Nice, this is where they will eventually:

- Work even closer with teams to ensure viability year in year out

- Create exceptions to help previous years bottom 2 teams for parity and team sustainability.

- Bring back 12 min quarters

- Create more formal links with grassroots e.g Auskick

Any other ideas?

12-minute quarters will never, ever, ever happen.

Automatically helping out the bottom two teams is unnecessary. If 7th misses the playoffs by two games, and then you give them an extra import, or a salary cap exemption...

Justin Bieber: "Never say Never" ever... lol

I agree kobe, though something needs to be done to help perenially sucky teams that local fans wont wan't to support any more..

So what's the difference between a commission and a board?

There's only one of them.

My response was re "perenially sucky teams".

12mins will never ever ever happen even though they did in the not so distant past. Yeah okay

I agree kobe, though something needs to be done to help perenially sucky teams that local fans wont wan't to support any more..

There's only one of them.

Let's just hope this new board starts organising expansion properly with new rules / criteria to ensure long term viability..

why wont 12 minutes work? Most of the telecast this year so far have been finishing around the 100 minute mark. Possibly with a reduction in time outs, they could squeeze in an extra 8 mins??

Say allocate 20 minutes per quarter 1st/2nd/3rd = 60 minutes

4th quarter 30 minutes = 90

Half time 10 minutes = 100

Quarter/3 Quarter time 3 minutes each = 106

This allows for around 15 minutes for intro/outro for the production, and bundles into a nice 2 hour slot.

The Key is to reduce the number of time outs from the 5 currently to 1 per quarter. This would allow a better flow of the game.

Gee, if I had it my way all basketball would be played in halves. Flows way better, and with an extra timeout per team, basically renders quarter time obsolete and unnecessary anyway

The NBA trialled 11 min quarters also don't forget, a good middle ground. Extra 4 better than nothing.

Most games the past four years have clocked in at 103-104 minutes of actual broadcast. No way games are finishing at about 100 minutes including commercials.

For the most part, it was closer to 110-115. You can't get an extra eight minutes of basketball in there.

What's the problem with quarter? The 1 & 3 quarter time breaks are pretty much just guaranteed TV timeouts anyway. It's not like they are long.
If we want the product to be viable for tv then we need to keep it tv friendly.

I've never understood the big hangup over 10 vs 12 minute quarters either. If 12 is prohibitive to tv then avoid it. It's that simple IMO. If 11 works then go with 11. Just make sure each player then gets 5.5 personal fouls before they are disqualified ;)

"United are the only team not to make a playoff appearance in the past four years."

Townsville are 31-55 since their last appearance and looking like again struggling. They are the NBL's version of a recent battler, but I agree by other competition's standards or parity they are doing ok.

LK has done pretty well so far in such little time, I'm sure he's got a bag full of tricks up his sleeve still to come..

Long term financial stability of all teams plus expansion should be main priority, along with promotion of the game.

Along with massive popularity and profits

Amen to that.

How about Radio comps to win free family pass tickets now n then?

Or schools running comps like that.

Promotions on cereal boxes..

Or cheap basketball cards that'll kick off the 90's NBA basketball card craze again..

*brainstorm paused*

Vince Crivelli on an NBL commission? If it wasn't before the sport is now officially stuffed!

I'm happy for Townsville to go if the fan base wont be there.

We already know Brisbane will be rocking..

I really don't think it's a good look for a comp to have fewer than 8 teams so it's a good thing the Crocs are still around this season. I think it was worth giving them another shot back in a proper venue too.
They seem doomed if their round one attendance is anything close to the norm though :(

12 minute quarters make no sense if the games aren't exciting. Fix the game first, then look at making it longer. 4 of the 6 games in round one were finished by half time as it was.

The Commission should focus on getting rid of the ugly uniform, immediately and eradicate it from our beautiful game once and for all time...

Stars with character, thats what the league needs.. Ennis and Childress were/are prime examples..

The NBA wasn't much until it had guys like Magic, Bird and Jordan to market / promote.

They realised the best way to get bums on the seats were to promote these guys big time, something the NBL did well in the 90's with Gaze, Rucker, Crawford, Grace, etc

Only difference is NBL is lacking top quality Aussie talent across the teams at the moment.. what happened to all the AIS guy that used to come through the ranks?

Surely there'd be enough that don't make it to one of the other world leagues after college, etc.

With Ennis, Childress, Wilbekin, Warrick, etc in recent years, lets hope its the start to an upward trend, but I agree, league and media needs more promotion of these guys..

The downside of some of these guys is that they'll likely be "one and done" season guys, need some way to retain, esp vets like Childress / Warrick.

The other side is also bringing our best Aussies back to the league. Competition with the Europe league will be tough.

Why is widening the court / 3 pt line never discussed?

It's the easiest, most sure-fire way to open up the game to a more up-tempo attacking style. Trying to do that with reffing is way too hard because of the competence gap with having amateur refs police a professional game.

You can see pretty easily the difference it makes. For example: I play in two amateur comps, one at a poorer stadium that doesn't have have FIBA dimension courts and 3 pt line, and another one with the proper FIBA dimensions. The one with the larger dimensions is a much higher quality league yet with better defenses, yet despite my general incompetence I score a tonne more points in that comp because the defense is stretched.

I think the game has outgrown the current FIBA court lines and we need to shift to NBA dimensions.

The main change to court dimensions I'd like to see are widening the key and extending the 3 point line. Also, bring in the NBA style illegal defence rules. That will still allow a limited zone, but will open up the key to create more exciting, open play. Then we won't have Perth turning the key into a mosh-pit every game, which just makes for ugly basketball.

I agree with Mick. I still can't believe how often players step out on the wings. If the court was just a little wider there'd be no problems.

There is hot debate in the NBA right now about widening the court and then moving the sides of the 3 pt line out. The only thing that has prevented it from happening at the moment is the inevitable loss of courtside revenue.

And our court and line are already waaay short of theirs.

Albeit, the shooters in the NBA are much better than ours and coaches smarter defensively but we need to at least get to where they are currently in terms of dimensions.

Good call on the court widening thing.
I'm definitely on board with that, and agree that it would instantly improve the product on the court. Would love an extra metre each side.

Physically widening the court is a huge challenge here. Significant cost factor, either brand new temporary courts required in some venues and in others remarking the existing temporary floor.

I imagine some venues would then have to restructure seating and courtside boxes, a far more dynamic impact on revenue potentially than in the NBA.

I don't see it as a problem in the NBL. There is plenty of room around the courts in this country isn't there? AFAIK no extension to the timber flooring would be required, or am i wrong?

I wouldn't imagine repainting a few lines would be particularly costly.

To me it's a no brainer. A surefire way to really open up the game and requires no ongoing management or tinkering like rule changes do. You have shooters stationed in those extended wings and the attacking lanes and post open right up.

There's not that much room:

So easy to step out of bounds near the corner 3's..

It doesn't happen that often. And when it does, it's generally places like Perth or Vector with no out-of-bounds decals/paint, or Hisense where there's six inches between the sideline and the out-of-bounds decals/paint.

So there's an easier solution to the problem, that would also make the courts look more professional and individual.

"And our court and line are already waaay short of ours."

The NBA court is 24cm wider than the FIBA court and the corner three is 10cm wider in the NBA.

I don't see the stepping out of bounds thing as the problem that would be solved by widening the court. That's just a potential bonus side effect.
I think it would make defence more difficult, and therefore increase both perimeter and paint scoring.

why wont 12 minutes work? Most of the telecast this year so far have been finishing around the 100 minute mark.

44 minutes might fit.. ;)

If there is one thing that this commission needs NOT to mess with it is the court, its lines and its dimensions!

Leave the game alone, it is fine, concentrate of the NBL and its future viability, how teams can stay legitimately financial and improve the development pathways in Australian basketball.

This is where a Commission is needed, not worrying about changing lines and courts to suit some fanciful idea that whenever we see athletes become better we need to make it harder for them, seriously...

#Kneejerkreactions

Hey Mick, sorry, my comment was aimed at Luuuc, who wants an extra "metre" each side. Almost every court and every venue would ave to be remodeled for that!

@Mick, that theory in widening the shooting lanes by extending the arc to open up the game is possibly flawed because of two basic principles.

1. Defenders can hedge and they will do this even more if they know the shooter is less likely to hit the long range open shot.

2. Widening the arc will make it harder for shooters to hit an open shot, therefore they will become less relevant.

What might happen is the game ends up less entertaining because all we see is long range bombs that miss and the other team rebounds it or everyone wants to drive it through the bigger gaps but defenders focus more in closing them so the ball gets kicked out for that longer range open miss, again!

This would be much worse the lower down the grades we go, remember we share courts at almost all venues.

Or are you suggesting only the NBL does this and we change courts just for the NBL, therefore try and change the game for TV or something?

Last night's game proved to me that there is nothing wrong at all with our courts, we just need to accept that some games are better than others...

If the court isn't broken, why do we need to fix it.

My "metre each side" wish is just in an ideal world, from a playing perspective.
I realise that there are practicalities to be considered before just pulling the trigger on such a change.

I don't necessarily think that the arc needs to be extended btw. To me that is a separate issue. It has only recently been increased, and I think it is pretty good where it is atm.

Widen the court and under pressure they will still occassionaly step out of court.

Or are you suggesting only the NBL does this and we change courts just for the NBL, therefore try and change the game for TV or something?