Basketball's new boom at risk from lack of court space

Australia is enjoying a new golden age of basketball, as participation, profile and success boom across all levels of the game.

Player numbers are through the roof, local and global and superstars abound and the jerseys of the US National Basketball Association (NBA) are everywhere.

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But Australia's - and NSW's - second roundball boom is being held back by a lack of courts where young people can play.

The first boom was in the early 1990s and can be traced almost to one man - Michael Jordan, the NBA's greatest-ever player whose extraordinary athleticism allowed him to redefine the game as one played above the rim. He caught the world's eyes and across Australia basketball, as well as its culture - fancy sneakers, hip-hop music, streetwear - exploded. Teenagers would stay up late on Friday nights to catch games on the ABC, and in later years stay up all hours when playoff series were broadcast.

Today, those involved in the game can see it happening again (disclosure: the author is a junior basketball coach and representative team parent). With the exception of those months destroyed by the Covid wrecking ball - we are on the crest of the next boom.

Again it's started from the top, where the NBA has an embarrassment of superstars all at once - several of the greatest - and most entertaining - players of all time. Australian kids want to shoot threes like Stephen Curry, soar like Ja Morant, score like Kevin Durant or mean-mug like Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Australians' success in the NBA is at an all-time high, with Josh Giddey, Patty Mills, Joe Ingles, Matysse Thybull, Josh Green, Jock Landale, Dyson Daniels and Ben Simmons forming a squadron at the highest level.

The FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup was held in Sydney last year, with all-time great Lauren Jackson enjoying a brief comeback. Australia's most accomplished basketball player, she won three Most Valuable Player awards in the American WNBA before injury stopped her in 2016. More Aussie women have featured in the WNBA recently including Anneli Maley, Stephanie Talbot, Kristy Wallace and Alanna Smith.

The men's team won bronze ("rose gold", says Ingles) at the Tokyo Olympics.

There's more elite level talent coming up too, with dozens of Australians playing for US college teams - including Sutherland product Tyrese Proctor (Duke), Tyler Robertson (Portland) and Lachlan Bofinger (Texas-San Antonio) in the men's, and in the women's ranks Jaz Shelley (Nebraska), Issy Morgan (Davidson) and Abbey Ellis (Purdue) among many others.

At home, the National Basketball League is performing at its highest level yet, known for its quality of play and rated by many as the next-best league in the world.

Its Next Stars program which drew LaMelo Ball to the Illawarra Hawks has shone attention on the NBL, which just farewelled Illawarra product and Sydney Kings championship player Xavier Cooks who was recruited to the NBA's Washington Wizards on a four-year deal.

All this translates into domestic play, and Basketball NSW CEO Maria Nordstrom said she had seen a 34 per cent increase in members to about 85,000.

"It's actually a bigger boom time than in the 90s for a variety of reasons - we have a significant upswing in participation across the whole country," she told Weekender.

"In NSW we've the biggest membership base that we've ever had - in 2022 we grew in participant members by 34 per cent.

"It's the biggest it's ever been in New South Wales."

Yes, it's a beautiful time for basketball.

But there is a chronic shortage of basketball courts in NSW, and as sporting infrastructure building has not kept up with the population it risks cruelling the talent which is springing up through the junior ranks.

Woonona mum Jaclyn Richardson has coached local youth teams and had to hire court space at a nearby primary school because they couldn't find courts to train, and their local school did not have one.

"There's indoor options that are hard to get into ... I think it would be great just to have more courts available around, just as part of your local park," she said.

Oscar Forman, a 511-game former NBL star who is now the executive general manager at the Illawarra Basketball Association, said the player boom followed years where sport was wrecked by La Nina and COVID-19 - and now demand outstrips the competitions IBA can offer.

"We've got a waiting list of 200 players just in our junior comps, and when I spoke to another association they're at 1500 players, and when I spoke to another association they turned away 60 teams plus 200 individuals," he said.

"It's not a situation we're dealing with alone - it's the case across NSW and when I speak to associations around Australia. If we doubled our capacity tomorrow, I think within a month we could probably fill it."

Nordstrom - herself a former national team and US college scholarship player - can put a number on it: regional NSW has a shortfall of 79 courts, while Sydney is 136 courts behind demand.

These aren't numbers from the air - BNSW uses computer mapping and participation data, along with population figures, to show where more courts are needed.

"We work extensively with data, of course, so we can make evidence based decision making in talking to all level for governments, the councils, the government, the federal government and specifically for facilities we use platform, active exchange sports," Nordstrom said.

Nordstrom estimates 80 per cent of her workload is facility development and pushing for more courts to be built.

Given the fact courts, and stadiums, take years to plan and build, it's perhaps the biggest barrier to NSW hopes of one day challenging Victoria as Australian basketball's epicentre. Victoria built 54 courts in 2021 alone, with another 37 ongoing into 2022, with the state government spending $132 million on a new state basketball centre in Melbourne's east.

Forman's Illawarra hoop dreams are still years away from realisation - Wollongong City Council isn't planning new courts in the immediate term, while the new Labor Government didn't include promises for stadium funding in its platform.

Newcastle, a larger city but without an NBL team, has secured $30 million for a new stadium, while new stadiums will be built at Cooma and Tumut, and new PCYC facilities to be built in Dubbo and Ryde.

"There are several projects in the pipeline that would actually lower that number," Nordstrom said. "But we need to maintain a level of, investment in the pipeline and development of the facilities because of the population growth we're experiencing.

"So that [shortfall] of indoor courts will increase significantly by 2032 if nothing is done."