I was going to post this to OzHoops when the news there first emerged, but never did.

I never bought PBT but I read a few copies over the years that Oscar had bought or was given.

For at least the last 3 years I've heard virtually nothing about it, seen no copies, and had no desire to buy it. Has there been a web site for the magazine posting a preview of articles or teasers?

Obviously there is a real "culture of free" on the net -- it is exceptionally hard to sell content -- but it has its uses for a publication like PBT. I occasionally read something like TheNation.com and, from time to time, consider getting a subscription. If TheNation didn't have a website, I would never hear about it, wouldn't have remained aware of its articles over time, and would never have considered a subscription.

There is a gaping hole in basketball-opinion writing in Australia -- ignoring casual forum opinions, the almost-defunct PBT, and Boti's Around the NBL snippets which don't really count.

OzHoops posts essentially match reports and very little else.

In contrast, ESPN and other US publications have columnists covering the NBA with entertaining articles and opinion.

We don't have the attention and money floating around the NBA, but I think there's potential for media hopefuls to establish themselves as columnists amongst basketball fans in this country. If anyone covets that sort of path, I'm happy to help. Run it off www.hoops.com.au/mag/ or something.

A sad day indeed. PBT's top five was always entertaining.

Love reading the league leaders, and the one-line assessments next to ladder positions.

From the glory days of One-on One (I have issue 1 in a plastic sleeve, Mark Bradtke on the cover - story about him heading to Spain) I have been an avid reader of PBT.

I got a copy of PBT every Wednesday and happily parted with my $4.50. Was the only chance to read any articles from some decent jurnos (Agnew, Milgate, Nielsen... I wouldn't include that dodgy Hughes guy in that category).

Kept my lunch times throughout the week at least partially occupied.

Will be a shame to see it go. Well done to Ewan and the crew who have kept it running the past few years.

Always bought it, but in recent times, especially with the NBA stuff it was articles taken from www.insidehoops.com

I haven't bought PBT for several years. Initially I did buy it sometimes but got frustrated by the lack of NBL coverage. I believe the NBL coverage did pick up after I lost interest but with most of the stories basically rehash of stories found on the net I didn't see the point.

I loved the old One on One mag. That had feature articles, the kind of things that weren't available on the net. In fact One on One was around so long ago it was before the net was even mainstream.

I remember going to the newsagents on my way home from school to pick up One on One every month. The first day it hit the stands, I'd get it. The first ever edition had Andrew Gaze on the cover (I think being guarded by another player).

What are guys like Andrew Johnstone doing these days? As far as I know he doesn't report on basketball for the Melbourne papers.

I swear Andrew Johnstone was actually working for the NBL not too long ago but I just went onto the NBL site and can't find his name within the staff listings.

Agreed, would love to see a magazine like One on One return to the newsstands again.

Now that you mention it DC I do recall reading that he worked for the NBL recently.

Thats a shame to hear about this, not to many ball mags out anymore.

SLAM is a little too pricey and dont last a month and now this!

SPEWING

Isaac, I think you might find that OzHoops will start to fill that "opinion" void that PBT filled.

With the majority of writers (Nielsen - the OzHoop editor, Milgate, Skinner, Hughes) all OzHoops writers, a lot of their articles will now appear on OzHoops.

I personally didn't buy too many copies of PBT, not being an NBA fan, I felt that 3-4 pages of NBL, in which I prety much had access to that news already, was a bit unjustified.

What do you think about my comment about the lack of basketball opinion in this country though? Even if only online.

I mean, everywhere has match reports. Boti will write some around-the-league jokes, OzHoops will have a season preview or half-way review... but no one will write an in depth commentary on the MVP frontrunners or assess the structure of a team or critique a team's style of play.

I haven't really seen an NBA game for a while, but I play fantasy hoops and follow the stats and I still find the ESPN columns or NBA blogs to be quite an entertaining read. Go to the NBA site and look in the blog-roll for the last article by Jaleel White AKA Steve Urkel. Or look at the lead article on the NBA site today about the offensive power of the leading teams. Includes a funny photo combo of TD hugging a ball, and Amare and Nash cominb to steal it.

Here's a good example: In search of a ring -- report on KG's chances of getting a ring and the chances of the other leading players:

"He's got to be looking around, wondering where the heck Latrell wandered off to, how Sam got so old so fast, and feeling like Atlas didn't know nothing about the real weight of the world."

Articles like this boost the name-players of our league that bring crowds.

Again, I think there's an opportunity for a gutsy columnist with no strong bias who's willing to call it how they see it whatever that means.

OOps...above was by me. Using Mozilla as my browser now and didnt realise the name wasnt in it :)

doesnt really matter.u find the same articles on the net from variuos sites.

Yogee -- yes, match reports can be done fairly quickly, but to put something a bit more involved together will chew an hour or more.

I wasn't criticising OzHoops because you can't direct too many complaints at a volunteer site with no advertisements, but they would probably be in the best position to start adding to the commentary arsenal.

Opinion-based columns could be easily written under an alias perhaps?

I dont think most of the writers would mind writing under their real names (I'm detested already, I have nothing to lose :) )

As far as being a volunteer based site, yes we are...however there are some plans under way for the off season which would mean we will have to increase our content anyway (I wont steal any thunder for when it is all announced).

Most of us still need a creative outlet, so I think those opinion pieces will show up sooner rather than later.