THE time frame is tight, but Brisbane seems assured of winning back a place in a new-look league next season.Basketball Australia interim chief executive Scott Derwin said talks with the state body and new backers were well advanced.
But talk of a rebirth of the Sydney Kings appears to have stalled as no one is willing to come forward with the required $1 million seed money.
Derwin said the move to re-establish a beachhead in Brisbane was gathering momentum, less than six months after the Bullets, a foundation club of the old NBL, folded in the wake of owner Eddy Groves`s financial collapse.
"Basketball Queensland has been pretty active in leading the discussion with a number of interested parties," Derwin said.
"While the time frame is tight, a little under 12 months from the relaunch of the league, it doesn`t allow a new team a lot of time, but the push is on.
"But with a new NBL, new criteria, we as a national body would be silly not to have a team playing out of Brisbane.
"A decision will be made by late January or early February."
The push for a fourth Queensland-based club behind Cairns, Townsville and the Gold Coast comes after all current NBL clubs and state federations voted to adopt a major overhaul of the sport.
The new competition has a $35 million television deal with Fox Sports and will be run by an independent board of directors.
Derwin confirmed a raft of plans to overhaul the game along similar lines to soccer`s A-League.
"The new competition will have a minimum of eight clubs," Derwin said. "The new model could have 10 to 12. We won`t know until the submissions from the current teams have been received.
"We are also looking at doing away with the salary cap.
"It`s very important to make sure the teams who start the season are there for the finish, and that can only happen with sufficient working capital.
"There will also be a strong requirement for clubs to have a strong connection with the basketball community at large.
"A back-to-the-future look, if you like, of the Sydney Kings in the 1990s. While they may not have been very successful on the court, they were seen out and about at schools, local associations and at many and varied community functions."
Derwin said there were many reasons for the NBL having lost favour within the wider sporting community.
"They range from the code becoming arrogant to complacent, to shifting the competition from a winter to a summer league," he said.
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