These footy clubs are smar! Some good your Aussie kids in the USA now worth watching!

How tall? 195cm. Found another article in the Hobart paper "The Mercury".

http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2012/09/21/362284_sport-news.html

How much footy experience did big Dean Brogan have before he switched codes? Imagine he played both when he was a kid? You Adelaide blokes must have seen him play both sports extensively. What was his basketball potential?

This just shows that Basketball requires more skill.

It will only ever go one way. An adolescent will never be able to pick up Basketball and become an NBL player after having never played the game.

Whereas, anyone with height and a bit of athleticism can become an AFL player very quickly.

To be honest, stories like this just discredit the AFL. It just makes the league look like a joke to be honest.

I always love reminding AFL supporters of how little people care about AFL outside of Victoria, let alone Australia!

In this era, international representation (World Champs, Olympics etc) is the pinnacle of Sport.
AFL doesn't have that, and they may not have it for a few hundred years, if ever.

Macdub??

International representation might be the pinnacle of the sport for some sports, but it is largely not for many of them.

Plenty of NBA players don't want to play world champs or Olympics. If a footballer was given a choice between international football and long term club football they would have no choice to make.

The fact is AFL has 800 or so pro sports jobs going for athletes. Picking up a kid from another sport is seen as a success story for them, it does not discredit them. It makes them look FAR more attractive than other sports.

I agree with you on skill levels btw, but their incredible recruiting power and success does not make them look like a joke - it makes them look effective, and powerful!

It wouldn't be at all cheeky then for the lad's "grassroots“ basketball club to seek funding from the AFL for his development. Local football teams can dip into the fund if one of their players gets to AFL level, why not a basketball club :-)

Wish HO wasn't correct, but they are. The AFL look and stay dominant with news like this. The NBL is more or less "full" and teams can't throw money around on development players, so pick-ups are generally somewhat proven (Steindl) or local (White, Daly, etc). When an AFL club calls almost any basketball junior, they'll be paying strong attention unless they are Bogut or Mills level and even then they'd be flattered and at least listen to the pitch.

And AFL is strong outside of Victoria - it's big in Adelaide and dominates our media.

"Plenty of NBA players don't want to play world champs or Olympics."

I dont think plenty is the right word, players are queuing up to play for the USA and heaps of international NBA players represent their countries. Certainly I agree with a lot else you say.

Macdub, Aussie rules is very popular in Vic, Tas, SA, NT and WA. I know what you are trying to say, it is a very small fish in the big picture, but really they operate in the small picture.

Macdub - watch the AFL grand final on Saturday and see the 100,000 people at the game and the huge corporate presence and then try to make the argument that no one outside Victoria cares about the game.

There was 60,000 at the Sydney v Collingwood game in Sydney on Friday night too.

The AFL is leaps and bounds ahead of every other sport in Australia as far as self promotion goes and the ability to make a buck from its fans.

Obviously AFL is a very popular sport nonetheless.

My point was more centered around its lack of international recognition.

I live in NZ, and its safe to say you don't hear anything, no one cares about it. People wouldn't know what AFL stands for.
Same would go for any other country, with the exception of maybe Ireland.

I do admit that AFL is a very successful venture in Australia.
However unlike Basketball, its not common/known on every continent in the World (except Antartica of course).

It seems to me that Melbournians seem to think AFL is the 'be all and end all' of the sporting world.

Would be nice to give them a reality check.


"Plenty of NBA players don't want to play world champs or Olympics."

Couldn't be more wrong IMHO.
If you followed the likes of Kobe, Lebron, Westbrook, Durant etc. on social media sites you would have seen just how much of an experience the Olympics were for them.

MACDUB.

And quite a number of players made themselves unavailable, especially for world champs. And at previous olympics / wc's it was the case. The US has had to put an enormous amount of work into getting its players to commit to both WC and Olympics - and we even have had our players who's "commitment" has been questionable.

Just because some players tweeted they had a great time does not make it the pinnacle for them. Kobe just wanted to hang out with Steph.

Plenty of players DO NOT want to turn out for their teams at WC's and Olympics because of the threat it represents to their future NBA participation.

Sorry, your premise was that in this era those events are the pinnacle of sport - that is simply not the case for many sports - tennis, golf, (coming in Rio), cycling etc all have more prestigious events than olympics and wc's. Looking back one of the reasons baseball was dumped is because ML players simply didn't give a toss about it.

HO, just because some players choose not to attend every tournament doesnt mean they dont see it as the pinnacle. Most actually ignore their club's wishes (the same club that pays them megabucks) to play when they do. The USA has players training each year just to get themselves further up the list to play.

So while Id agree some dont have an interest in representing their country, I think 'plenty' is the wrong choice of word.

HO, maybe you should read what I write more closely.

I said "In this era, international representation (World Champs, Olympics etc) is the pinnacle of Sport. "

Did you notice the word 'etc'?

Golf tournaments such as the US Open, Tennis Tournaments like the Australian Open, The Tour De France are all INTERNATIONAL REPRESENTATION

Rory McIlroy represents Northern Ireland, Nadal for Spain, and Cadel represents Australia in the TDF.

AFL is the number 1 sport in the Northern Territory, Tassie, Queensland anywhere North of Cairns, South Australia, WA, and is growing massively in NSW and the rest of QLD.

Not just confined to Victoria by any stretch of the imagination...

The skillset generally only does go one way though. You will rarely see a kid pick up basketball in their late teens and be any good, the motor skills required take a long time to learn. It does happen, but generally only when the person in question is an athletic freak.

MACDUB, in the context of Australian sporting talent, the AFL is relevant. In talking about the loss of Australian basketball talent to another league, NZers' thoughts on the AFL aren't particularly key so, as you said, all you're doing is rubbing it in and I doubt they'd care too much!

Missing out on international representation might matter to some but be irrelevant to others. I imagine the lifestyle of the average AFL player seems pretty satisfying to them.

The average salary for an AFL player is higher than the salary for the highest paid NBL player. So that counts.

I don't think the poaching matters for the percentage of guys who live and breathe basketball; who truly love the game and are "lifers", but you lose lots of talented guys who could take it or leave it and just play basketball because they're "good at it".

It's pretty easy to tell who is who.

I believe its possible to live and breathe basketball, and still give up the sport to play AFL.

If playing sport professionally is your dream, and you've given everything to basketball and you haven't been able to crack NBL, but an AFL opportunity comes along you'd be silly not to take it.

Though its probably true Ben Richmond had a few more years in him before he could say he's given everything to basketball.

American Yannick Crowder is an interesting one .
Just finished College and was on his way to Europe
when an email from the AFL came to him via an NBA club
inviting him to play AFL. So he's here now training to play footy.

In my opinion AFL has two major advantages over Basketball. Playing time and salary.
Playing time is an issue basketball cant adress- 5 on the court vs 18 on the field, plus the bench of 3 get constantly rotated in AFL, that doesnt happen with basketballs bench of 5.
Salaries currently favour the best players in both codes with AFL significantly ahead, however base payments for the AFL are way ahead of Basketball. This is something that may change if Basketball can get improved ameneties, sponsors, advertising etc, all the things required to improve revenue.
So i think AFL is a pretty atractive package for young basketballers who probably are not going to represent Australia at Olympic/WC level.

Yes, yes. Decision making time for BA and BTas.

Ooohh, nearly forgot. Better put that process on hold as we gotta get the October Gala Ball out of the way first. Plenty to organise there. And we got so much to celebrate before we ponder the future.

It's a shame that as players and parents the only place to vent our frustrations is on a site from another state. Probably looks like whinging to everyone else out there, but it is devistating to see our kids being dumped in the shit after years of hard work and committment.
There has been absolutely no consultation from the self opinionated tools that call themselves Basketball Tasmania, and nothing to suggest there is anything remotely like a plan being put into place for the future.
Have always appreciated the comittment of people who volunteered for these positions (such as the board of B Tas) as I have never been inclined to do so and probably never will, but I always thought that the underlying reasons would be to put something back into the sport and community. Not to persue a personal vendetta against someone you don't like, at the expense of the kids you claim to be representing.