Basketball Australia is set to fire a salvo in the fight for Australia’s top sporting young guns with the introduction of a national development league.
The governing body met this week to thrash out plans for the new competition, aimed at providing a clear pathway for talented players currently being lured to other sports.
While BA high performance manager Wayne Carroll remains tight-lipped over its format and possible age-limit, the competition is set to fill the void as a second-tier feeder system to the elite National Basketball League.
“The Basketball Australia board (discussed) the proposed development league this week,” Carroll said.
“The product of those discussions will give a clearer direction regarding this league.”
A key to those discussions will be how the new competition should work with the various state leagues, which are seen as incapable of working together to offer young players a direct springboard into a professional career.
Victoria’s state league, the Big V, has already presented its case, seeking greater clarification of its position in the sport’s pecking order.
“Right now there is some confusion about what is the direct pathway at the senior level beneath the NBL,” Big V media manager Davin Sgargetta said.
“There isn’t a clear step or sequence of steps that lead to the top level of the sport.”
While the Big V was rocked last year by the loss of powerhouse clubs Dandenong and Sandringham to the rival South East Australian Basketball League, it remains open to the prospect of its teams switching to the new development competition.
“They could, but they should only qualify by winning a state championship,” Sgargetta said.
“There should be a cap of teams per state and the lowest finishers from each state in this new competition should be relegated in place of teams that go on to win their respective state championships.”
Sgargetta said the new competition should run simultaneously with the NBL, allowing young players to remain in their state league during the winter off-season.
The opportunity to come under the watchful eyes of NBL coaches is seen as an incentive for juniors to resist lucrative offers from other sports, with Scott Pendlebury and Jack Watts headlining a growing list of players who have quit the game in favour of AFL careers.
“There are a lot of kids my age playing footy now that were top basketballers growing up,” 21-year-old Andrew Kelly said.
“Basketball really needs to work hard to stem the flow of talented players turning their backs on the sport, and if a second-tier league will help, then I’m definitely all for it.”
Kelly stepped up to the Waverley Falcons’ State Championship team this season after honing his skills in the Big V’s own youth league, winning the 2008 Most Valuable Player award with 17.4 points and 12.4 rebounds per game.
However, he fears the competition is no longer strong enough to produce stars of the future after many of its clubs were poached by the SEABL, which created its own youth competition, the D-League.
“The D-League has done more harm than good,” Kelly said.
“They’ve created nearly an identical competition to the Big V’s, which has watered down the standard for both their own clubs and ours. Young players no longer have the same chance to play against all the best players from their age group as they did when all youth teams were in the Big V.”
SEABL General Manager Mark Chivers was contacted but declined to comment until BA makes its recommendations.
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-Michael Scibilia
Two Documentary sources:
“Plan for a Number 2 tier”
Big V Media Guide 2009
Skibs,
Interesting story.
Strangio would be proud.
Maybe I should twitter this site???
By: Josh on October 13, 2009
at 3:25 am