The Illawarra Hawks tale should be fair warning to 'The Dolphins' or 'The Bears' about the consequences of losing your identity.
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Here we were last year, the paranoia setting in about the collapsed NBL club becoming a travelling road show across NSW, the ACT and Victoria, or worse, permanently relocated after years of ownership failure.
Now Illawarra is fast becoming the benchmark of Australian basketball, with a roster to salivate over and the greatest coach the country's ever seen.
Winning titles is one thing, but it's the significant strides to make the Hawks (not 'The Hawks') a stable, viable and respectable operation which is the most important part.
Fans deserve to know the team they support is going to be around the following season, so the announcement of a three-year-deal to play at the WIN Entertainment Centre is as significant as signing Duop Reath.
It's even more momentous given there's still no clear plan for a major upgrade of a stadium, which has a leaking roof, outgrown weeds and collapsed hoops in its list of recent achievements.
When president and co-owner Dorry Kordahi spoke to this column on his first trip to Wollongong, to inspect the charred remains of a club in liquidation, he asked for time.
Time to prove these owners could rebuild and earn the community's trust, which was lost when the NBL dictated the Illawarra name was taken away.
Kordahi has backed up words with actions, the cash injection is handy too, which has been sorely lacking in those previously in charge.
However, the respect was also earned by reinstating the Illawarra name.
Had the NBL and the owners pursued the plan to take Hawks games elsewhere, all removing the name would have done was alienate the existing fanbase.
Fans elsewhere will still attend one-off or occasional games for the love of the sport, at least until the Canberra Cannons, Western Sydney Razorbacks or Wagga Heat are in the NBL.
The Dolphins want to attract a bigger support base from Queensland Cup rivals and in the growth areas of Brisbane and beyond.
But there's already a 'with them or against them' sentiment towards the Broncos which they can capitalise on, while retaining Redcliffe, or broadening it to Moreton Bay or North Brisbane.
The Bears are simply trying to maintain relevance as NRL entity in an over-saturated Sydney market.
The need to capture certain catchment areas and other buzzwords has only ended in tears elsewhere, such as the failed Southern Expansion A-League bid.
After all, sport is all about tribalism.
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