Some good news at least

Confirmed:

BREAKING NEWS: The Cairns Taipans will play on this season, but without imports Dave Thomas and Larry Abney.

Taipans players voted to accept a 45 per cent pay cut this afternoon but Thomas and Abney were given no option to accept the rescue package organised by Basketball Australia.

The agreement means the Taipans' away game against the Gold Coast Blaze on Saturday night will go ahead.

Hang on, does that say that Thomas and Abney "were given no option to accept" as in, they were NOT ALLOWED TO ACCEPT or is to mean "they were given no option but to refuse, due to their large paycuts."

Strange, it just reads like BA has said, "Hey we'll save you, but lose the imports, we can't afford them, even if they chose to stay..."

sound like that to me.

I wondered if the league could only afford to rescue so much of the team, and preference was given to local players?

Not a huge issue. Can imagine that Abney will head overseas and DT will get a job with the Dragons?

i dont know if i am 100% cool with that.

It does sound very coincedental that Tez has been cut loose on the same day that 2 imports that would make the Dragons even better become available.

Cowan doing behind the scenes deals?

I know you could argue that they could cut him and punt on a new guy but having two known quantaties to chose from only a few hours away by plane is very convenient.

I would be very interested to see what Tyndale would be like under Goorj in a hypothetical way as a side suggestion too.

Dt has bad knees thesedays right? Didnt he nearly retire after lastseason until the Taipans gave him to good an offer??

Abney can take his bird call and fly off! Liked him for a mmm bop at the Crocs, but has fell a long way off to what he was at Townsville IMO im not even talking stats etc just his overla influence.

Kent.... given the news today, Cowan could have cut Groves tomorrow and brought one of them in...what would be the difference?

DT these days is very average at best. bad knees have robbed him of his athleticsm which was always the strong point of his game. id honestly prefer cortez over DT.

No difference, it still would've been fishy. I think Kent was more worried about the BA forcing Thomas and Abney onto the market at such an oppurtune time.

As for Tyndale, I would love to see him get picked up by the Dragons - it wouldn't be a bad fit, consiering his versatility, either.

Abney has already been in contact with the Dragons

is that kinda restraint of trade? if they were willing to take the cut (a big if) why should they not be treated like any other player.

When you're in administration, it's bad luck!

Does anyone know if Tyndale has landed a gig anywhere? Can't find anything in a search, although I did find this...

http://linky.com.au/1ngkv

Says it as it is! Good read.

heard from a Tigers person before the season Dave had a $300k contract with Cairns and that's why he came out of retirement and probably explains why Cairns has gone broke...

That wouldn't have been the only big contract in Cairns - would've been five this season.

No issue with the Dragons picking them up - out of a job and Goorj might be offering them one.

Also, no problem with the NBL offering a rescue package to those they could afford and prioritising the Australians, and the (likely) slightly more reasonable contracts too. If that's what helped get it done, so be it.

Once again I'll say it. It is a semi professional sport masquerading as a professional sport. What they are being paid now after the cut is the realistic wage for a sustainable club and competition.

Good call.
The culmination of players who bleed clubs dry to get paid then whinge when they go broke, and owners who don't know where their boundaries and limits are will screw over any business model they come up with for improvements to the new league.

If they don't implement regular spot checks etc, they are guaranteed to repeat history.

A car analogy:
If someone buys a Lambourghini & defaults on payments. Is it the Lambourghini's fault that it's listed on the repossession market?
Any product will try to attract/exploit the maximum "asking" price, that an insecure market will stretch their budget to justify. If that market hasn't done the homework, it isn't the fault of the product, or the perception that they sell.
In the NBL scheme of things, we've got a pool of quality products. It's a matter of those doling out the money, to work out where it needs to be spent & balance it against a realistic return.
It's a catch 22. Spend money to make money. Don't do it wisely & there's the risk of going bust.
I won't even start on the NBL doing stuff all of anything.

Christ not Abney.....please!

He's been woeful every time I've seen him play this season. And WORSE, he doesn't seem to be trying to get better.

Bad playing, bad attitude, from what I've seen.

What have you done with the real DDFan?

Grantley Bernard puts a number on the five main earners from the Taipans:

The NBL salary cap, $840,000 a team this season, has been an unpoliced joke for years and, so the speculation goes, the Snakes laughed hard by spending about $1.35 million on the five blokes who were supposed to be their starters and take them to a championship.