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Team GB in the FIBA world rankings stand at 56th that is below teams like the Central African Republic, Kuwait and Cape Verde.
Editorial
With the NBA regular season game tonight between the New Jersey Nets and the Toronto Raptors, its a good time to look at why British basketball has remained in the third tier of world basketball, similar to the exploits of British tennis, a story of poor coaching and unsuccessful club development. At school and in parks basketball is one of the top participation sports, with many London parks now having basketball courts and official game size hoops. The ethnic mix of London should logically have seen many players move from park basketball, to county then national and international progression. Basketball is like other sports in England, we do not have the coaches with the right level of experience and time to train and keep children interested in the sport at key stages, thirteen years and up. Soccer is too strong a temptation to pull school children away and we simply do not have the depth to compete with Spain, Greece and Turkey in world basketball.
The positive signs are that basketball is growing in popularity, despite the fact that the investment in the early nineties to develop club basketball with Kingston notably playing a key role with Manchester in European ties, is now largely in the past. New players from the UK like Kieron Achara who play in Spain, a key player in the crucial Olympic qualifiers this month against giants Lithuania, said "I have all the confidence in our squad going there and showing the rest of Europe just how good GB can be."
We also have an NBA player Luol Deng who plays for the Chicago Bulls, and you would have thought this talent on the GB side, qualification for team GB would be easier. The fact is even with our all round stars like Deng and Achara teams like Greece (4th in the world) and Spain (1st in the world) have depth, and knowledge of basketball that has been developed over generations. Team GB in the FIBA world rankings stand at 56th that is below teams like the Central African Republic, Kuwait and Cape Verde.
The NBA game tonight should be seen by as many people as possible in London so that the magic and athleticism of basketball can be seen and enjoyed. British basketball will remain an afterthought for several generations, unless we have better coaching structures in place, and a domestic league of home grown players, not washed up American rookies and Euro drop outs.
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