Not gonna happen.

LOL I guess he'll be back in around 5 weeks then?

Brian's got great contacts and respect now in China...

specualte/speculate/accoument/announcement it's all the same...

Perth out of new league, you'd think theyd do something

HAHA - why not? Not saying it will happen, but I'd be interested to hear why you think it wouldn't.

The ASEAN league has strong backing.

Thats right Isaac, they do, our clubs don't...

getting the team over there might be a killer...specially when they will be travelling alot of the time...flights will be most of the budget..like now, but at a more expensive cost..

It's pretty cheap to get to Asia from Perth and Melbourne right now.

And some of these teams have always been pretty eager to get into Asia. They want TV, sponsors, etc - guess who has it? And if the ASEAN competition is sanctioned by FIBA, there's another problem solved.

Part of what I was going to say also is the cost- look at the Slingers etc- they had to have Gov't funding to spend pretty much every game of their schedule playing overseas- the wear and tear on the players in addition to funding the costs in a recession just don't add up to me.
Also despite JR's analysis that most players would jump at the chance for a rogue league or to play close to home if possible, I think the backlash of where it would leave players after the teething year of the NBL this season wouldn't be worth it.
It is a large expense to go to for one season when all have baulked at the bank guarantee, I can see them forking out a considerable amount of coin for an Asian League that isn't really going to get our clubs where they want to be in the longrun.
I could be completely wrong but I just don't see them justifying the expense if they were to sit down and work it out.

same as Isaac, I think it can happen. as mentioned teams in such league has strong backing, due to sponsorships etc. and this is due to the TV exposure in Asia. With this an Aussie team can expect the same deal in sponsorships. And finally get local Asians in Australia involved (who in some ways are much more enthusiastic about basketball than Aussies). Teams like Dragons are financially deep so don't think it'll be too much a problem for them; especially with better sponsorship deals (not just from Australia).

Wear and tear on players - any worse than the Breakers flying to Perth now?

I don't think it's all that likely, but I wouldn't be ruling it out as strongly as you were either. These clubs have been talking about it for years.

You won't see ex-NBL clubs joining the ASEAN League, because the organisers want to hold firm on the ASEAN aspect. There was interest from an Australian group (with no links to the NBL), but they were knocked back.

I am sure that if these tightwads cant come up with 1 million plus to play NBL, there is no way they are going to come up with more than that to play overseas.

This is just these bunch of Jackasses that thought they could bully the NBL when it was down on its knees, talking themselves up. For an Aussie team to have any chance it would first, have to have bucket loads more cash than they currently have & second, have some sort of TV deal that beams their away games to their fans in Oz.

No ex NBL team is going to play in Asia because none of the tightwads has pockets that deep.

These "former" NBL clubs should just keep smoking what ever it is they all seem to be on.

Pipe, many can afford the $1m, just wanted to avoid it.

Dave, thanks - that's great info.

Also a problem would be that although its a sanctioned FIBA league, FIBA would have to agree to the Australian clubs moving to the ASEAN league. I couldnt see them allowing that when they have (maybe) there own national league to compete in.

How would they stop Jack Bendat creating a new entity, the Perth Quokkas, grabbing staff and players and giving it a crack?

Isaac, do you mean that after 1 year, if the Perth Quokkas no longer wanted to participate in the ASEAN league they would come back to Australia and apply to participate in the NBL as the Perth Wildcats again. Same team, same owner, same coach, same everything except the name.

sorry spelling - ASIAN

No, it's the "ASEAN" league - Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Not suggesting that the same team came back as the Cats - maybe the Cats were shelved until required later. Just saying that there might be ways around the concept of Australian teams "moving" in that they could be "created" for that league instead. Who knows.

That said, take note of Dave Marshall's post above. Dave can correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember something about a David Marshall being involved with the Slingers.

Yeah, that's me. I had to re-register at Ozhoops as Dave (long story).

Anyhow, from FIBA's perspective I doubt there would be any difference between relocating a team to a different zone versus starting a new team - because the Slingers used the existing Hunter/Canberra license when they started in the NBL, it was a little of both. However, FIBA are generally not in favour of leagues stretching across the geographic zones - it's a similar case with Wellington in the A-League. What happens if they qualify for the ACL when they're an Oceanic club?

It wasn't a straightforward process to get FIBA approval for the Slingers in the NBL, and I would imagine a "rogue Asian league" involving Melbourne/South/Perth would have even more trouble getting the nod. Unless it was sufficiently rogue to bypass FIBA altogether, but that would be opening a whole other can of worms. For the record, I haven't heard anything which suggests that any of the above clubs are looking at Asia as a serious option.

The ASEAN basketball league looks like it is coming together and certainly there is no news of Australian teams joining .

So far a club from Indonesia has been named publicly in addition to the Singapore Slingers plus clubs from Thailand, Malaysia and several from Phillipines are said to be ready to sign on .

Defence, that's interesting news about the ASEAN league starting to come together.

I'm one that thinks it would be great for Australian/ NZ clubs to compete with Asian clubs. It would create a lot of interest, and could generate good sponsorship and tv coverage if done right.

However, I also think expanding the NBL to include several Asian teams is probably too unwieldy and certainly very unrealistic with money problems in the short term. (And I don't like the idea of rogue clubs going to Asia either, because it isn't constructive for an Aussie league in the long run)

Therefore, if this ASEAN league comes together, I think there is a very exciting opportunity emerging for the two leagues to play an end of season tournament. This could be a top 4 v top 4 scenario, or even a seeded knockout tournament like the NCAA has (this might mean 8 teams from each league, for a 'sweet 16' starting round).

By playing a tournament, you cut down on travel costs and (assuming you get tv to commit) very intense tv coverage for a couple of weeks. Hopefully with all that coverage, you could put up a big prize pool, and this would help all clubs to improve their operations the next year.

I really hope the ASEAN league comes together and that someone at BA/ NBL headquarters is giving some serious thought to something like this. It's the kind of thing that I think could get Aussies interested in basketball again!