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In Australias loss to Argentina last night as Adam Gibson made his three point attempt. With 3.5secs left Argentina have rebounded the ball as it missed... travelled with the ball and then violently kicked the ball into the crowd still with 0.1 sec on the time clock. What is wrong with the officials, this is a technical foul, with two shots to Australia and a side ball and posession. I am outraged, this is the World Championships for goodness sake and besides what sort of example did this Argentinian player set for young players. Check out the video.

As the sport of basketball shows some signs of recovering from a decade of trouble and negativity, it is now time for companies who profit immensely from our sport here in Australia to assist with the rebirth of our game and the pending growth in popularity on all levels.
Over this past weekend i watched and was involved in several basketball games ranging from under 12 domestic girls basketball to Championship boys to Big V finals. What i noticed was that there are a lot of kids playing the sport and they were all wearing runners. "Der" i hear you think to yourself. The two most dominant brands of footwear were by far Nike for the boys and ASICS for the girls. 
Lets take the boys from under 16 Championship game as a test case, of the 20 boys involved in this game, 19 were wearing high priced Nikes. The average price was $220. This equates to a gross spend of $4,180 for one game for shoes that might last 3 months. Lets say 4 months. If these boys purchase say three pairs a year of say and average of $200, then this is a spend for two teams of $11,400 over two teams. Lets reduce this to say $5,000 per team given consideration to discounts and other factors. Nike would gross say $2,800 per team for the year and profit after cost of goods might be say $1,800 per team per year at this level. This is from one team.Arguably a fair asssumption.
ASICS is the dominate footwear brand for girls playing basketball. Ironically the girls playing basketball are wearing a netball shoe. ASICS shoes that the girls wear are called Netburners and they retail for less than the price of the Nike example i have recently mentioned, however there is a healthy profit margin and ASICS like Nike are making a bucket load of cash from basketball here in Australia. With the sport always short of money, the likes of Nike and ASICS could take hero status if they start to support the sport with some hard earned.
Several years ago i was in a situation whereby i was chasing sponsorship from Nike and also ASICS. At that time they clearly stated that Nike's marketing budget goes into Soccer and Australian rules football and ASICS management suggested that they cannot figure out the Basketball market and are not really involved in basketball. Rubbish!
Now that our sport is on the improve from a perception point of view and is now on the rise with a better understanding of the business elements, it is time for these companies and like companies to throw their power and a percentage of their massive profits back into our sport. It is just not right that Nike can ignore the needs of our sport in regards to sponsorship and financial assistance when they profit massively from the participants. It is irresponsible of ASICS to dominate the footwear market of basketball and put all of their resources into Netball and running.
Nike and ASICS have such a hold on the market that the kids will keep on buying their products regardless of  if they support the sport with a marketing budget, but in true spirit of the movie "the Castle" the vibe of these multi nationals taking and not giving anything back is a "Bad Vibe". It just does not seem right.
So to Mr Nike and Mrs ASICS, it is time to do the right thing by the great sport of basketball and put some support back into the game. Perhaps you could support the NBL or WNBL. Perhaps you could support the governing bodies. Perhaps it is with the sub leagues. Ultimately, you have an obligation to asssist the people who are buying your products en masse. Time to be a leader and support Australia.

The Youth League final for the BIG V finals have been on over the past few weeks and i went along to the Diamond Valley/Melbourne Tigers finals to support the boys. Congratulations to Diamond Valleys boys for taking out the final first of all but the point of the article is to say how passionate and how hard these young fellas play their basketball.
Both teams were locked in a fierce battle where winner takes all and both teams in this particular final were worthy of winning, purely based on their intensity and drive.
It made me think of the American model of the NBA and College system and i could not help but draw parallels between this level of basketball and the NBL. Well done to all involved and if you are looking for some entertaining basketball in the future, get along to the Big V, the SEABL and the kids who come through the various ranks at local level. Well done to all involved and once again congrats to Diamond Valley

Is it just me or is one of the main points of interest in the upcoming World Championships is seeing if the USA can be knocked off in their quest for the gold medal. Is it tall poppy syndrome that we Australians have in our DNA or is it just barracking for the undergdog? Is it a liking of the David and Goliath story or is it just that at times the USA have seemed brash, cocky and patronising? I cannot put my finger on the exact reason why i want the USA to be seriously challenged for this pending Gold Medal but i love seeing them being challenged and also (i hate to say it) losing.
The blokes who will be representing the USA in Turkey are in most part not the big big names of the NBA. Yes Kevin Durant is one of the best players in the world but even as recently as yesterday Rondo withdrew from the team. I have heard from relaiable sources that in previous world tournaments when the big names were in the team that remarks such as "I earn more than his entire family" were thrown around on court to our Aussie boys.....and those sort of remarks make me want every US team to lose, regardless as to who is in the line up.
But looking deeper into this situation of the world championships, the NBA style of basketball is not the most attractive form of the game in my opinion. Yes it provides some spectacular highlights which is what the American and to a degree the global public want to see, but the best brand of basketball is team basketball. There is an old saying about "a team of champions will not beat a champion team" and i wait with interest to see how the team orientated countries such as Spain, Greece, Argentina and Australia compete against the US who generally get by and dominate these tournaments with superior athleticism.
I hope that i am not being sinister when i say i want the US of A to not win gold. I think it is healthy for the sport if the gold medal is shared around, and if the Aussie boys do not get to play off for a medal, then sorry USA, me going for the other team. 

Andrew Gaze recently spent some time in Singapore are the Youth Olympics and he along with other stars of our game were able to experience shooting ffrom the new three point range. His reaction was that the extra distance will sort out who the real perimeter shooters are in the NBL. Apparently the new three point range is approximately 30cm or so.
So the question is, who are the real shooters in the NBL for this upcoming season?????????

Ok. at the time of writing it is four days away from the World Championship starting and based on some research with world basketball experts mixed with current pre tournament form and assuming that rosters go through to the Tourny uninjured, here are my pool predictions up until cross over stage................
Pool A..1. Argentina, 2Australia, 3. Serbia, 4. Germany, 5Angola and 6. Jordan
Pool B and the predicted finish will be 1. USA, 2.Croatia, 3. Brazil, 4. Slovenia, 5. Tunisia and 6. Iran.
Cross over for Australia will be Brazil in my humblest opinion.......then what happens from there will be anyone's guess....
Hold on for what will be a great tournament.