I am definitely intrigued by your idea. My devil’s advocate counters would be this;

- Are there really enough guys in Europe/US (the US particularly) that warrant national selection?

- In soccer, you can implement the same structures/tactics with different sets of guys with reasonable success. In basketball, this could be difficult.

E.g. I’d expect the Boomers A-team to feed the BogeyMan at every opportunity. But if I’m a guard on the NBL-based national team, and my pivot men are mostly soft jumpshooters, what’s my play?

If I don’t feed them and play an NBL style of ball, we essentially end up with the different national squads playing different styles, so that achieves little.

If I do feed them (assuming they ever venture into the low post), we’re bound to lose games, which will hurt team confidence.

Is there a middle ground to be found?

Right now with a totally healthy team there is maybe only ONE current NBL player who can expect to make the Boomers world cup team next year and that is (love him or hate him) Mark Worthington. There might be one or two other players with outside chances based on availability and injuries.

What about a Orlando type system, which when it works is pretty freakin sweet, where by we have one big in the block a pretty sweet PG and three David Anderson shooters/recbounders around them?

The NBL is still a teamwork-oriented league, and Australian basketball is taught as a team concept, much the same way as it is in Europe. The FIBA court dimensions mean the lane is more clogged up and there is less driving the lane and more passing around for the open shot, which is often a 3. One thing Aussie players are taught to do well is shoot the ball – just about every NBL player can shoot it – which is not actually the case even in the NBA, especially among the more athletic players. I see nothing wrong with playing to your natural strengths. The whole 1 on 1 streetball thing is no where near as socially ingrained in basketball here either, so often there’s less flashy ball-handling too, but again NBA court dimensions make 1 on 1 play a bit more possible – Chris Paul has said he actually finds the NBA easier than college for this reason – and there’s more space for pick and roll plays and backdoor cuts for alleyoops etc, plus they’ve got more athleticism for that stuff.

But really, America is all about individual success, star-power, domination, it’s built into their culture and likewise into US basketball culture, so you see more individual efforts. But we’ve seen over the last 10 years the return to team ball in the US because of the success of teams like the Spurs, who many consider to be boring, and perhaps this even concerns NBA management. It’s also easy to forget that even the NBA is struggling in some regards – some of the teams are still very low profile, don’t have solid TV rights and barely – if ever – appear on national TV unless they’re playing a top tier team, a problem we’re very familiar with.

But having gone to many NBL games i would say that the crowds ultimately just love teams hitting their shots – 3s included – and they appreciate hustle and energy. They want to see clean plays and strong teamwork. Ultimately they want to see wins and feel team spirit. There’s lots of talented young players in this league who may get a chance to represent Australia in the future. Perhaps there’s no real commonality between the best Australian players at the moment, but you’ve still got to choose your best players, and the trick is devising a system that plays to some of the core strengths of the group – which I though Brian Gorjian did a pretty good job of – and perhaps developing the roles of the core returning players over time.

I have to disagree – Australia DOES produce the athletes with height/athleticism and skills to put on a good basketball game. But the majority of our best players play in Europe or in the USA.

Yes – Boomers don’t play enough together and can’t in the current system. The players are too spread out to justify the travel to play New Zealand again. Which is why a soccer type program can work – lots of opportunities with players in interchagable squads across three areas.
Opportunities to put a team on the floor before say the Euro championships to help other countries in warm up prep games before the Euro Championship or similar.

how often do the boomers actually play outside of the like the olympics / world champs? we occasionally play new zealand but thats all i can think of.

And it is hilarious that anyone associating themselves with Ray Borner wants ‘alley oop’ basketball. Ray couldn’t jump over the lines on the court.

Also a few alley oops are not the issue with the NBL or Aussie Basketball. I do agree the quality of imports has dropped off (since we don’t pay for the quality we need) to a point where there should be real debate on whether they are needed at all at the moment.

but in all seriousness, i agree that Australian Basketball has an identity crisis at the moment. Stemming from locally, and extended to the Boomers of course.

I also think that there’s a bit of a gulf between our “glitzy” NBA stars like Bogut, and the best of our local home-grown talent. It seems like the two sides don’t fully embrace each other. I seem to recall some bitter words between Bogut and Anstey a few years back.

Oh and Ray, if Slamball really is bigger in Australian than the NBL, then that is THE MOST depressing thing I have ever heard.