Basketball On The Internet.

AUSTRALIAN Basketball Hall of Fame player and coach Ken Cole offers further insight into how he thinks the game can continue its evolution in Australia.

 

FIRST off I would like to say that the NBL seems to be making every attempt to shake off the problems of recent years and move forward again.

Obviously there is a huge amount of work to do.

As I said previously there is NO DOUBT we must change seasons back to winter.

While the change and adjustment of seasons will not be easy it can certainly be done in a way that makes everyone happy.

Careful planning of our season will ensure we are virtually the only quality basketball available in the world at that time.

This gives us a unique opportunity to not only retain all the key Australian players in our national league but also to recruit the cream of international players looking for a quality league.

I think there are two major requirements for us to achieve long-term success.

The first is VISION, and the second and most important is PASSION.

Our vision should be to establish the Australian NBL as the premier international basketball league.

There is no reason this can’t be achieved.

Ask yourself this question if you were a player. Would you prefer to play in Istanbul or Russia or some Chinese province, or live and play on the Gold Coast, in Sydney, in Melbourne or in the beautiful Perth or Adelaide?

You should immediately walk away from anyone who would consider the first options, as they are not bright enough to play in the NBL.

Now if we encourage 10 or 12 players currently playing overseas back into our NBL along with the excellent talent already available, and continue to upgrade the quality of imports, we will have dramatically raised the standard in the eyes of the public.

To achieve this of course we have to be looking for salary caps ranging from $1 – $2.5 million. All 10 to 12 national squad players in our NBL should each be able to earn $200 – $250,000 a season.

That would mean virtually all our top players are available during the season for Boomers training camps and promotions as well as being able to inspire our next generation of players.

Our situation in Australia is unique and teams need community involvement to be successful.

This requires close cooperation on promotions with BA and local clubs and associations.

We are all in this together. We need to bring the league to at least 10 teams. A country of our size cannot afford to lose its top 10 or 15 players.

This league was started to raise the standards of Australian players and to lift the profile of basketball in Australia. We need to find a way to combine the unique skills and talent of the NBL with the organisational and coaching structures of BA to maximise the progress of both groups.

BA to the NBL is virtually what the NCAA is to the NBA. How stupid is it of us to develop high quality talent in large numbers and then export them all out of our country.

It was always my dream to see players have the opportunity to play overseas but to continue to give back to Australian basketball at home.

Players' salaries will be able to be raised dramatically and sensibly by utilising the incredible numbers that we have involved in our sport both as players, former players, and spectators.

Our demographics as far as age and sex go from approximately 8-to-80. There is no sport that has a wider advertising demographic than basketball.

Why do we not have an advertising and marketing agency that understands the absolute numbers power possessed by basketball?

We have to make our game as attractive as possible for the public. We know how to present games, we know how to market them, and we proved this for nearly a decade.

We DO NOT need to follow the playing style of the NBA, which I do not consider basketball. The NBA is now a hybrid version of the game.

Basically basketball is a simple game that everyone is trying to make more difficult. It is a game that teaches constantly how to build a strong life, and develop lifetime friendships.

We must sell the wonders of our sport, regain the magic and build on it. I’ll try to point out some thoughts and let others build on them.

Basically I want the cream of our talent playing in Australia and to turn basketball into at least every Australian’s number two sport. I find it embarrassing listening to commentators rave over a player’s ability to dunk the ball in a game. They make it sound like it’s a new phenomenon. We have had sky walkers in Australian basketball for more than 20 years.

Certainly no new players compare with James Crawford and another half dozen that could easily be named. Besides, is it more exciting watching some 7-footer prove that he can dunk a ball with no one stopping him, or to watch the beauty of a young Steph Curry shoot the most beautiful jump shots all over the court?

Would you sooner watch a bigger, slower player make the occasional dunk, or watch players like Chris Goulding and almost all of the Adelaide team light it up?

I’m also embarrassed to see coaching clinics advertised at $60 a head being run by a street ball player from the USA. At first I thought it was a joke.

We should have nothing to do with that type of promo. It has nothing to do with our great game.

There needs to be obvious adjustments to the game that make us more attractive again to fans.

Rule changes that I had previously mentioned, such as 48 minutes, extra fouls, extra time outs etc should be carefully discussed.

When I ushered these changes in previously as president of the coaches’ association, we did so because we believed that this is what the players, coaches, and public wanted. It certainly worked by making our game more exciting.

TV commentaries should be constantly positive and depict our game as continually moving forward.

It is up to commentators to tell us simply what is happening on the court, not what they believe THEY could accomplish on the court.

Difficult to judge coaches’ decisions when you don’t attend any of their practices.

The game needs to build and concentrate on personalities.

Commentators need to constantly upgrade fans as to player’s scoring, rebounding numbers, scores from other games being played, and perhaps progress reports on leading scorers and rebounders across the league.

There are a myriad of little things regarding TV that I think it would be worthwhile discussing and to bring a more positive perspective to the sport.

The NBL needs a weekly report forwarded to every major sports editor in the country, major radio and television outlets. We should never miss an opportunity to put our face forward. We have large, potentially high-profile athletes travelling the country at airports every weekend.

We need to exploit our public profile. We need to rebuild strong relationships with Aussie Rules and the other major sports and we can do this primarily by exposing our coaches to these groups that will give us the credibility we require.

While I think BA has done an amazing job over the years producing a number of great athletes, we certainly seem to have not succeeded in producing a wide array of high quality shooters. I would like to see more emphasis placed on all of the basic fundamentals of the sport, shooting in particular.

A comment was made to me that people are misconstruing low scoring and shooting percentages for the fact that the game is now quicker. I would like to remind people that St Kilda averaged 110 and 130 a game in the 70’s, and the Adelaide team in ‘85-’86 averaged nearly 120.

Perhaps I should also mention that the St Kilda scoring was achieved with a 40-minute game clock and no 3-point line. There is no reason high-scoring and strong defence don’t fit together. What it did produce were coaches with dramatically different philosophies that enabled scoring to go high to low. Example, defensive coaches such as Barry Barnes scoring in the 70’s to 80’s as against coaches like myself, Calvin, and Brian Kerle who were consistently scoring in the 100’s.

Scoring brings excitement and crowds. We have a lot of great coaches of groups, whereas we need great coaches of players. You control the flow of a game, momentum, by natural feel; a textbook will not help.

We seem to have lost the art of putting the opposing team away because players and coaches are not seeing their opponent is capable of being knocked out. We need to talk about the mental side of the game. No great foul shooter EVER thinks they can miss. You’d be surprised at how confident players can become when you excite them about their own talents, and build on them.

That’s some of the real fun in coaching.