The NBL is not the NBA.
That is the message to take out of Adelaide’s 81-133 loss to the Utah Jazz today.
Playing against NBA teams, in America, with NBA rules and court dimensions is always going to be a tall order for any NBL team. Not only do they have to compensate for a difference in speed, size, strength and athleticism, but they also have to quickly acclimatise to rules that exist to highlight the strength of the American teams – such as defensive three-second rules in the key, and a bigger keyway and court dimensions to allow freer movement for lengthier athletes.
Zone defences, which are usually an equalizer for international teams when they play Team USA, struggle to cover the kinds of spaces left on an NBA court. And the Utah Jazz was clinical in exposing Adelaide’s inability to cover this space, bullying Adelaide by an embarrassing 52 points.
In short, the NBLxNBA series, as it is often called, is indeed a showcase. But what it showcases is how an NBA team can surgically and meticulously dissect NBL teams when playing to their own rule book. How scorelines might look if played in Australia with FIBA rules is hard to gauge from this.
Which leads us to a question – Why? Why does the NBL continue to lead itself like a lamb to slaughter? What is there to gain from this yearly David and Goliath battle?
For some, they believe that the end game is having an NBA preseason or exhibition game played in Australia. Others think it grows our global credibility, and gets the names of NBL franchises into the minds of basketball fans and betting types across the world.
Growing relationships with the NBA is obviously a worthy pursuit. It is the relationships between the two leagues that have allowed for many of the draft-and-stash import gets we’ve seen over the years, including Didi Louzada and James Ennis. But are there other ways to grow these relationships without a yearly series in NBLxNBA, which is basically a public expose of our league’s shortcomings when compared to the best in the world?
As for an NBA game on Australian soil, Australian fans have been crying out for this for literally decades. The Sacramento Kings and Indiana Pacers game in Mumbai, India, just gone adds further insult to injury for Australian fans, who’ve followed the league religiously since childhood, bought the jerseys, the league pass, and many of whom have jetted off to the US to see the action in person themselves.
Yet, that is part of the problem. Australia is not a market the NBA needs to grow. Australia has the second most NBA League Pass subscribers of any country in the world.
The NBA’s flag is firmly set on Australia. There is no conquering for them to do here. And yet, we send our teams to them, help them prepare for their seasons, at the cost of tens of thousands of dollars from each team’s coffers.
This is money that could be better spent on player salaries, game-day entertainment, or any other endeavour that would bring a quantifiable benefit.
The eyes of the world are on the NBL right now. LaMelo Ball’s first NBL preseason game caught over one hundred thousand of them on Facebook Watch.
The NBL is most certainly growing in global awareness. But I am not sure that 52-point losses help the NBL when it comes to global credibility. For a league that touts itself as the second-best league in the world, the NBL certainly appears to enjoy showcasing the stark differences between itself and the very best.
There have been a few close games between the NBL and NBA – highlighted by a last-second one-point loss by Melbourne United to Oklahoma City Thunder in 2017 – and there may yet be another close game to come.
But for me, the novelty has worn off.
The NBLxNBA series serves as a distraction from the serious work of establishing momentum within an NBL season for NBL teams. The games barely get passing interest from the media. And as of yet, there has not been a quantifiable positive to come out of the series.
The NBLxNBA series was a fun distraction while it lasted, but it’s time to concentrate on ourselves.