Basketball On The Internet.

THE NBL decision to not allow Sydney to replace its injured marquee player Josh Childress with someone comparable - say, Al Harrington - again tells you all that is wrong with the league's governance.

For a start, on a weekend when the Socceroos have won the Asian Cup, whatever that is, capturing (briefly) the sporting public's imagination yet again, the NBL trumpeting the arrival for a handful of games of an NBA star such as Harrington would have been a huge PR plus for our forgotten sport.

Once again while the soccer-cricket-footy-mad media force feeds us the regular soccer "sleeping giant" BS, we again will be generating publicity for the wrong reasons.

The NBL regulations have provision for "exceptional circumstances" and surely losing your marquee player and starting centre qualifies.

Interim CEO Bret Mactavish has the discretionary powers to have made this happen. I'm guessing when you have the word "interim" in front of your title, you may be reluctant to make any waves.

(In fairness to Bret, I rang him numerous times on Friday to hear his official reasoning why the Kings could not replace Childress with someone comparable and missed him every time. When he rang back, he missed me. But I'm sure we all have experienced those days of "phone-tag", deliberate or otherwise. New chairman Graeme Wade referred me also to Bret so there was no comment relevant there.)

So while Childress could have helped Sydney with a wildcat strike of sorts by bringing in his friend Harrington, that wasn't allowed to happen so the Kings went to Plan B.

That's the one we broke here on Friday, with Daequon Montreal and Mathiang Muo Sydney's targets to replace Childress and Angus Brandt and remain competitive for the rest of the regular season.

Of course the NBL could not approve that ahead of this round - why? Again, a mystery - but hopefully next week when Sydney is playing surging Adelaide or red-hot Cairns, the Kings can suit the duo.

It is in everyone's interest to keep the Kings - finals threats until Childress and Brandt suffered their injuries - competitive and capable.

They have home games to sell and corporates and sponsors to try and retain for next season when they will be forced out of the Sydney Entertainment Centre and out to Homebush.

The club has some tough times ahead. Nice of the NBL to be amenable to helping one of its marquee clubs.

Quick look at the draw and, oh, right, the Kings are in Perth today with their depleted team and development players, to take on the hiccuping Wildcats.

Not reading anything into that, of course. Obviously a coincidence, as always.