The guy who got drafted by lakers is a 6'9 PG

The sooner they fold, the better it will be for the NBL.

One good thing about the slingers being in the nbl, as it gives a few extra young guys a chance to play at this level, maybe they should relocate back to Australia somewhere?? would canberra be able to support a team again?? as even though it means there will be a couple of weaker teams, i think having more teams is better as it gives more fans a chance to see a game in more areas across australia and it gives more players a chance to get a nbl gig. guys like mcdonald, janev and cameron have shown they are atleast handy at this level, plus they seem to have two quality imports. If the nbl properly enforced the points cap,(ie not letting the tigers hava 10 pooint import, and not giving saville a reduction at the kings) and perhaps lowered it a little bit, maybe to around 63 it would also even up the gap between the slingers/hawks and the top teams a bit to

Time to put this in perspective before everyone gets too excited.If you are really interested read this

http://forums.interbasket.net/showthread.php?p=128874

If not - here are some highlights

1. "Beijing Olympian has not secured the Singapore Indoor Stadium as their venue. At least for the first 2 games, scheduled on Nov 30 and Dec 1 against the Quebec Kwebekwas, a Canadian-based ABA team, they will play in Singapore Basketball Centre. Tickets are only 10 Singapore Dollars (~7 USD) for adults and 5 Sin Dol for students ". ( Singapore Basketball Centre is a 3 court non aircon facility kind of similar to Pasadena ).

2. "Aoshen lost to Quebec at "home" 112-117. Supposedly only ~60 people showed up.

Aoshen's 4 imports this year are:
Sheldon Pace PG 198cm
Jamel Staten SF 198cm
Lee Scruggs C 211cm
David Bancroft C 208cm"

3. The main source about this venture is Joe Newman , CEO of ABA . According to WIKIPEDIA "(Joe) F. Newman (born March 25, 1937) is co-founder and CEO of the American Basketball Association (ABA). He was formerly owner of the Indiana Legends, which played two seasons in the ABA, losing thousands of dollars before folding. The team also has yet to settle pending lawsuits brought forward by former team members for missing payments........"

Who knows if this will fly ? Maybe ...but first they are likely to loose a lot of money .

By the way , The Slingers continue to pick up more local sponsors and attract bigger crowds - so maybe they will disappoint some people and turn up again next year !

Any feeling over there as to whether the Slingers will survive BA's shuffle of the NBL?

Isaac, so far no real talk publicly about the BA = NBL issue. I am not sure people are ready to talk about this yet. After all the birth of the Slingers has taken a lot of work.

This year clearly is looking a bit tough when it comes to winning games but frankly the team has given much better entertainment value overall .

So lets hope they get a 3rd year to cement their new young team in the league - maybe with a few more experienced players from the region eg Castro.
joining Grizzard, Helms, Knight, Cameron, Janev ,Fitzgerald and McDonald .

You may like to have an update on the ABA venture in Singapore . The local newspaper Straits Times ran on Monday a reasonable large article about the Beijing Aoshen who are now based in Singapore . The below includes "quotes" from the paper plus some personal comments .

1. " Their roster includes an NBA bound player - PG Sun Yue ( 22 yrs , 206 cm !) who was the Lakers 40h pick in last years NBA draft " He is also part of China's Olympic squad along with centre Zhang Songtao"

"The Beijing Aoshen's have after 6 weeks barely made a ripple here "

2. "The team is playing at Toa Payoh Sports Hall ( ok place ) before crowds of less than 400 " In the US the ABA reportedly draw 1,500 fans per match "

3. " Teams fly in more or less everyweek to play 2 matches against the Aoshen's who have won 11 of their 12 games so far against little know teams like the Houston Takers , the San Diego Wildcats " ( Most teams seems to arrive on the first game day or just the day before . The second game is the following evening. One club lost half of their team in transit in the USA and had to play with 6 players..... )

No doubt the Beijing Aoshen can play basketball and also have the money - and their challenge may be more that they are linked to the ABA despite the leagues dreams of " We might event start and ABA division here with teams from Singapore , Malaysia, Philippines says vice-president of officials , Tom Chichester ".

The newspaper reports a comment from Slinger MD Bob Turner stating " Their presence can only be good for the sport ".