncertain terms.

As Lemanis set about turning the program around, he also looked at ways to keep his own knowledge growing.

"Through my involvement with the Breakers, every off-season I visited other programs to improve myself as a coach," he said.

"I reached out to Brett Brown, who was at the (San Antonio) Spurs."

The NBA franchise, one of the marquee organisations both on and off the court, warmly embraced Lemanis and Brown himself was anxious to assist him.

"The Spurs were just fantastic and Brett was very giving of his time and knowledge," Lemanis said.

A friendship developed and when Brown was appointed Boomers coach, succeeding Goorjian after the Beijing Olympics, Lemanis - whose club was on the road to the dynasty it now is - was an obvious choice to assist him.

"I was blown away when he asked me, " Lemanis said. "I had goosebumps, I kid you not.

"I rang my wife straight after and my hand was shaking as I held the phone."

Now Brown and Basketball Australia have passed Lemanis the Boomers' baton and he has four years to run with it. He can hardly wait to get out of the blocks.

Today his first Boomers squad hits the news, a squad of 17 including not only NBL faces but "emerging" Boomers. Many will be involved in the World University Games in Russia in July, that national team being coached by none other than Stacker.

The circle is complete. Kerle, Fox, Goorjian, Stacker, Brown - Lemanis has worked with the best.

Like those who went before him, the medal rounds will be his target.

Hey. If little Latvia could win the first European Championship, why not little old Australia winning its first senior men's medal?