Basketball On The Internet.

MOST basketball fans would know by now the Logan Thunder are pushing an empty barrel uphill with about 48 hours left to save their club and their WNBL season.

How a club management can be so blithely irresponsible to leave it til so very late and throw the fate and futures of 12 contracted players - not to mention the rest of the league - up in the air beggars belief.

It is not as if the folk running Logan only just realised that they have a massive financial shortfall. It was evident months ago when the club lost a major sponsor.

General manager Phil Binder rode off into the sunset a while ago and the full extent of how close the Thunder is to cracking only started to become apparent during the WNBL's preseason Spring Shield last weekend.

While coach Jason Chaines' team, in all good faith, was battling its way into the final of the tournament, little did his players know they might in fact be playing the five-year-old club's last games.

Basketball Australia's CEO Kristina Keneally and pro league ops manager Chuck Harmison have been in Brisbane for the past couple of days trying to salvage the wreckage of the Thunder and find government, community and corporate help to save the club.

The 2013-14 season tips off next week so the breadth of the club management's indifference to the plight of its personnel, let alone its responsibility to the WNBL is nothing short of mind-boggling.

When the Townsville Fire was almost snuffed (initially just over two years ago, then again this past off-season), the club rallied quickly to get its situation known in the community.

The community has rallied again and the Fire burn on.

But be in no doubt. The Thunder have not acted with anywhere near the same level of commitment to their program and only now, at the eleventh hour, has their plight even become public knowledge.

"We're hopeful it's not too late," Keneally said today of crisis talks and hasty action to save the team.

The impact, not only on players as diverse as Kristen Veal and Hanna Zavecz but also on the league and a draw clubs nationwide - and ABC-TV coverage - have built around, has the potential to be profound.

Thunder players today took to social media imploring basketball fans, corporates and the community to rally behind saving the club.

Rival players en masse followed suit, using the medium to push Logan's plight into the public domain. It was a terrific show of togetherness from the rest of the league and highlighted again just how badly the Thunder's management has fallen short.

Whether it's the figurative white knight or the community rallying, the time is now. The urgency cannot be stressed enough.

Again, the players are the ones you have to feel for the most.

There they are at Dandenong Stadium, giving it their best at the Spring Shield, reaching the final and buoyed in anticipation of an improved season, and now this bomb hits.

Under new Opals coach Brendan Joyce, a quality player such as Veal this year has won another shot at a belated international career.

At 32, can she afford a season off when she needs to be pressing her claims for the FIBA World Championship next year in Turkey?

Zavecz could have played again in Europe but chose the WNBL and Logan because she too is in the Opals equation.

What can players in their situations do when everyone's rosters and salaries are set?

BA has taken back the license and scurrying behind-the-scenes work has meant some joy but the club still needs to find about $150,000 to get the green light for season 2013-14.

Here's how the story broke at News Limited sites today: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/basketball/wnbl-crisis-as-thunder-set-to-fold-amid-financial-troubles/story-fnii09gt-1226727236803

With Kyrie Irving's Australian visit, the Boomers and Opals qualifying for Worlds next year, more of our players drawing NBA attention, the NBL on the upswing, basketball has enjoyed a positive mid-year. But once again our sport has managed to toss up a completely avoidable crisis at a time when it is slowly again regaining lost mainstream ground.

The next few days will be hellish for so many in south-east Queensland. And for the game.