National Basketball League (New Zealand)
Current season or competition: 2013 New Zealand NBL season |
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 Logo Basketball New Zealand |
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| Sport | Basketball |
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| Founded | 1982 |
| Commissioner | Sam Rossiter-Stead |
| Inaugural season | 1982 |
| No. of teams | 9 |
| Country(ies) |  New Zealand |
| Continent | FIBA Oceania (Oceania) |
| Most recent champion(s) | Auckland Pirates (10th title) |
| Most titles | Auckland Pirates (10 titles) |
| TV partner(s) | Sky Sport |
| Level on pyramid | 1 |
| Official website | NBL |
The National Basketball League, often abbreviated to the NBL, is the pre-eminent professional men's basketball league in New Zealand.
Nine clubs competed in the 2012 season with teams based in Auckland, Dunedin, Invercargill, Nelson, New Plymouth, Palmerston North, Taradale and Wellington. The Christchurch Cougars voluntarily sat out the 2012 season, as they did the 2011 because of the financial implications of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, however they intend to re-enter the competition in 2013.
The league has a limit of two imports per side. Many of the imports used come from the United States. The league also only allows one naturalised New Zealand player per team.
The quality of play in the league continues to improve as more and more New Zealand players are playing higher levels of basketball like college, ANBL and some even go onto make the NBA such as former North Harbour Kings star Kirk Penney.
Televised games have decreased since 2007 when TVNZ's television rights were sold to Sky TV, games were originally shown once a week but due to lack of demand only playoff games were shown mainly due Super Rugby, NRL and ANZ Championship games clashing with game times and a high interest by the public in those competitions. Southland Sharks highlights and interviews have been shown on Cue TV.
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History [edit]
Through the 1970's games were organised between neighbouring representative teams, or in annual tournaments organised as Club or Provincial national tournaments. Other competitions were also held during Easter tournaments or in small regional leagues. The New Zealand National Basketball League began in 1982 in response to a need for consistent and quality competition on a semi-professional basis, to match the structure and improvements occurring in Australia. Tall Blacks such as Stan Hill, Dave Edmonds, Peter Pokai and Tony Smith starred in the early years of competition. Imported players like Clyde Huntley, Frank Smith, Kenny McFadden, Tyrone and Tony Brown added a level of sophistication and style to the Kiwi basketball scene.
The big city team such as the Auckland Stars, Canterbury Rams and Wellington Saints dominated in early years, but when the Hutt Valley Lakers won 1991 and 1993 the star players began to spread out. The Nelson Giants won their first championship in 1994 and the Stars then became the first team to win three titles in a row from 1995–97. After the Waitakere Rangers, Hutt Valley Lakers and Northland Suns left in the late 1990s many thought the league would become much weaker but it proved the opposite as only the best New Zealanders and imports were selected due to the small size of the league at the time. The league continued to improve with higher calibre players joining the league. High school standouts like former North Harbour Kings player Kirk Penney chose to play in the league until they left to play college basketball and then Euroleague and NBA.
When the New Zealand Breakers were founded in 2003, it created an incentive to continue playing NBL for the star players with their good form could be rewarded with an ANBL contract. Players like Dillon Boucher, Lindsay Tait, Pero Cameron, Phill Jones, Mark Dickel and Paora Winitana became household names in New Zealand and Australian basketball circles. Breakers imports like Tony Ronaldson and Oscar Forman appeared as well.
Current clubs [edit]
| Team Name | Hometown | Colors | Coach | Titles | Arena |
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| Hawke's Bay Hawks | Taradale | Tab Baldwin | 1 (2006) | Pettigrew Green Arena Taradale |
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| Manawatu Jets[1] | Palmerston North | Mike Kalavros | 0 | Arena Manawatu Palmerston North |
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| Nelson Giants | Nelson | Liam Flynn | 3 (1994, 1998, 2007) | Trafalgar Centre Nelson |
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| OceanaGold Nuggets | Dunedin | Anthony 'Alf' Arlidge | 0 | Edgar Centre Dunedin |
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| Southland Sharks | Invercargill | Paul Henare | 0 | Stadium Southland Invercargill |
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| Super City Rangers | Waitakere City | Aik Ho | 0 | Trusts Stadium Waitakere City |
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| Taranaki Mountainairs[2] | New Plymouth | Dave Bublitz | 0 | TSB Stadium New Plymouth |
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| Waikato Pistons[3] | Hamilton | Doug Courtney | 4 (2001, 2002, 2008, 2009) | Hamilton Boys' High School Hamilton |
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| Wellington Saints | Wellington | Pero Cameron | 7 (1984, 1985, 1987, 1988, 2003, 2010, 2011) | TSB Bank Arena Wellington |
Former and defunct clubs [edit]
The league has a number of defunct clubs, the most recent ones are:
- Waitakere Rangers (left 1995, returned in 2013 as the Super City Rangers)
- Hutt Valley Lakers (left 1996)
- Northland Suns (left 1998)
- Canterbury Rams (replaced in 2009 by the Christchurch Cougars)
- Auckland Stars (suspended in 2010, replaced in 2011 by the Auckland Pirates)
- Christchurch Cougars (pulled out of 2011, 2012 and 2013 seasons due to the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, will be back in 2014)
- Harbour Heat (pulled out of 2011 and 2013 seasons due to financial constraints, may be back in 2014)
- Waikato Pistons (pulled out of the 2012 season due to financial difficulties, returned in 2013)[4]
- Auckland Pirates (pulled out of 2013 season due to financial constraints, may be back in 2014)[5]
Competition format [edit]
The nine teams in the New Zealand NBL play 16 regular season fixtures, with each side playing each other once at their home arena and also once away at their opponents' venue. At the end of the regular season the top ranked team plays the fourth ranked team. The team which finished second hosts the third placed team. The winners of these two semifinal matches progress onto the NZ NBL Grand Final, played at the higher placed team's venue.
Broadcasting details [edit]
In recent years, the NZ National Basketball League (NBL) has started to gain greater television coverage. In 2003, the NBL signed a deal with TVNZ for TV 2 to become the official "home of hoops." In 2005, games that were televised included a Friday night NBL fixture that was shown at 10:30 pm. In 2006, TV 2 televised the game of the round at 11:30 am on Saturdays. Over the last few seasons, the semi-final and grand final fixtures have been shown live. In addition to this, TV 2 often have live coverage of the Tall Blacks games played in New Zealand. Current commentators include Bob Manthei, a former New Zealand Breakers and Waikato Titans head coach, Jeff Green, and former Tall Black Chris Tupu. From 2007 onwards it has been confirmed that Sky Sport (Pay TV) will cover a live fixture each week. Commentators are likely to include Jason Costigan.
Imports in the league [edit]
The New Zealand NBL allows each side to play with two non-New Zealand citizens (imports or restricted players). From 2001–2003 however the league believed that overseas players were detracting from giving New Zealand-born players significant minutes and playing time in the league and as a result, one import only was permitted per side. In the past, the NZ NBL sides have usually relied on Americans to fill their import player positions. These American players have usually been players who have had fairly good collegiate basketball careers, but who were not good enough to make it into the NBA. In 2004 the trend of using American imports started to change though with New Zealand gaining a professional side the Breakers in the Australian NBL. Many of the NZ NBL clubs began to use Australians for their imports, as the Australian NBL league does not run at the same time as the New Zealand NBL and many of the Australian players wanted to keep in shape over their off-season. In 2003 the Taranaki Mountain Airs pulled off a major coup by signing Link Abrams, the most consistent and dominant player over the past few seasons.
Restricted players who have stood out over the last few seasons[when?] have been John Whorton (Canterbury), Mike Pegues (Canterbury/Otago), Greg Lewis (Waikato), Ryan Prillman (Canterbury), Dusty Rychart (Hawke's Bay), Jacob Holmes and Josh Pace (Nelson) and David Cooper (Manawatu).
In the recently completed 2006 season American guards Garry-Hill Thomas of Taranaki and Dennis Trammell of the Canterbury Rams were the league's leading scorers with both averaging 25 points a game. Otago's American forward Branduinn Fullove and Nick Horvath of the Wellington Saints and a former Duke Blue Devils standout, excelled also.
New Zealanders in the league [edit]
Many New Zealanders who play for the New Zealand Breakers and the national side, the Tall Blacks, have played in the NBL since its inception. In recent years, many of these players have dominated in the local New Zealand league. Examples have been Dillon Boucher, Lindsay Tait, Aaron Olson, Paul Henare, Paora Winitana, Pero Cameron, Mark Dickel, Phill Jones and Ed Book. Tall Black Kirk Penney, who has played in the NBA for the Miami Heat and Los Angeles Clippers as well as for Maccabi Tel Aviv in Israel, had previously played in the NBL in the late 1990s for the North Harbour Kings.
List of Champions [edit]
Since its beginning and to the present day Auckland has been the benchmark of the NZ domestic basketball league. They have won the most titles out of any team: 10. Next best is Wellington with 7, Canterbury (4), Waikato (4), Nelson (3), Hutt Valley (2) and in 2006 Hawke's Bay won their first ever NBL title. In 2007 Nelson won their first title since 1998, giving veteran Centre Ed Book his first ever NBL championship.
See also [edit]
References [edit]
- ^ Formerly known as Palmerston North Jets
- ^ Formerly known as Taranaki Bears/Oilers/Dynamos
- ^ Formerly known as Waikato Warriors/Titans
- ^ Waikato Pistons out of 2012 national league
- ^ Pirates out of 2013 NBL
External links [edit]
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