Basketball On The Internet.

AUSTRALIA has very little on its national sporting calendar to rival rugby’s State-of-Origin series.

The amazing and continued success of the NSW-Queensland rivalry has AFL players back talking about reviving State-of-Origin, although the straightforward nature of the NRL model is not something Aussie Rules footy can duplicate.

Victoria versus WA?
Victoria versus SA?
WA v SA?
Tassie anyone?
How about Queensland and NSW?
Victoria versus the “Allies”? Ugh.
Aussie Rules has too many options.

None of it has the immediacy and passion of the Blues-Maroons rivalry and then there is the built-in resistance of AFL clubs to release their main players, when/where to stage it, etc. It all just tumbles into the “too-hard” basket.

Twitter understandably went a little crazy after the third game of this year’s NRL spectacular, with @aussiehoopla even going to the trouble of naming potential NBL Origin squads for Victoria, SA, WA, NSW and Queensland.

It was a fun read but truth is, I can’t see it working for basketball anymore, Australian Championships at senior level dying a death in the 80s, just as the Australian Club Championship did with the advent of the NBL in 1979.

Frankly, once players are playing professionally, you need to have a very good reason to put them additionally at risk, and “state pride” sure as hell isn’t a good enough one.

A few years ago, former 36ers coach Phil Smyth came up with the idea of staging a South Australia versus Victoria state-of-origin game post-NBL season at Adelaide Arena, expressly to raise funds for an ailing Brett Wheeler.

Players came out of the woodwork offering their services to play, it being for such a good bloke and cause.

But in the end, SA had to make Mark Worthington an honorary South Aussie for the day to get up a genuinely competitive team (apparently he flew over Adelaide once as a child, which fitted the fairly loose criteria) and while the day itself was well-attended and fun, it was a mere exhibition and little else. The postscript, tellingly, was it was a “one-and-done”, with no-one jumping on the concept to keep it going beyond the charity game.

There was a little talk, but no action.

Personally, I am a firm believer in our “product” as a few other places on this site will confirm.

I think there are too many occasions when we look elsewhere and don’t consider our own sporting culture before our sport’s mostly near-sighted leaders deign to act.

Instead of following the Origin idea, there are two events basketball should (additionally) introduce to the national sporting calendar, one an annual event, the other a biennial.

The first would be the upgrade of the NBL’s annual All Star Game.

The second would be the advent of the Southern Cross Challenge, a concept I will broach with you in great depth next time I’m at the keyboard.

But right now, let’s talk about the NBL Stars Game.

I’ll get it out of the way straight up – I hate the “Australia versus US” or “Australia versus Rest of the World” all star formats with a passion.

They’re just inappropriate for a national basketball league and largely meaningless.

Yes, you successfully can argue most all star extravaganzas are “largely meaningless” anyway, but if they are going to be a showcase for your sport, then devise a format that works, permanently.

The NBA has its East versus West. Simple. Straightforward. (Just like NRL’s State-of-Origin.)

No confusion or inconsistency. The NRL has successfully expanded but does Victoria suddenly come into the State-of-Origin mix? Of course not. It’s irrelevant.

The NBA has a team in Canada. Has that impacted on its All Star Game? Of course not. It’s irrelevant.

What has the NBL done?

Let’s see now.

From 1988-91, it had a “North versus South” All Stars format.

In 1992, the gala game became Australia versus the USA All Stars.

For two years, 1993-94, there was a third formula tried, the NBL All Stars versus Australia.

From 1995-97, the NBL reverted back to North versus South, the North winning all three times.

For those of you playing at home, there now have been seven North versus South matches, and North leads 6-1.

The league took an extended All Star break before reviving the series in 2004 when we enjoyed (endured?) our fourth format change, this time the game being East versus West.

And from 2005-2008, we had formula No.#5, with the match being “Aussies versus The World”.

If you’re keeping score, that’s 15 gala All Stars games all together, in five formats.

You wonder why mainstream Australia remains wary about jumping aboard the basketball train? Where the hell is that train wreck going? Is it even on the tracks?

And OK, if you’re really a stickler for detail, there was an inaugural East versus West NBL All Stars game played at the Apollo Stadium back in the early 80s which no-one in authority ever seems keen to want to acknowledge took place.

(Not sure why that is because that match was televised on commercial TV and I have the video myself. I’ll get it switched to DVD and post it on here eventually, promise. Then the league naysayers can crawl back into the woodwork or finally acknowledge a piece of NBL history which has just apparently been discarded.)

So OK. Having established the NBL All Star Game has been something of a dog’s breakfast, it is time to make it a set piece on the calendar, with set rules to govern it as well.

Here is my take.

Let it annually be North versus South (you can count the first seven North-South games if need be, or start fresh with this year’s already scheduled event in December – I don’t think that much matters).

But let us go for consistency and permanency.

I know I am now only repeating what the NBL has just decided but I disagree already with how the league has grouped its teams.

The NBL has decided the North conference will be Cairns, Townsville, Sydney and Wollongong, with the South being New Zealand, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide.

Why?

Purely geographically and ruling a line below Sydney, the teams supplying players for the “North” should be from Sydney, Perth, Townsville and Cairns – with Gold Coast as well and Brisbane, if either/both return down the track.

That makes the “South” comprised of Wollongong, New Zealand, Melbourne and Adelaide, with provision for the second proposed Melbourne club to also suit its players here.

Think of the rivalries additionally serviced by these allocations.

Perth-NZ, Adelaide-Perth, Sydney-Wollongong, Melbourne-Sydney, while, for once, all the Queensland teams could be on the same page.

The event annually should happen in and around a genuine Christmas break, with a clear weekend to stage it.

The NBL website should have a ballot card and run a fan vote to select the starters – point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward and centre. Yes, I know this is pretty much a straight pinch from the NBA but I’ve never been against reproducing good ideas.

The coaches should be the men whose teams are the highest-ranked at Round 8, relevant to their Stars allocations.

By that I mean, if NZ is first, Andrej Lemanis gets the South role but if Wollongong is second, Gordie McLeod does NOT get the North gig, because his team is in the “South”. So, say Perth is third, then Rob Beveridge, as coach of the highest-placed team “from the North”, gets that gig.

The coaches, in consultation with the NBL, select the remaining seven players per roster.

It is a “gala” event so as an annual “one-off”, I think placating the fans who hated the return from 48 to 40-minute games might be appropriate. Let’s make the All Star Game four 12-minute quarters.

Furthermore, let’s not forget we have one of the most outstanding women’s leagues in the world and some of the greatest players in the world at our disposal.

The annual All Stars Weekend should also, in my opinion, embrace a WNBL North versus South All Star game as well.

Try as I have, I cannot see how the SEABL, which is out of season, can get a piece of this, which is unfortunate because I believe the annual All Star Weekend should showcase the best of elite domestic basketball Australia has to offer.

Here’s how I’d do it, in summary:

1. Call it the NBL/WNBL All Stars Extravaganza.
2. Select the site, the Saturday near Christmas, and the home team (North or South) wears dark, the “visitors” wear light uniforms.
3. In the men, initially Cairns, Townsville, Perth and Sydney are the North, Wollongong, New Zealand, Melbourne, Adelaide are South. (In the women, North is: Townsville, Logan, Sydney, Canberra, West Coast. South is: Adelaide, Bendigo, Bulleen, Dandenong.)
4. Run a ballot to pick the starters for the men’s game on nbl.com.au and for the women on wnbl.com.au – coaches to fill out the rosters in conjunction with the respective leagues.
5. The coaches are based on who is coaching the leading team from the South and the leading team from the North at Round 8. (Assistant coaches could be our sport’s past greats. E.g, In Year One, for the men, Leroy Loggins sits in for the North, Ray Borner sits in with the South; Sandy Brondello sits in with North women, Robyn Maher for South).
6. Women tip off at 5.30pm.
7. 7.30pm, Joint North v South, men/women 3-point shoot-out.
8. 8pm, Men’s All Star game, annually 48-minutes.
9. Sunday am, coaching clinics for juniors of host city.
10. Sunday lunch for all competitors before they fly home to their respective clubs.

I hear you ask: Why not play a 48-minute women’s game too?

For two reasons. One, women do not play 48-minute games anywhere and starting it here leads to my second reason, it would just make for too long a night.

As it sits, this would be a massive value package and unique to our sport.

Basketball is played by men AND women so let’s show off our advantage over football and netball.

We may not have Origin (or even originality) but, done right and NOT half-a$$ed, on-the-cheap and without real thought, basketball could give its annual gala day a place in the nation’s sporting calendar EVERYONE, not just ball fans, could appreciate, embrace and support.