Nattie

The top National Basketball League (NBL) coaches have lauded the new format of the competition.

For the 2009 season, the competition has been divided into four conferences: Northern, Western, Eastern and Southern. The Southern Conference consists of 12 teams, while the other conferences have five each. The top five teams from the Southern Conference and the winners of Northern, Western and Eastern conferences will enter into the play-off to compete for the national title.

Douglas Reid, coach of the Western Conference champions Hoopers, believes the change was long in coming.

"It is an excellent change which is long overdue. The Jamaica Basketball Association (JBA) was basically running the Southern Conference, which was Kingston and St Andrew, while the rest of the league were running their own thing. Now the JBA is running a national basketball league and it stands to reason that having all the conferences under the umbrella of one league makes sense," Reid said.

more referees

Reid, however, believes that it is necessary to get more referees as well as to have more persons getting involved in coaching.

"We could use more referees. I have no problem with their technical knowledge but I sometimes think that the same referees are being used over and over again and they might have a player or two that they might over the years develop a not-too-great relation with," Reid said. "We also need to get more people involved in coaching. You can see from this league that the teams that have someone dedicated to coaching invariably rise to the top."

Marland Nattie, coach of Southern Conference finalists Majesty Gardens, has also given the new format a big thumbs up.

"I would hope that what is necessary is done regarding administration and training so that rural teams endeavour to upgrade themselves. Another possible approach is to see how best we can have some cross conference matches during the regular season to give them that level of competitiveness.

"Even now, some of the top teams in the league are woefully lacking in terms of administration and this is impacting greatly on the competition in terms of what these teams come out and exhibit on game day," Nattie concluded.

Edward 'Ted' Marshall, coach of Tivoli Wizards, the other team in the Southern Conference finals, believes it was a good move to have four conferences, as the conferences are allowed to get more involved.

"To be honest, I think it is a good thing because usually there is only one team from the other conferences that would come to the NBL, and that does not make any sense as we need to get everybody involved, and this is the best way to move forward," Marshall said.

He, however, believes the facilities need to be improved.

"We need to get the courts covered or to have indoor facilities so that basketball won't stop playing because of the weather," Marshall added.