Basketball On The Internet.

ONE of the issues of basketball being a minor sport – albeit a major minor sport – is how many big stories slip through to the keeper without the mainstream sporting world any the wiser.

Obviously this is a sore point for me and for other basketball-specific journos around the country because issues such as the Abby Bishop-Opals baby policy can miss out on receiving the airplay they truly warranted nationwide.

And we can get a press release such as the one issued yesterday by the NBL announcing the introduction of the marquee player rule, which anyone who follows the league has known about since mid-March and which first broke as a story around the same time a second team in Melbourne also was being canvassed.

That was when far-sighted NBL CEO Fraser Neill was first talking of it publicly and way before there were stories appearing such as ones in Adelaide last month when the club was considering its options to find additional “marquee” financing to bring home a Brad Newley from Europe.

Joe Ingles’ name also has been in dispatches and in Melbourne the Tigers have been looking at ways to utilise the marquee rule to bring back a player such as David Barlow.

So while yesterday’s formal announcement was news, it wasn’t big news or new news.

The real story was buried in the last two paragraphs, almost as an afterthought.

“The NBL has decided to put on hold its plans to stage a Summer League tournament in Las Vegas later this year. This follows a review of the progress to date, which raised concerns over the event achieving its key goals.

“The Summer League remains an interesting opportunity for the NBL but it is considered one that is best explored at a later date.”

Um. What?

The NBL’s much-touted and exciting new Las Vegas Summer League in July, featuring all of our teams and running alongside the NBA’s annual summer league at UNLV was just kaput?

Wait a minute now.

The NBL Summer League was the big news story the day after James Ennis threw his All Star Five trophy into the ocean – I mean – the day after Rotnei Clarke was named MVP and assembled media gathered back at the same Docklands expecting to see an NBL-sponsored guy in a scuba outfit dive in to retrieve it so it could be sent on to James’ mum.

Instead we got the grand announcement the NBL would be playing alongside the big boys of the NBA in Vegas in July.

The announcement was pretty grand too, a lot different to the two paragraph PS on a marquee player regurgitation.

“I can’t go into a lot of detail about it but a few commitments we thought were in place are not,” Neill told me today.

“It’s not an NBL event anymore.”

So the adjacent summer league event still will go ahead, but without the NBL’s sanction or support.

“Yes. It just won’t be the NBL Summer League,” Neill said.

While Neill could not elaborate further, it is clear the US end of the deal is what came apart when it became apparent certain assurances the NBL had been given would not be met.

Yet again then, it appears what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

TOMORROW: It’s not all bad news, with updates on the PPS and the 2015 Blitz. Got have some good news on Mother's Day!!