Australia, no teams from Melbourne next year

Basketball reform in Australia has turned farcical with the announcement that neither the 2009 champions Melbourne South Dragons, nor fellow grand finalists the Melbourne Tigers will compete in the 2009/10 season, assuming it even goes ahead.

With these two rivals choosing to sit out the upcoming season, it leaves Australia's three largest cities without teams. Neither the Brisbane Bullets nor a Sydney franchise were able to garner sufficient support to put bids forward to be included in the new league, however this has been known for quite some time. The lack of at least one Melbourne team has come as a surprise to many basketball fans, especially considering Dragons owner Mark Cowan was seen as a significant driving force behind positive basketball reform in Australia.

According to Dragons player Mark Worthington (202-F-83, college: Metro St.), one of the main reasons the team pulled out of the upcoming season was due to the salary cap being too low and subsequently not allowing the team to retain all of their players or attract new talent. He also cited less-than-suitable television coverage for the new season as a major problem. Tigers CEO Seamus McPeake also made it known that no television deal on either free to air television or pay-TV was a major reason not to put a team in for the upcoming season. Melbourne Tigers and former NBA centre Chris Anstey is likely to retire from the game if a viable national league is not running according to Boomers team mate Worthington. The elite players in Australia are likely to be able to play overseas in the event of no national league next season, however how many players would be able to continue as professionals is a huge unknown.

Basketball Australia CEO Larry Sengstock was disappointed with last years grand finalists pulling out of the upcoming season however vowed that the new league would strangely enough still go ahead 'It is ...extremely disappointing that the Tigers and Melbourne South Dragons have chosen to sit out of the competition for a season when both teams have long been strident opponents to the concept of the league taking any sort of extended hiatus before launching the new competition,' Sengstock said.

'This sudden reversal of stance on their part however does not change our position in terms of the immediate steps we need to take'.