Matthew Dellavedova
29/05/2015
Paulo Kennedy's view from Downunder
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It’s good news week!

MELBOURNE (Paulo Kennedy’s View from Downunder) - It’s good news week!

I’ve been waiting a long time to say that, and I'm sure I’m not the only Aussie hoops tragic who can make that claim.

Between two Aussies in the NBA Finals, a new start for the NBL, the WNBL extending to a three-game grand final series and remaining a summer competition, the Adelaide Lightning and Townsville Crocs surviving tough times and some superstars staying in Australia, it has been a great week!

Aussies impacting in The Show
Andrew Bogut had a slow start to Golden State’s 4-1 series win over Houston, but from Game 2 onwards he averaged 10.5 boards, 2.5 assists and 2.3 blocks in his centre match-up with Dwight Howard.

That’s a very nice mix of old school big man play with the sweet passing ability that sets him apart from so many pivots.

Matthew Dellavedova also had a slow start, but from the final quarter of Game 1 he was an influential player in Cleveland’s sweep of Atlanta. At times it was a case of Kyrie who?

Delly averaged 12.7 points and 3.7 rebounds in the final three games. That’s a serious contribution even without factoring in his team-lifting hustle that some opponents simply can’t handle. I’ll write more about that next week.

Congrats to Basketball Australia for their superb wrap of the two Boomers’ efforts in the Conference Finals. If that’s the new BA standard, I look forward to plenty more of the same during the NBA Finals.


Light in the NBL tunnel at last                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
It’s good news week off the court too, with Melbourne part-owner Larry Kestelman now the new Executive Director of the NBL, with his majority shareholding in the league all but rubber-stamped by his fellow club owners.

The head of the LK Group says he will work with NBL Chairman Graeme Wade to recruit independent board members and establish a commission. If done well this could go down as one of the most important steps in league history.

Kestelman also wants more staff in the league front office providing centralised services for clubs, a professional interface for fans and league partners, and a greater emphasis on producing a high-class TV product.

Another promising aspect is his stated aim of supporting clubs through strategic investment, not bailing out struggling franchises, but looking at ways they can grow sustainable revenue streams and helping achieve that.

A classic example is the Sydney Kings. While there are many issues facing the harbour-siders, if Kestelman can use his contacts to advocate for a new stadium that meets the club’s needs they will be well on their way to sustainability.

Perhaps the idea of investing in the league’s growth could be attractive to Kings superstar Josh Childress – that would certainly test whether Kestelman can truly act independently or whether the temptation of having the NBL’s best player in Melbourne would be too hard to resist!


Boomer, Tall Blacks swingmen commit
While Townsville emerging from voluntary administration was great news - into the hands of a new board with important backing from government and the Townsville Entertainment and Convention Centre - it wasn’t so cheery when their star swingman Todd Blanchfield announced he was moving to Melbourne.

The Crocs developed Blanchfield from a raw kid to a dynamic all-around player on the verge of playing at the Rio Olympics, so it must be devastating that he has gone after a genuine breakout season.

But it is good news for the NBL that Blanchfield has committed to the league for another two years. After making the All-NBL Second Team at just 23, expect Vinnie to achieve some big things in the next 24 months.

Same goes for Tom Abercrombie, who torched Zaragoza for 23 points in 24 minutes in the final game of his Spanish ACB stint and then grabbed a pen and re-signed with the New Zealand Breakers for another three seasons.

Abercrombie is not just a superb athlete or a deadly three-point shooter, he has developed into a steady veteran player who rarely makes mistakes.

He is world class, and it’s great to have that quality a player locked into the NBL, especially when he can also do things like this.

It’s not just the blokes
On the WNBL side of things, the new lead off-court tandem of Anthony Moore and Paul Maley passed one of their first tests with flying colours this week.

I wrote earlier this year the Australian Sports Commission’s review of the WNBL contained the good, the bad, and the ugly.

With Moore formerly of the ASC, a big test was how strictly he would stick to the report’s recommendations, even when they clearly weren’t in the WNBL’s best interest.

Well, appointing a competition GM (Maley), GMs for all clubs and extending the grand final to three games were great examples of picking the winners.

Ruling out a move to winter and reducing the length of the season were excellent examples of ignoring losing recommendations. Tick, tick, tick.

And with the Adelaide Lightning saved, the Perth Wildcats buying the West Coast Waves (and renaming them the Perth Lynx) and the new South East Queensland side entering the league – and wasting no time in signing Opals Erin PhillipsBec Allen and Rachel Jarry – it’s been a good news off-season for the WNBL.


This was fun, I could definitely do it more often. Let’s hope I’m reporting on another good news week next Friday!

My wishlist? 

Bogut and Dellavedova stirring up some more precious opponents, more details revealed of Kestelman’s new reign, the Wollongong Hawks future confirmed, some wins in Europe for the young Opals and some good injury news for Liz Cambage and Lauren Jackson.

Am I asking too much?!

Paulo Kennedy

FIBA

Paulo Kennedy

Paulo Kennedy

Paulo has joined our team of columnists with a weekly column called 'The View from Downunder', where he looks at pertinent issues in the world of basketball from an Oceania perspective, perhaps different to the predominant points of view from columnists in North America and Europe.