The Perfect Storm

Well, as a follower of social media, I think last Friday’s events at the EISS must have generated more column inches for basketball than anything else in recent years. Unfortunately most of it was negative.

As followers of my tweets know, I like to tweet the end of quarter scores with a little comment during the game. That is usually rounded off with the final score and a quick wrap-up of the game.

This was my tweet at the end of the game on Friday… Oh Dear. Eagles win it 84/116 over Sharks Better not say too much about this on here. I’ll let others have their say.

The first thing that fascinated me was the number of people who decided to follow me in those first few hours after the game, I presume to find out my opinions about what went on.

There is no way in which this could be done in 140 characters and that was why I decided not to get into it at the end of the game. Furthermore, on the big issues, I tend to take some time to consider what I am going to say.

This article is called the Perfect Storm, you may wonder why. That title is taken from a fantastic film of some years ago starring George Clooney. I will try not to give away the ending of the film in case you do not know what it is, however it is not the ending of the film that is relevant.

It was the coming together of a number of factors which led to the Perfect Storm.

Now regular readers will know that I have no problem in saying “I told you so”, but I’m afraid that the events of Friday could have been seen on the horizon for a number of years.

Once upon a time, back in the day, I owned a basketball club in the Manchester area. We were called Bolton & Bury Giants followed by Olympic City Giants. My ownership lasted about two years after which we ran into financial problems and I was forced to sell the club. During that time I wrote a number of papers on the future of British Basketball which included a number of suggestions.

The first one was this; that we needed to employ a Commissioner of British Basketball who would be charged with running the BBL. Now I want to make it clear that I am not criticising Andy Webb at the BBL who in my opinion is doing an absolutely fantastic job. However, as you may know, the BBL is owned by the clubs and the Chairman is one of the club owners.

His name is Paul Blake and he is the owner of the Newcastle Eagles.

I want to say here and now that the Eagles are the best team in British Basketball with a fantastic front office and a fantastic management team. In recent years that have been the most successful team in the UK with numerous trophies to their name.

I congratulate Paul, Fab and everyone else involved. Last season they failed to win any trophies and the management and team behaved, in my opinion, impeccably in defeat.

This year they have already won the BBL Cup. They are at the top of the BBL with only one loss so far and by this Friday they will be in the Final of the BBL Trophy.

I think the present Eagles team is truly awesome and I do not think that a clean sweep is outside their possibilities this season. In fact, I believe that this is the best team in the BBL of recent years and, in my opinion, probably the only team that could compete with the truly great teams of the 80s & 90s. Teams like the London Leopards under Billy Mims, London Towers under Kevin Cadle, Birmingham Bullets under the ownership of Harry Wrubleski and Sheffield Sharks under Chris Finch.

Further, on Friday night, the Eagles were in no way to blame for anything which took place. It is for every team to play as hard as they can and to win by as many as they can. That would be right in any game and especially so in the first leg of a two legged game. I congratulate them on a fantastic performance. Somehow I do not see them losing the second leg by enough to give the Sharks an aggregate win.

Now for those who do not know this, let me declare a couple of interests. Firstly I love the game of basketball and I also commentate for the Sheffield Sharks and I love the Sharks’ organisation with whom I have been working for almost 15 years.

I have over the years had some terrible nights at basketball events for different reasons. I remember one Manchester Giants’ coach crushing an undermanned Cheshire Jets team to win by over 50 I think. That was not sport. I was there the night Tony Penny died during a game at which I was commentating.

I have to say that Friday night does not come close to either of those events but it was not that far behind.

For years I have been begging for the two legged semi-final to be done away with. It is the only time in ANY basketball that I know of anywhere in the world where the game could end in a draw. The only time this format works is when one team wins by 30 or more and there is no coming back from that kind of deficit.

I expect the Eagles’ bench to get a good run out on Friday in the second leg.

I respectfully ask what is the point of the second leg?

There have been many discussions on Facebook and Twitter about why Atiba Lyons was not playing and I am not absolutely clear of all the facts however, it would seem that the Sharks organisation are behind on loan payments to the BBL to help cover production costs for the televised games that have been shown on SKY

As you may know I used to work for SKY back in the day and had a wonderful time but something is now wrong in this kitchen.

The first time I was made aware of this was nothing to do with basketball. It was to do with netball. For the past couple of years I have been commentating on netball for Leeds Carnegie. I spoke to an official and commented that it was great that they were on SKY, only to be told that they were having to pay for their own production costs.

I believe, although I am not sure, that this is the same arrangement for the BBL. Now why small Sports should have to pay their own production costs to be on television is beyond me. SKY recently announced their profits for the past year. This was the headline:- The company generated pre-tax profit of £601m in the six months to December 31, 2011, up 16% on the same period in 2010.

Perhaps some of that profit could be used by SKY to support some of the smaller sports in this country by paying their own damn production costs. By doing this, teams and sports would not be handing over thousands of pounds which they simply do not have.

Another element of the Perfect Storm is now in place.

I am led to believe that because of this money outstanding to the BBL, a decision was taken to deregister one Sharks’ player from Friday’s game. That player was Atiba Lyons, however he would be there in his coaching role.

In addition to this, one of the Sharks best offensive weapons Nate Reinking is at the game in his walking clothes because of injuries. Why was he not deregistered with a threat to not let him return from injury until the payment is made? Thereby giving the Sharks more time to raise the funds.

The question on many fans’ lips is, who took the decision to deregister a player? I’m afraid that I do not have an answer to that but I think we should be told.

Was the Chairman of the Eagles in his role as Chairman of the League involved in that decision? This is what many Sharks’ fans think.

An independent Commissioner of the League would ensure that there is no possible question of impropriety, rightly or wrongly.

And so another element of the Perfect Storm takes its place.

I do not know what was in the water this past weekend but I saw two terrible refereeing performances. One was on Friday night at the Sharks and the second was in the football game between Chelsea and Manchester United.

I profess that I have NEVER had the desire to be a referee because I do not think I could handle it.

Some months ago I spoke to a referee whom I consider to be a friend of mine and asked him about the performance of one of his colleagues. He told me that they were a team and should be judged as such. I am afraid that, in my opinion, the refereeing team were an absolute disaster on Friday. I do not think they had an effect on the outcome of the game but had there been a different refereeing team or had these guys been ‘on their game’ the score might have been a bit closer, but the Eagles would still have been out of sight.

I have said it before but I’m afraid some referees do not realise just how good some of the BBL players are.

Some of the calls which were missed on Friday were appalling but they did not come anywhere close to the number of appalling calls that were made.

Great referees simply do not make that number of mistakes that number of times.

On which planet does the Newcastle Eagles, one of the toughest ‘in your face’ defensive teams in the country, commit only one foul in a quarter?

For me, the most telling call was the one which led to the second technical on Atiba. The Sharks were advancing the ball when Joe Chapman attempted the steal and clearly fouled the Sharks played knocking him out of bounds.

And so the final piece of the Perfect Storm was now in place.

Joe, one of my favourite players of the modern era, raised his hand to acknowledge the foul however three referees did not see a foul and called an out of bounds thereby forcing the Sharks to turn the ball over. Atiba had seen enough and decided to make his stand. He was given a T, his second, and was asked to leave the court. He initially refused, bringing the game to a stop as the officials put their jackets on. Eventually he was persuaded to leave and the game continued to its ignominious end.

Atiba Lyons was wrong to refuse to leave the game and I am sure he will be dealt with by the authorities; however this whole game needs to be investigated. There were three teams out there. The Eagles had a great night, the Sharks had a horrible night and the referees were a disaster.

As the men in grey took off their jackets to resume the game it was so sad to see fans walking out in disgust. Unless something is done urgently about our game not only fans but owners, advertisers and officials will also head for the door.

You may or may not know the ending of the Perfect Storm but unless something is done sooner rather than later, our wonderful game could be heading the same way.

Later
Mike S
Total characters 140…NOT!
06/02/12

Atiba Lyons photo updated
07/02/12

BJ Family Photo added
21/10/2020