Basketball Australia announced Larry Sengstock as its new CEO today, along with its new catch-cry "basketball: everyone's game". The sport's administrators have assured us all that they're taking a step in the right direction.
You know, just like they did with the Sydney Spirit.
Just like they did with the Singapore Slingers.
Just like they did with mid-week games.
Just like they did with Rick Burton's appointment.
Just like they did with the move to summer.
Just like, well, you get the idea...
My personal favourite out of the lot comes in the form of this piece in The Age in 2003, which read: "Burton said public negativity made his task greater, but hoped in five years to talk about the 'meteoric rise of the NBL'."
Yes, that's actually what he said.
For the record, at the end of said five-year period, the NBL lost the Sydney Kings and Brisbane Bullets (and the Slingers too, ironically.) It was also forced into a last-minute broadcast deal with Fox Sports well down (both in coverage and financial terms) on the deal from when Burton arrived.
So forgive me for not completely eating up comments like "we are poised on the brink of what could be a new golden age for basketball," as Sengstock indicated today.
It's seems more appropriate to approach this "new age" with caution.
Of course, as a basketball fan, there's always been that instinct to be optimistic about the future. To be optimistic that maybe, just maybe, this time will be different.
Which is why today's CEO announcement was a touch easier to swallow than, say, the Sydney Spirit announcement.
Sengstock's appointment is not in the same league as that of John O'Neill's – the man chosen by Frank Lowy to turn around football – but it is, nonetheless, impressive.
What Sengstock brings to the table is not only a love of the game – Burton, Chuck Harmisson and Scott Derwin all had that down pat – but he also has significant experience working in the Australian sporting landscape outside of basketball.
He was head of sport and athlete services at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne and is currently a senior consultant of international projects for SGL Group, a sports consultancy firm.
Another guy plucked straight from the basketball fraternity wouldn't really raise too many eyebrows, let's be honest.
There is, however, enough of a reason to remain cautious in spite of today's announcement. Like how ridiculously deep into the reform process this appointment is, for example.
The New NBL is only – supposedly – six months away.
We haven't got any idea on which teams will be competing. We haven't got any idea on the name of the competition. And it has taken until now just to find someone to oversee the competition?
The introduction of the new league was always going to be a race against the clock. But you have to wonder if the sport is rushing into this too fast.
You don't need me to reel off another multi-paragraph list of examples to know that basketball administrators have a history of rushing into things, too.
The oddest part for mine is that running a September-March season is widely accepted as less than ideal. The season begins during the footy finals (a disaster in terms of generating media attention) and ends at a time when the focus turns right back to footy again (a disaster in terms of generating media attention.)
The start of a new league is the perfect opportunity to make the switch to a more media-friendly schedule once and for all. And best of all, it delays the start of the new competition.
It makes perfect sense, but yet this is another area in which Basketball Australia is opting to take the easy option and stick to the status quo.
Need another example?
The sheer fact they'd even consider running a league in this day and age, in this country, without a salary cap is ludicrous. But it is, after all, easier to stick to the status quo on that front, too.
And what about all those nasty rumours of the New NBL being called the, err, NBL?
Perhaps that'll be Sengstock's biggest challenge in the immediate future: to start making decisions that may not be easy in the short-term, but will reap benefits in the long-term.
Because if that doesn't happen, the game's administrators could really mess things up.
You know, just like they did with the Sydney Spirit.
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