Might wanna check some facts first their mate.
Firstly Chuck has stated many times that he is purely there because no one else (more suitable) will step up for the spot (within the NBL's budget), he never shy's away from the fact that luring sponsors and hard sells is not his thing.
Derwin won't sack him (does he even have the power to anyway?) cause it would just leave all the burden on him.
Hardly allowed a 'new' license into the league rather allowed West Sydney to rename and 'try' and capitalise on the Sydney market (was always going to be tough).

If they want this new reform to be fair dinkum than it is going to cost a bit of money to get up and running and some time to find the right people for the right jobs. Chuck has the passion and knowledge to hold a role I believe, they just need to realise and utilise people to their strengths when going about this whole reform.

Dj you cant be serious, the guy is not CEO material nor operations wise, look at the crappy season shedules that he has made the last few years.

Look how he lost the hummer sponsorship
Look how he losts 1 game a week on fox
Look how we have seen 3 licences fold, kings,bulletes and slingers maybe 4 with the spirit.

All teams must prove that they can financialy carry out the year.. the person who is responsible for allowing teams to enter the season is ultimately under Chucks responsibility.

i dont question chuck passion for the game, i question he is not up for the role of ceo or any senior role that can make decisions on the health of the new league, his record indicates he cant run a professional sporting competion, he is a complete dud who will be know as the ceo or was responsible for the demise of the bullets,kings, slingers and possibly the spirt, because he poorly managed the nbl.

He should have no involvement in the new league unless its maybe a referee coach, but nothing on senior management

I don't think he's doing a great job if he wants a spot in the NewBL, but I'm not sure about the case you make:

Doubt anyone could've retained the Hummer sponsorship or better Fox coverage given the circumstances of the league given the revamp.

What could anyone have done about Groves and Johnston? Not much about Groves, that's for sure. They could've prevented Johnston from taking ownership of the Kings based on the location clause (he lived outside of Sydney) and I suspected TJ's operation was a ponzi from the beginning and hope Harmison at least had some suspicions, but let's say they prevent him buying the club - what then? Maybe the existing owners struggle to find another buyer and the club goes to dust 6-12 months earlier.

I can't see how Singapore could've been handled much better. If the reform wanted them out, it was going to happen this year or next. And when they tried the 'flight costs' path, Harmison would've been acting on behalf of the remaining clubs in rejecting that option - could've had a domino effect for all we know.

There was no crusade to bring down Shane Heal - there was an investigation and then legal threats leading to a retraction.

If a club is unhappy that complaints about racial vilification have not been properly investigated, then take the story to the media. From what I read about that instance, the fan in question was ejected from the stadium - is that the event you're referencing? What else can you do? Ban him for life? They might've done that anyway. You're very quick to believe the Blaze version of events in that case, but not that of the Spirit fan in the other case! Do you share Joyce's beef with Wollongong for any reason in particular?

You may have a point on the Spirit. Especially if the league (as once rumoured) recommended or approved the change of name to "Spirit" without strong opposition.

A criticism I have is that, over the last 12-18 months, he's provided awkward media fodder with criticism of the league with little headway in terms of publicity for the current season.

He's hardly pushed the league to new heights but it's an interim role in very difficult circumstances. I don't know what positions might exist within the future BA/NBL/etc organisation, so I don't know whether there might be a role to suit Chuck. I don't think anyone's putting him up for CEO though.

Spot on Isaac, he's been thrust into a position he really dosn't want, sure he isn't CEO material but he still has plenty of basketball knowledge that would be stupid not to utilise. It's fine saying get rid of him and do it now and whilst that would be great their just isnt many other options and no money to throw around.

As for his media presence, yes that has been less than impressive.

What makes Chuck any different ?
Half the positions of power in the sport are currently occupied by half wits. (Including many of the WNBL and NBL club positions)
It's the reason the sport is in such bad shape.
Nobody with half a brain wants to hang around long enough to make a difference because quite frankly everything is so F'ed up that it's just not worth the stress of trying to fix it.
Especially when you can get paid much more with better conditions working in a properly run sporting league/club, so the end result is in most instances that the people that remain are the ones that can't get jobs elsewhere.

How would Wayne Jackson go?

I was more then happy to Boo Chuck when he was in Adelaide last. I personally think he is doing an incompetent job and can't see one good thing about the job he has done.

While some of the things can be argued that he couldn't have done any better or that the issue was out of his hands I don't believe the following were out of his hands:

* This years schedule
* The lack of reporting players
* Sydney Spirits possible demise

Apparently he would be happy to step down from the position but I seriously doubt that with the sort of money he would be getting in that position.

Frankly, a trained monkey could have done a better job than Chuck over the last 12-18 months. All we've been fed are lame excuses.

Eddy Groves is probably looking for a job.
Sure, ABC went down, but that was largely beyond his control. At least at the head of the NBL he would have passion, personality and a killer instinct. Good media presence too!

I agree with all comments but at the end of the day, chuck was responsible for the dillegence of clubs being financially viable, each club must present to the nbl and he oversees this.

The overall point i am trying to make is that Chuck Harmisson should not be part of any senior management of the new adminstration, this is something that i believe he would be seeking.

Isaac in refenence to the Heal chuck was right to investigate but he should also investigate when clubs report there players are being racially villified, he swept that under the carpet wanting to avoid bad public relations, though when the heal siuation came it was a different story.

Chuck is a dud, chuck will be responsible for the demise of the spirit.

In reference to the media yes he is a joke, he has no idea.

Just because his been part of basketball doesnt make an excuse. The new league must ensure that they dont place a former player who has no academic background running this comp or in a senior position as this in turn will lead to demise of the new leage.

Reference sponsorship - he was responsible and lost the deal with HUmmer, which in turn created the demise of the slingers as the league needed those funds to assist with costs.

Isaac reference Joyce and Wollongong beef, i love it i think its great that his former club boo and give him crap, its great for the game and brings passion and creates great rivalry. I love it! I would do the same.

The problem i have is that when people are 'placed' behind the bench deliberately to heckle that is wrong. It should come naturally from the crowd not derived. Overall though i like the blaze and hawks rivalry, its great for the game.



I was also at the dragons game with the crowd booing Heal and it was great, but i didnt like it how the announcer created it, it should have come naturally. Shane put a lot of time into that club he deserved better than the announcer 'creating' the enviroment when ultimately it would have happened naturally.

Cesar wasn't "placed", he sat there because he's one of the only season ticket holders the Spirit probably have!

In regard to the issue with the fan abusing Whitehead or whoever they thought it was, apparently the word second-hand from a Blaze player and the coach is that the ejection of the fan was enough to deal with it and they didn't seek to pursue it further. Not much for the league to do there. More an issue for the venue, IMO.

Fair point Anon 213959 but I think the odds are good that Eddy could do a better job from D Block than Chuck can from the NBL front office.

drb....and others...some facts for you.

a) Chuck was the Gm - Operations for the League when Burton left....and then was asked to be Acting CEO. His role was very much about Game Operations. I don't think when he was appointed anyone expected he would step up to CEO. Just before that the league had lost their commercial guy (some guy called Jeff from Perth I think). Neither the Commercial role or the CEO was replaced.....so Chuck had 3 x jobs based on your expectations - ops, management and commercial. The league chose to appoint him and not replace the other two - they are governance decisions, not management decisions.

b) He was not CEO (nor acting CEO) when the Bullets management structure or the Kings management structure was established and approved (you might want to thank Burton for both of those). You can hardly blame him for their demise.

c) The Hummer sponsorship being lost had nothing to do with Singapore being out of the league - how on earth could you tie those two ends together!!

I am not a Chuck fan either and do not think he has the capacity needed for this level of operation

.... but you would need to ask yourself whether in reality there would have been a better job done by any one person considering the economic demise of Johnson and Groves, the Singapore fallout and the Spirits own woeful mismanagement.

I agree on the media stuff, totally.

I just think that Chuck has become a good person to kick for the disastrous position of the league, a position that has been in the making for the last 3-5 years, not just the last 12 months.

You're really quite delusional Drb with your theory that Hawks planted a fan to abuse the Blaze.

After the First game Joyce was quoted in the press conference saying something along the line of - i know the guy, it was just some harmless fun - this fan along with those around him were ejected, one managed to stay as he was at the bar when whatever happened occurred.

Then game day of Game 2 it suddenly turns into a conspiracy against the Blaze (everyone is out to get us), co-incidentally a day after a Blaze player is involved in a racial investigation.

How do you know the league didn't investigate the Wollongong fan?

Perhaps you should build a bridge Drb like Brendon supposedly has, with his interview in the Wollongong paper a couple of days ago.

Blaming Sav & Cooks for planting a vocal fan behind the bench is a great conspiracy theory, or maybe it was a long term plan and they planted him court side the game prior (against Adelaide) which resulted in this blog being put up:

http://linky.com.au/fminw

Yes, that was BEFORE the Blaze game.

Then again maybe it's all part of the larger plan, and NBL / Harmison / Saville / Cooks maybe did get Cesar planted behind the bench in Sydney too in a bid to smokescreen their initial planting of the fan in Wollongong.

Seriously Drb, this is movie script stuff.

re: Chuck.

I don't think he should be taking ALL of the Blame.

- Tim Johnstone was owner being Chuck inherited the top job

- Eddie Groves' situation has NOTHING at all to do with Chuck, whoever suggested him as a new CEO should hand back Drb's crack pipe

- The above two major teams demise lead to less Fox time, and no major sponsor.


Though i think the NBL made a big error in the naming of the Spirit and some of Chucks comments about the state of the league have been pretty inappropriate despite probably being true.

In saying that, the new guy has also had some foot-in-mouth problems of his own.

"- Eddie Groves' situation has NOTHING at all to do with Chuck" and "- The above two major teams demise lead to less Fox time, and no major sponsor."

Here's a fact for you guys that listen with your ears open, because some of you need to get out the cotton buds and give those ears a good clean out.
The Bullets were the first (and so far, only) team to be asked to pay the $1.5 million ransom when 6 months ago, it wasn't even criteria and nobody else, including the Spirit, were asked to do so.
I know a lot of you hate the Bullets and perhaps that often clouds some people's judgement, but as a recent Adelaidian, if the 36ers were the only club to be asked to part with money one week before the licence was revoked which could not have been raised in that time because it was not verbalised or existing criteria, then I'd be crying foul in the sixers' defence also.... actually, I stand corrected- I would defend ANY club (including the Tigers or Dragons which I loathe) for being told they have to comply with non-existent criteria.
The NBL should be kicked in the a$$ for having the utter cheek to suggest such a thing, and Groves basically told Chuck on the phone that he had put a lot of money into the sport and was not impressed with Chuck pulling figures out of the sky and being so ungrateful before telling him to go and get you know what and putting the phone down.

We are hearing about the bank guarantee since the reciew findings, but the absolute truth which I swear on my mother's grave, is that the Bullets were asked to do that one week before the 30th of June and the NBL had NO RIGHT to ask that of them and make their players and fans suffer the brutal and insensitive consequences.
The $1.5 million is clearly a figure the NBL has had on the brain for some time now- sadly, long before the review findings were even being generated.
That is the sad reality of their legacy, so when you can find a club that experienced folding in THAT manner, then come back and bash it out with me.
Until then, stop making assumptions that they folded in no different circumstances to any other club, because you are wrong, wrong wrong.
Their fans have every darn right to be bitter and are owed big time by Chuck in making it right for next year- not cheating to get in sideways, but sure as hell not being asked to dance to Chuck's tune because he says so.