Basketball On The Internet.

MANY of the NBL's imports who still are spoken of in reverential terms were players clubs stumbled onto - a matter of good fortune over good management.

In Adelaide, for example, one of the all-time greats is American-born power forward Mark Davis, who was playing domestic ball in New Zealand when South Adelaide Panthers needed an import.

The State League-based Panthers had a Kiwi player who suggested they look at Davis, he found the idea of exploring Australia compelling, and was in town ripping up the domestic comp when the 36ers came calling.

The rest is history.

Darnell Mee was picked up from Canberra by then-36ers coach Phil Smyth after his former multiple-championship-winning backcourt running mate Herb McEachin recommended him highly to the new Adelaide coach.

Then when the Sixers were floundering for a second import, Mee suggested they might look at a former teammate at the NBA's Denver Nuggets named Kevin Brooks.

How did that work out?

My point?

Recruiting imports is anything but an exact science but getting it "right" was a lot easier in the early days when someone such as Dave Adkins was sending quality, low-cost players - for the most part from lesser-known schools - to the NBL.

(For those of you who just came in and don't know anything about Adkins, I'd suggest you go here and check this out: http://www.amazon.com/Journey-Overseas-Basketball-Dave-Adkins/dp/0967094003/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top but suffice to say the American coach/administrator/agent who briefly held the reins of the Hobart Devils in the NBL, was hip to the standard of our league and sent the appropriate imports.

The early days of the NBL - and a great many clubs - owe a lot to him and that would bear revisiting when the league re-establishes its Hall of Fame after finalising the split away from Basketball Australia.

(Though that hit a hitch today as you can discover by going to http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/basketball/nblbasketball-australia-divorce-in-limbo-as-prime-movers-head-overseas/story-fndekpx4-1226648673004 to read the latest.)

But Adkins in the Hall of Fame is an issue for another time.

To me it long has made more sense to cut back the amount of time clubs spend dealing with foreign agents flogging their players and either nurture or sponsor someone reliable to steer them toward the right type of players - the Second Coming of Dave Adkins, if you like.

Or, better yet - and ultimately more cost-effective - send your trusted assistant or trusted player talent scout to the US in March to go and watch some of the conference tournaments of lesser conferences.

If you count all the independent Div.1 colleges as a conference, there's some 33 conferences playing NCAA ball at that level now.

Then there is Division 2. Fairmont State University, for example, produced a skinny athlete named Leroy Loggins. Three NBL championships, three MVP awards, one Olympics, Leapin' Leroy is the first name mentioned in any "best American in the NBL" conversation.

And he came from Div.2.

Again, my point is dealing with an agent who is flogging you his super-duper "just-missed the cut for the NBA"/"He is a D-League superstar" potential import - a player he also most likely is pumping up with 20 other suitors - does not seem as efficient as sending someone with a keen eye for talent to the USA.

But maybe DON'T go looking for someone at Duke University, or Kentucky etcetera but go look at the Conference tournament of the 15th or 23rd ranked conference.

Before you go all "you're looking for inferior talent" on me, I remind you again: Leroy Loggins.

A couple of years ago when I visited the US to watch some college basketball being played in the Sun Belt Conference, I saw at least half a dozen seniors at various schools who could have walked straight into NBL import spots and made some of our recent restricted players look like deep-bench locals.

In the case of two of those guys I saw, one is working at a Walmart in Alabama and the other is "pumping gas" as they like to call it, in Arkansas.

That's right. The NBA draft rarely extends as far as the lower level conferences or Div.2 (or 3, or independents, or community colleges) but that doesn't mean there aren't many diamonds waiting to be found. If only someone would go looking.

Guys who finish college and go undrafted or unrepresented inevitably wind up having to say goodbye to their playing careers.

Six months in Australia? On $80G? Doing what they love?

Yeah. That would be a tough sell.

Yes, I also know $80,000 is not huge money for an import but are we talking about the same guy? If you are about to pack a shelf in a factory - ask another NBL Hall of Famer, Cal Bruton, what that might have felt like - then $50,000 sounds great.

If the guy turns out to be superstar in our league, then we all know he will get a better deal in Year Two so everyone is a winner.

In Adelaide, Forestville Eagles were put onto a guy playing social ball in Oregon by an Adelaide basketball player living there. The Eagles brought out Riley Luettgerodt in 2010 and he won the Woollacott Medal that year as the fairest and best player in South Australia.

OK. He wasn't quite up for NBL but he was "discovered" playing recreation league basketball in Portland. How many other hundreds/thousands are there out there?

Which brings me back to Kevin Brooks. Here is a guy who played NBA at Denver Nuggets, threw down a dunk with Michael Jordan desperately trying to block him - and failing to do it - who would have contacts and great cache talking with potential young men wanting to try their good fortune Down Under.

Here's the recent adelaidenow story on KB, if you want to know more about him.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/basketball/kevin-brooks-joins-adelaide-36ers-as-assistant-coach-to-joey-wright/story-fne5r4t9-1226647319331

I also know Joey Wright, as the new 36ers coach, has recruited some quality players in his time as an NBL head man.

But just as we can all name an Adris Deleon or Willie Farley, diehard fans equally can rattle off the imports in their respective programs who were duds.

No coach is infallible and no club has always got it right. In fact, the opposite more often applies.

But unless you get truly lucky - as Adelaide certainly did - it isn't always the ex-NBA guy or the D-League superstar who is going to turn around your program. And that player from the lesser program is more likely to truly appreciate the opportunity to play in Australia, as opposed to using it as a stepping-stone to something better.

Just look back at those guys who came from no-where particularly special back in the day and what an impact they made here.

Many of them are still here too. Those gold nuggets are worth trying to find, rather than being blinded by the iron pyrites so often flashed in GM's faces.