Basketball On The Internet.

THE long-awaited "new" NBL will hold its official launch in Sydney on Thursday, September 19 but don't expect too many revelations, given the league has to honor Basketball Australia's existing contracts as part of the demerger.

That's fair enough but it means things such as the TV deal with Ten - a delayed match on ONE on Friday nights (though live if from Perth) and a live game on Sundays - will stay as is.

So for the last two years of that deal, we probably also will have to continue suffering with "Mr Research" Steve Carfino calling the bulk of the TV matches. (Oh well, two more years of gags at least - no kidding.)

And that also means 40-minute games.

I suspect the uniform deal also crosses over so don't expect a splendid new array of exciting and contrasting styles.

What CAN change is what the new NBL has control over which, most importantly, is the product.

If you've been here before, you know the emphasis will be on entertainment and attracting new fans (and old fans back).

So expect a return of the beloved and much-missed jumpball, with possession arrows aimed squarely up FIBA's collective ... well, you can figure it out.

Expect a revival of time-outs "on the floor" as called by the player in possession. (Yes Steve, that's actually what "time out on the floor" means.)

Here's a few other things the new NBL can control.

Commonsense with uniform-contrasting.

I still wonder what idiot came up with the idea of the home team perpetually being in its "dark" uniform and having EVERY visiting team wear white.

That made everyone's 14 home games almost inseparable. In Adelaide for example, the 36ers ALWAYS wore blue and their opponents ALWAYS wore white.

So were they playing Perth? Or Wollongong? Or Melbourne?

Why did we need so stark a contrast anyway? Was the old NBL trying to appease its myriad viewers still watching on black-and-white TV?

If the 36ers wore blue at home, could Perth not have worn red? Melbourne gold? Cairns orange? Wollongong red? Sydney gold? I recall the Breakers had a lovely light blue strip once. That would have been a nice contrast to the Sixers' royal blue. Townsville in green.

Hopefully you are seeing my point. Every game having one team in white was SO dull and especially so when it was every visiting team.

Even the NBA has altered its once strict policy of home teams playing in their light strip and visitors always being in their colors. But even that makes more sense because if the NY Knicks, say, are at home and in white, visiting Boston is clearly the green team, the Lakers are the purple guys, the Bulls are in red ... and so on.

That makes more sense than the home team being in its colors and EVERY incoming team in white.

You wonder which donkey came up with that idiotic policy.

Round one in Perth, why couldn't the Wildcats be in red and the 36ers in blue? And why must the alternate be white? The Kings used to have a purple uniform and a gold set. The 36ers had a blue and a gold. Sure, wear white as an alternate if it is what best suits. But not on the road.

Again, those viewers tuning in on their black-and-white TV sets will just have to set their Beta recorders and watch it again if they are having trouble separating teams.

To be frank, I loathed the fact Melbourne Tigers played in gold at home and white on the road last season. What happened to the red set? Or the black?

They could be red at home, gold on the road.

Are we really such simpletons that we need such flacid unimaginative uniform uniformity?

The color possibilities are endless and truly, this stuff isn't rocket science. If it was, we'd already be to Neptune and back, instead of being stuck in Uranus.

Do I need to mention what kind of marketing and merchandising clubs could do with more than one uniform option?

How about every team also employs adults to wipe the courts instead of embarrassed kids sitting in a corner with a broom and in an oversize club T-shirt?

I am sure you will recall at least one occasion - maybe bundles - when a player or referee has ended up taking the broom from the self-conscious youngster to do the job properly.

Again, this stuff is just common sense, especially when you are putting highly-paid athletes - and their careers - at risk if a wet spot is missed or overlooked.

Will it really take a player getting injured slipping on a wet spot and subsequently suing the organisation for the new NBL to move on something the old NBL left in the "who cares" basket?

So yes, accepting NBL Pty Ltd is stuck with some of the contracts BA took out in good faith is one thing. But where the NBL can sharpen its thinking, it should do so.

It already has shown it is thinking outside the rectangle.

SOME noises finally emanated out of the WNBL today with our premier women's league announcing its preseason tournament this year at Dandenong would no longer be a PSST secret but in fact be known as the Spring Shield.

Now this is not to be confused with the SpringShield last seen on an episode of The Simpsons. In that, SpringShield was Homer's security agency, though it only employed Homer, Lenny, and Carl.

Even so, they were much more efficient at fighting crime than the Springfield Police Department. As a result, Mayor Quimby fired Chief Wiggum, and instated SpringShield as Springfield's police force.

But I digress.

Basketball Australia's WNBL Spring Shield, it should be stressed, also is not being sponsored by dual-Olympian Mark Worthington. The Worthington Spring Shield is a beer brewed in ye olde country.

This Spring Shield is about all of our WNBL teams under the one roof, battling it out for the chance to have a preseason run under pressure conditions.

For the full details, click this link: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/basketball/wnbl-teams-to-hit-dandenong-for-threeday-8216spring-shield8217-tournament-with-seabl-best-also-in-action/story-fnii09gt-1226709842512 or move on to the next item.

IT'S going to be a couple of big weekends for Dandenong Stadium.

Before the Spring Shield, the 2013 SEABL Championship Games will be staged there on September 15.

The Women's Final will tip off at 12pm with the men's game at 3pm. In between the two feature events will be the 'Legends Game' showcasing many former greats of the league.